next year to see me
throttin' around with a leather collar an' a brass tag on me neck. If me
tax isn't paid th' bachelor wagon'll come over an' th' bachelor
catcher'll lassoo me an' take me to th' pound an' I'll be kept there
three days an' thin, if still unclaimed, I'll be dhrowned onless th'
pound keeper takes a fancy to me. Ye'll niver see it, me boy. No, Sir.
Us bachelors ar-re a sthrong body iv men polytickally, as well as
handsome and brave. If ye thry to tax us we'll fight ye to th' end. If
worst comes to worst we won't pay th' tax. Don't ye think f'r a minyit
that light-footed heroes that have been eludin' onprincipled females all
their lives won't be able to dodge a little thing like a five-dollar
tax. There's no clumsy collector in th' wurruld that cud catch up with a
man iv me age who has avoided the machinations iv th' fair f'r forty
years an' remains unmarrid.

"An' why shud we be taxed? We're th' mainstay iv th' Constitution an'
about all that remains iv liberty. If ye think th' highest jooty iv
citizenship is to raise a fam'ly why don't ye give a vote to th' shad?
Who puts out ye'er fire f'r ye, who supports th' Naytional Governmint be
payin' most iv th' intarnal rivnoo jooties, who maintains th' schools ye
sind ye'er ignorant little childher to, be payin' th' saloon licenses,
who does th' fightin' f'r ye in th' wars but th' bachelors? Th' marrid
men start all th' wars with loose talk whin they're on a spree. But whin
war is declared they begin to think what a tur-rble thing 'twud be if
they niver come home to their fireside an' their wife got marrid again
an' all their grandchildher an' their great-grandchildher an' their
widow an' th' man that marrid her an' his divoorced wife an' their
rilitives, descindants, friends, an' acquaintances wud have to live on
afther father was dead and gone with a large piece iv broken iron in his
stomach or back, as th' case might be, but a pension come fr'm th'
Governmint. So, th' day war is declared ye come over here an' stick a
sthrange-lookin' weepin in me hand an' I close down me shop an' go out
somewhere I niver was befure an' maybe lose me leg defindin' th' hearths
iv me counthry, me that niver had a hearth iv me own to warm me toes by
but th' oil stove in me bedroom. An' that's th' kind iv men ye'd be
wantin' to tax like a pushcart or a cow. Onscrupulous villain!

"Whin ye tax th' bachelors ye tax valor. Whin ye tax th' bachelors ye
tax beauty. Ye've got to admit