SECOND  BOSTON  OBJECT  LESSON  75

Why  should  the  Boylston  Building  and  the  old
Masonic  Temple  and  the  old  Public  Library  have  come
down  in  their  youth  and  beauty  while  these  Washington ­
  Street  buildings  are  allowed  to  remain  standing
in  their  decrepitude?  There  must,  we  say,  be  some
sufficient  reason.  If  the  reason  here  suggested  is  not
the  real  one,  we  ask  the?  reader  what  it  is.
Question.  How,  then,  are  we  to  know  just  when  old
buildings  should  give  place  to  new  ones?
Answer.  When  the  single  tax  shoe  begins  to  pinch,
that  is,  when,  under  the  single  tax,  the  old  buildings
cease  to  be  profitable:  in  other  words,  when,  upon
land  with  buildings  unsuited  to  the  situation,  a  tax
seems  heavy  which,  upon  the  same  land  with  proper
buildings,  would  seem  light.
The  Honourable  Henry  Winn,  a  well-known  advocate
of  the  multiple  tax,  says:  “Why  does  a  man  owe  a
tax?  First,  because  society  protects  his  person;
second,  it  supplies  and  keeps  in  order  streets  for  his
Passage;  third,  it  lights  his  way  by  night;  fourth,  it
furnishes  parks  and  libraries;  fifth,  it  schools  him
a ud  his  children;  sixth,  it  protects  his  property;
seventh,  it  keeps  courts  open  to  redress  his  grievances;
eighth,  it  provides  a  government  to  make  and  enforce
iaws;  ninth,  it  supports  him  if  he  falls  into  poverty;
and  tenth,  chiefly  because  he  has  been  placed  here  by
God  to  serve  and  improve,  not  himself  alone,  but
urankind  in  general,  and  as  that  can  only  be  done  by
uaaintaining  government,  order,  and  civilisation,  he
owes  his  tax  as  he  owes  his  life,  to  support  that
government.”
“Amen,”  says  the  single  taxer;  and  these  are
exactly  the  things  for  which  every  man  is  paying  when