THE INCOME TAX MINUTE. Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal ha3 been Eeport for 1869-70, pleased, and other public of 23rd in the August, .Englishman published His Honor in
a
the
Minute upon an Income-tax
prints, to pen, what we cannot avoid characterising as, a charge against the integrity, of the medical practitioners of this city and province. The Lieutenant-Governor remarks that, on incomes of professional men in Calcutta above Es. 10,000 per annum, there are returns from 58 ministers of religion, 17 legal practitioners and no medical practitioners. He adds:?" This would make it appear that religion is much more lucrative than law. Even the greater rigidity of conscience in making returns, which may be assumed in the former case, does not sufficiently account for the difference. Medicine as a lucrative profession is nowhere. Not a single medical man in Calcutta or anywhere else, seems to make as much as Es. 10,000 per annum. I should like to know whether the Board can throw any light on these singular results." Now, we know that several of our own personal friends? medical practitioners of Calcutta?not only returned their incomes from private practice at a figure above Es. 10,000, but actually paid the tax on this amount and obtained receipts for the sum so paid; and this quite apart from official salary which in most cases exceeds Es. 10,000 a year, and special allowances for extra charges which are taxed before payment, but are strictly private practice. Whoever may be responsible figures on which the Lieutenant-Governor's Minute is founded, we cannot but resent the slur which the remark quoted above casts on a body of men whose character for common honesty is thereby impugned, and it should, we think, hardly have been publicly promulgated without scruple or thought. The Friend of India observes that the passage we have quoted, unmistakeable satire;" it may be so, but students of i3 human nature declare that nobody ever forgives a joke publicly made at his expense; and we believe sooner or later every body is made to repent of having satirized a body of men who are above suspicion in the ordinary affairs of life. Another of our contemporaries, The Indian Observer," remarks,?"at present the case looks ugly enough. "We should be sorry to think that long sojourn in this country has a tendency to weaken the moral sense, as well as to impair the constitution; but it certainly for the
"
"
looks like it."
These and such like remarks are the natural con-
sequences to which we are a
Minute which,
we
exposed by Mr. Campbell's Minute again assert, is not founded on fact; for
192
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
medical men in Calcutta did return, their incomes as being over Rs. 10,000, and they hold receipts from the Collector of the
Income-tax, showing they paid their tax accordingly. The world knows that private practice in Calcutta yields more than Rs. 10,000 a year, and we cannot concur in thinking that a transparent mistake in some Office or Secretariat, should be made the cause and occasion of a derisive and damaging remark of this kind. We hope that our leading confreres in Calcutta will not allow this imputation, whether issued in jest or in earnest, to remain on record unrefuted and unrepealed. Merry writing in high places is unusual and tickles the public fancy for a time; but we object to merry writing when it covers an implication regarding the integrity of a body of professional gentlemen, and by contrast conveys a half earnest jeer as to the elasticity of their sense of moral obligation.
[September
1, 1871.
a
the
Minute upon an Income-tax
prints, to pen, what we cannot avoid characterising as, a charge against the integrity, of the medical practitioners of this city and province. The Lieutenant-Governor remarks that, on incomes of professional men in Calcutta above Es. 10,000 per annum, there are returns from 58 ministers of religion, 17 legal practitioners and no medical practitioners. He adds:?" This would make it appear that religion is much more lucrative than law. Even the greater rigidity of conscience in making returns, which may be assumed in the former case, does not sufficiently account for the difference. Medicine as a lucrative profession is nowhere. Not a single medical man in Calcutta or anywhere else, seems to make as much as Es. 10,000 per annum. I should like to know whether the Board can throw any light on these singular results." Now, we know that several of our own personal friends? medical practitioners of Calcutta?not only returned their incomes from private practice at a figure above Es. 10,000, but actually paid the tax on this amount and obtained receipts for the sum so paid; and this quite apart from official salary which in most cases exceeds Es. 10,000 a year, and special allowances for extra charges which are taxed before payment, but are strictly private practice. Whoever may be responsible figures on which the Lieutenant-Governor's Minute is founded, we cannot but resent the slur which the remark quoted above casts on a body of men whose character for common honesty is thereby impugned, and it should, we think, hardly have been publicly promulgated without scruple or thought. The Friend of India observes that the passage we have quoted, unmistakeable satire;" it may be so, but students of i3 human nature declare that nobody ever forgives a joke publicly made at his expense; and we believe sooner or later every body is made to repent of having satirized a body of men who are above suspicion in the ordinary affairs of life. Another of our contemporaries, The Indian Observer," remarks,?"at present the case looks ugly enough. "We should be sorry to think that long sojourn in this country has a tendency to weaken the moral sense, as well as to impair the constitution; but it certainly for the
"
"
looks like it."
These and such like remarks are the natural con-
sequences to which we are a
Minute which,
we
exposed by Mr. Campbell's Minute again assert, is not founded on fact; for
192
THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.
medical men in Calcutta did return, their incomes as being over Rs. 10,000, and they hold receipts from the Collector of the
Income-tax, showing they paid their tax accordingly. The world knows that private practice in Calcutta yields more than Rs. 10,000 a year, and we cannot concur in thinking that a transparent mistake in some Office or Secretariat, should be made the cause and occasion of a derisive and damaging remark of this kind. We hope that our leading confreres in Calcutta will not allow this imputation, whether issued in jest or in earnest, to remain on record unrefuted and unrepealed. Merry writing in high places is unusual and tickles the public fancy for a time; but we object to merry writing when it covers an implication regarding the integrity of a body of professional gentlemen, and by contrast conveys a half earnest jeer as to the elasticity of their sense of moral obligation.
[September
1, 1871.
