The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-12-05 00:00:00

THE TOBACeO TAX IN FRANCE.

The Paris Correspondent of The Times says:—
Of all the indirect taxes which contribute to the
Public Treasury in France, there is none which has
given such a constant and rapid revenue as the tax
on tobacco. Introduced into the Budget under the
Administration of Cardinal Richelieu in 1621, it
was fixed at If. 50e, the pound. Then, in 1632,
the tax was raised to 7t., in 1664 to 10f. for Brazi-
lian tobacco and that of other foreign countries, and
41, for t 'ham) from the American colonies. In 1674
Louis XIV. appropriated its fabrioation and sale.
After numerous vicissitudes, the privilege of its sale
was abolished in 1791 by the National Assembly,
and the right of traffic was granted at the rate of
251. per 100 pounds. In 1810, becoming aware of the
important resources which the monopoly of this plant
would procure, the State appropriated the fabrication
to a Rigic, and this new organization, inaugurated On
July I, 1811, has existed until the present time. The
tobacco sold by the French Bettie is principally derived
from America. According to the calculation of a dis-
tinguished statillician—M. Bloek—the total production
of America, Cuba, and Porto Rico can b 3 estimated
at 145 million kilogrammes, 93 millions of which
are consumed in Europe. France consumes about
12 million kilogrammes. The tobacco is bought by
LIFE AND DIGNITY OF THE ENGLISH the Administration either directly from the planters
or indirectly by the agency of Consuls. According
LANGUAGE. to official statistics, these purchases amount annually
The English-speaking race for two hundred years to a sum of 33,350,000 f., representing 31,700,000
have, as a trays, appreciated the vitality and victory of L kilogrammes of tobacco. French tobacco figures in
The Times hes published the following letter on the In- their language, the battles it has fought and won. 1 this total to the amount of 14,200,000 kilogramcues.
, portant subject of the higher education of girls : The Normans under William the Conqueror and his I and is (mulched principally by the eight following
Sir,—The Times has PO generously opened its columns successors overpowered the English Saxons, broke Departments : Lot, Nord, Lot et-Garonne, Para-
Ito former appeals of mine on behalf of the better edit- down their nobility, and endeavoured wised their cons. de-Calais, Ile-et-Vilaine, Gironde, Dordogne, and
cation of women that I venture to hope you will not mon people. They confiscated Saxon estates, demolished Meurthe. These eight Departments produce 13,836,000
refuse a little space to the Idea I now advance for a Saxon institutions, and laboured to Latinize the Saxon kilogramntes Algeria supplies '2,300,000 kilogrammes,
fairer consideration of the claims of the secondary edu- race in England. With the oppressors there was and the met is furnished by other scattered din-
] cation of girls in the distribution of educational en- power, but not power enough to put down the old, tricts of France. Before the war, the tobacco
' dowments. I need not recapitulate the facts showing simple- honest Saxon language. It held its own harvest was important. The loss of Alsace and
the excessive inequality in the distribution of such en- against Norman courts, customs, learning, and scholars. Lorraine has reducvd the production to 7,050,000
dowments between the sexes, which ought now to be Its pulse was feeble at Oxford and Cambridge, and ini kilogrammes —that is, by more than one-third. The
familiar with the public, and of which Christ's all the cathedral cities of the, realm, but quick and Administration of Tobacco possessed in 1869 31 depots
Hospital may be taken as a typical instance, the en- warm and sleepless in the village and rural communi. of French produce and four of foreign produce, 18
dowment having, been expressly intended by the founder ties of the land. It was the speech of their inns*. ' manufactories, 357 warehouses, and 40,599 tobacco
for the benefit of girls and boys, while its advantages home and heart life. It was the speech of their shops. The amount sold by the &Pie to those shop-
are at 'present extended to 17 girls, against 1,150 boys hopes, prayers, faith, memory, and affection. it holders, and, consequently, to consumers, is valued
in the hospital, without counting those in the juvenile held its own and more against every burden and at 280, 014,557 L representing 31.983,173 kilogrammes
school at Hertford. The fact I wish to draw attention to barrier. It worked its way upward front rank to 'of tobacco. According to official statistics there
is that those 17 girls are receiving only elementary and rank of the ruling classes. It worked its way •is an annual consumption in France of 50,114,827
industrial instruction, while the boys are getting afirst- in face of faggot and fire into the Bible, and the whole francs worth of cigars, 7,767,107 francs of which
class grammar school education, fitting them to enter realm and outside empires shook with emotion when is for Havannah cigars' 4,9443 f. for Manillas,
the mercantile or liberal professions, and aiding many all the holy words of Divine Revelation were trans- and 42,298,276 for French cigars, cigarettes repre-
to pass on to the Universities. Nor is this a solitary listed into it. Still, with all its powers and progress, seuting therein the sum of 376,987 f. The De-
instance, for it will be found in the tablets of the Schools with all its unparalleled faculties for moving the mm d partments in which the largest amonut of tobacco
Inquiry Commission that of the#l77,oooannual income of the world with its life-breathing literature, there is 14 consumed are POO de- Calais, Nord, Bouches-du-
' from endowments applied to the edecation of boys, by perceptible and prevalent among the English and Rhone, and the Department of the Seine, which last
: far the larger proportion goes to provide secondary edu- American writers schools, scholars, and learning- alone consumes annually 41,200,000 francs-worth of
cation, while the whole of the somewhat less than 4:3,000 smatterers, a kind' of old Norman affection for Latin, tobacco. The immense extension taken by the con.
