Clemens was preparing a list of his property for the Hartford tax assessors (see 5 Oct 1876 to Perkins). Residents’ lists, itemizing all their assets—real estate, bonds, money loaned at interest, livestock, furniture, and other personal possessions—were due by 1 November, and taxes were to be paid by the following 15 July. (For Clemens’s most recent tax payment, see 29? June 1876 to the First National Bank of Hartford or George P. Bissell and Co.). The list of taxable assets that Clemens prepared for 1876 has not been found, but according to the city’s official list, they totaled $66,650. His comment here about being “robbed under cover of the law” probably referred to a law enacted in August 1872, which required Connecticut residents to pay taxes on all bonds issued by corporations or railroad companies that were “out of the state of Connecticut.” Clemens owned “Railroad, City, and other Corporation Bonds” worth $8,000, some of which were presumably issued by out-of-state companies (Public Acts 1872, 107; “List of Taxable Property belonging to the Inhabitants of the City of Hartford, on the first day of October, A.D. 1876,” Ct; Joseph H. Twichell, “Taxable List” for 1876, CtHPL; Samuel L. Clemens, “Taxable List” for 1877, CtHPL; Hartford Courant: “Brief Mention,” 1 Nov 1876, 2; “Hartford’s Heavy Tax-Payers,” 12 Mar 1877, 2).