ABSTRACT
THE term poll tax, in the strictest sense, implies a fixed charge on the population of a country at so much per head, such as the capitatio humana of the Roman system; but in former times the term was used, in England, to include also a form of tax occasionally used, which was, strictly speaking, a poll only within the limits of each particular subdivision of the tax; the plan being to divide the taxpayers into classes, and charge the individuals comprised in the particular class, per capita, so much a head.
