GREAT THEFTS OF TAXES.
Occasionally, however, some fragments of facts were brought out by a legislative investigating committee. Thus, in 1890, a State Senate Committee, in probing into the affairs of the tax department, touched upon disclosures which dimly revealed the magnitude of these annual thefts, but which in nowise astonished any well-informed person, because every one knew that these frauds existed. Questioned closely by William M. Ivins, counsel for the committee, Michael Coleman, president of the Board of Assessments and Taxes, admitted that vast stretches of real estate owned by the Astors were assessed at half or less than half of their real value.1 Then followed this exchange, in which the particular "Mr. Astor" referred to was not made clear:
Q.: You have just said that Mr. Astor never sold?
A.: Once in a while he sells, yes.
Q.: But the rule is that he does not sell?
A.: Well, hardly ever; he has sold, of course.
Q.: Isn't it almost a saying in this community that the Astors buy and never sell?
A.: They are not looked upon as people who dispose of real estate after they once get possession of it.
Q.: Have you the power to exact from them a statement of their rent rolls?
A.: No.