Copy of a letter from a Melbourne gentleman in reply to an income tax final demand.
Dear Sirs,
Your super-heated letter arrived this morning in an envelope with a penny stamp on it, and it would have given the boy and myself much pleasure had it not revived in us a melancholy reflection of what has gone before. You say you thought the account could have been settled long ago, and couldn't understand why it hadn't, well, here is the reason:
In 1954 I bought a sawmill on credit. In 1955 I bought a team of horses, a timber wagon, two ponies a double barrelled shotgun and two razor backed pigs, all on credit. In 1956 the bloody mill was burned to the ground leaving not a damn thing. One of the ponies died, and I loaned the other to a stupid bastard who starved the poor bugger to death. Then I joined the church.
In 1957 my father died, and my brother was hanged for raping a pensioner. A tramp seduced my daughter, and I had to pay the bastard £50 to stop him becoming one of the family.
In 1958 my boy got mumps which spread to his balls, and the poor lad had to be castrated to save his life. Later I went fishing and the rotten boat overturned drowning two of my lads, neither being the one which was castrated.
In 1959 my wife ran away with a sheep rearer and left me with twins as a souvenir. Then I had to have a house keeper, so I married to keep expenses down, but I had a hell of a job to make her pregnant. I went to the doctor's who in turn advised me that I should create some excitement at the crucial moment. That night I took my shotgun to bed with me, and at the time I thought was right I leaned out of the bed and fired the gun through the window. The wife shit the bed, I ruptured myself, and the next morning I found I had shot my best cow.
In 1960 someone cut the nuts off my prize bull. I was buggered and took to drink. I did not stop until I had nothing left but a pocket watch and a weak bladder. Winding the watch and running for a piss, kept me busy for a time. After a year I took heart again and bought on credit a manure spreader, a reaper, a binder and a car. Then the floods came and washed the bloody lot away. My wife got V.D. from a tavelling salesman, my boy died through wiping his arse on a rabbit skin that was infected. To cap it all, some bastard mated my cow with a broken down old bull.
It surprised me very much when you say you will cause trouble if I don't pay up. If you can think of anything I have missed, I should like to know about it.
Trying to get money out of me, is like trying to poke butter up a porcupine's arse with a red hot needle. I am praying for a shower of skunk shit to pass your way and I hope the very centre of it is over much of the bastards in your office who sent me this final demand.
Yours for more credit,
Isa Upyours