CHAPTER 460.
OF TELEGRAPH COMPANIES.
AN ACT taxing Telegraph Companies doing business in this State.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met:
SECTION I. That every individual, firm or corporation owning, maintaining, or operating any line or lines of telegraph or telephone within this State, shall be subject to taxation for the use of the State, in manner following, viz: Each individual, firm or corporation shall annually, on the first day of July, commencing with the first day of July, A. D. 1889, pay to the State Treasurer for the use of the State, a tax of sixty (6o) cents per mile, for the longest wire within the State; a tax of thirty (30) cents per mile for the next longest wire, and twenty (20) cents per mile for each and every other wire, owned, maintained and operated within the State, by each such individual, firm or corporation; and it shall be, and is hereby made the duty of every such individual, firm, or corporation, annually on the first day of June, commencing with the first day of June A. D. 1889, to make and deliver to the State Treasurer a statement in writing, verified by the oath of such individual or one of the members of such firm, or by the president, general manager or treasurer of such corporation, showing the whole number of miles of wire owned, maintained, or operated within this State by any such individual, firm or corporation, and also designating the length and location of the longest, and next longest wires of each, and in case of the refusal or omission of any individual, firm or corporation, to make and deliver such statement, the State Treasurer shall be and he is hereby authorized, empowered and directed to make an assessment of the tax hereby imposed, upon the best information he may be able to obtain, and adding to the sum of the tax so assessed a penalty of twenty-five per cent and demand payment of the whole from the individual, firm or corporation so in default. Provided that the estimate so to be made by the State Treasurer in such case shall be final and conclusive on the party so in default.
SECTION 2. In case of the omission or refusal of any party hereby liable under this act, to pay the tax by this act imposed, within thirty days after it is due, the State Treasurer shall be, and he is hereby authorized, empowered and directed to distrain upon any personal property of the party so in default, and having given notice in writing of such seizure and distress, to sell the said property so seized and distrained on ten days notice, by advertisements posted in five public places of the county wherein such property shall have been seized.
Passed at Dover, April 18, 1889.