there has been a conspicuous increase of employment in those lines where improvements in machinery have been greatest. The number of persons engaged in manufacturing and transportation to-day bears a far larger proportion to those engaged in agriculture than was the case two or three generations ago. The urban population makes more use of machinery than the rural population; and it is a conspicuous fact that our cities have grown faster than the country as a whole. Whatever else machinery may have done, it certainly has not kept labor out of mechanical industries.

"Nowhere have modern methods been more strikingly exemplified then in transportation industries. By the use of the railroad, a single man is enabled to do work which formerly would have been hardly within the capacity of a thousand men. On this very account the introduction of railroads was regarded with distrust by large classes of the community. It was thought that teamsters, hostlers, and innkeepers would be thrown out of employment, and that there would be no work left for them to do. But it has turned out that the development of the railroad has given additional work to the very classes which it was expected to antagonize. While the efficiency of human labor in transportation has increased a thousand fold, the volume of goods and passengers transported has increased much more than this. The services of collection and delivery of freight at stations now employ as many men and horses as were engaged in the whole movement of freight a century ago. The entertainment of modern travelers affords occupation to a larger number of innkeepers than were supported by the few passengers who ventured to take long journeys in ancient times. The cheapening of transportation attendant upon the use of improved appliances, has called forth a development of travel and of freight shipment more than proportionate to the increased efficiency of service. The aggregate demand for labor in these lines has become greater instead of less.

"Nor is this experience with railroad travel an isolated or accidental one. It is characteristic of the effects of modern mechanical processes, wherever they have been applied on a large scale. The work of machinery is generally of such a kind that it can be made profitable only by extensive public use. If a community can buy but ten pairs of shoes in a year, it will be more economical to have shoes made by hand, no matter what machinery may be invented. In order to obtain the advantage of the best modern processes of manufacture we must make a hundred thousand pairs a year. The economy of the introduction of a machine consists, not in making the old product at less expense and with less labor, but in making a much larger product with the same labor. What is called labor saving machinery is in fact not labor saving, but product making. It can only become profitable by meeting the wants of the community as a whole, and not those of a few rich men."

PART I.

TAXATION.

1. PER CENT, OF ASSESSMENT BY TOWNS.

2. ASSESSORS REPLIES.

3. ASSESSORS SUGGESTIONS.

REVIEW.

This chapter of the report is devoted to the subject of the assessment of real and personal property in the State, for purposes of taxation.

In order to secure the desired information, the Bureau, through means of schedules mailed to the Boards of Assessors of the 168 towns in the State, and by personal visits, made by special agents to many of the towns from which information was lacking, is enabled to furnish from all the towns a full and complete statement as to the methods in use for the purpose of the assessment of property liable to taxation. The list of questions comprise the following, the answers to which will be found in the tables following this chapter.

1. At what per cent. of its fair market value is real property in your town assessed?

2. Does the Board of Assessors of your town make personal examination of all real property annually?

If annual examinations are not made, how often?

4. What means are used by your Board to ascertain if real property should be listed higher or lower than the last previous valuation?

5. Has an appraisal of real property in your town been made by any

committee other than the Board of Assessors?

If so, when?

6. If such an appraisal has been made, state comparison with

Assessors' valuation.

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