annual (Lucerne from endowments applied to the educe- just as if the language of Shakespeare, Milton, Ten- suffintion of tobacco may be gathered from the follow-
tiou of girls is devotedto elementary or industrial edu- nyson, and Macaulay, that is making the tour of the Mg figures :—ln 1815 the sale of this article produced
cation. The same feeling which has produced this state world, were still the Saxon patios of the rural districts 51 million francs .• in 1830, 67 millions •, in 1840, 95 mil-
I,f things in the past is, unfortunately, still active of England. This affectation seems to he reviving. lions; in 1850, 122 millions ;in 1860, 195 millions; and
among ne. It is still considered that the higher educa- We Flee in it the titles of new books. all in English it now represents in the French Budget a sum of 287
ton of girls has no claim, or a very inferior one, to aid between the lids. Go into any well-stocked book-shop, millions.
from endowmcnte. With a few honourable exceptions, and you will notice "Lyra Gerinanica," " Lyra
every scheme ef the Endowed Schools Commission Anglicans," " Ecee Boner,. and the like. The other
for establishing, schools for girla of time same grade day we saw a new magazine with a foot of Saxon
aa the grammar schools for boys has met with un- clay and head of Latin brass, or with the
rannpromising opposition, and there is no doubt that name "The Academia." We have recently stood
notch of the unpopularity under which the I ."M- by the side of fone altars on is lieu our noble
nassi,n has succumbed was due to this course. Now, English is sacrificed to the manes of a deal language.
I would ask, why should the girls of the middle cleans The immolation on two of these sacrilegiona shrines is
be placed at such anenormous educational disadvantage heathenish enough to make the dumb victim led to
as rompared with their brothers? There is no class the slaughter cry' out with indignation. The first of
of the continually for whom so little is done. The the twain is erected in that Christian temple, St.
Elementary Education Act provides for the girls of l'aul'a, to the memory of Saumuel Johnson. ale was
the lower classes equal advantasau with the boys. the great captaiii, if not the Columbus, of the English
lint the ratepayers so heavily taxed for the purpose language. He erected and crowned and introduced it
of this provision get no aid whatever in educating ti the world as this grandest of human /speeches ; and
their own daughters according to their clams in life, all who spoke and wrote it after his day crowned him
and are obliged to send thens to private schools, the with the hollow due for this mi4lity undertaking. He
greater number of which give an education greatly was proud, and had auntie reason to be proud, of the
inferior in thoroughnesa and V:1111e as mental training work, for it cost him inhnite toil. He had brought to
to the elementary schools, and this for three reasons— it intellectual esiergies that commanded the admire-
let, that the iniatresaes have not the necessary capital tin of the whole Esiglielespeaking world. He
for starting their schools in prsms:erly-adapted build- had compacted said beantifieel the structure with
ings and supporting a good teaching Staff; 2nd, that , all the treasures of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton,
the mistresses and teachers, who almost all come from and other old masters ,• and yet, after this long
the middle classes, had as,, advantages of education life's aspiration and work so fully accomplished, he,
themselves, and therefore, unless exceptionally gifted, : Cr his friends, knowing the bent of hia mind, made a
teach us they have themselves been taught—that is, heathen altar of his tomb, and sacrificed upon it the
extremely little, and that little ill; 3rd, that owing to great language he had elaborated and adorned to the
the absence of schools fill girls holding the position of shades of this dead Latin tongue ! Ills own, which he
our public and grammar schools there is no standard had made so noble, and held up to the world mu-
ter them to work up to. lilt be urged that the ill/. bellished with all its splendid jewellery, was not good
memo educational advantage... Oven to I mmye over their enough for hie epitaph ! The imsilhi one and the masses
sisters is justified by the fact that the bops will be the who can read no other, may come by twos and threes
bread-winners, we may point to the results of time Cen- to his monument in St. Paul's, by
leaking with
sus to show how p large a pro mrtion cf the girls are wonder at his huge, half-naked, gladiator-like statue,
found to become brimad-winners also. Their fathers and teeing the Latin inscription beneath, may well
cannot leave them incomes on which they can live take hint fer an old prize-fighter of pagan Rome, but
in idleness. Marriage, which is considered the Proper never for the author of the great English dictionary,
provision for girls, is beconsing more and more and a Christian besides. In this sacrifice to a dead
difficult in the face of increasing disproportion be- language, the friends of the illustriL out lexicographer, it
tweeu the sexes, and is more ilittieffit in the claps whet be said in their justification, only carried out
we are conaidering than in that below it, for a wife is his well known predilection, and, perffia
lathe wad king mass aLu domestic bstitute for servants, wi,ph . es„,. °jig
9,1 the gardener of relation of mine 1/111`e expressed ' e m ;weasel!
it, I must have a wham at home to wash my shirts;
whereas in the classes above him she is an expensive Mr. James Russell Lowell, the eminent American
I author, has been offered the post of United States Minster
luxury, And too many young men seem to prefer the , at St Petersburg. Int miss declined to acsept it.
luxury of bachelorhood. Of those girls who do marry,
In London there are 600 miles of water mains which
how many are left widows, or worse than widows, with !
• are constantly charged, and upon which hydrauta can at
a young family to support ? How many who do not • once tie nad,
marry have the orphan families of a brother or sister, The following were the average prices of British
or their own younger brothers and sisters, thrown upon cmn per imperial quarter, as received from the inspectors and
them for maintenance ? And the bread-winning is officers of Excise, for the week ending Nov. 20 .—Wheat,
made tenfold harder to them by their total want of barley, 414 101 oats, 075. Correspoedibg
the intellectual training which would fit them for any week last year i—Wheat, 61L ; barley, tit 51.: oats,
well-paid employment. We have seen how die- • 25a Bd.
astronaly this tells upon their efficiency in the pro- ' It is stated that early in the new year the Post-
f, Asko' to which mo m insist I,f the remirt and which master General intends to Issue, at an increased price,
post-cards of a iess flimsy character than those now Muse.
theirs almost by natural right - that of teaching; and
it Is not Isli fatal Is their success in other depart. In London, on Tuesday evening, Sir (fharles Wingfield
presided over a meeting convened by Lite aborigine. Protection
nomisty, at whith the coblio trade, slavery on time si old Oust,
ments of labour. It is the unanimous testimony of all
those who are endeavouring to open up employments
and time rob nesiau labour traffic were amongst the subjects
for women above the wage-earning classes that, dim- Of dibell.loll.
cult as it may be to find such employnient, it is still There were 2,392 births and LO`, deatha registered
nese difficult to find women sufficiently well educated TO In London last week, the former having exceeded by $9, and
undertake it when found. The former difficulty is de- the latter hy 203, the average numbers in the morn, spouding
creased every day, and a demand is rising up for week Si the list ten years. The :wawa death-rate from all
educated female labour, for matrons of charitable in. Muses, whit Is in the five hreNirolks weds, had inerended
stitutions, superintendents in infirmarits 1611.112QOpitilii, gto&dlly frotil 201. 28 per 1,010, further rose lasts, eek to 30
—a higher rate than has prevailed in London since December.
and for organised charitable work.
1879. Bus increase in the mortality was most marked in the
There jean /MOM]es demand for elementary school- deaths referred to Is s.. of the mayliatory organs, and In
roittriaata whom it would be most desirable to draw tam of adults aged 48 Years =4 Dotard:,

THE AMERICAN CENTENNIAL
EXHIBITION.
The American people have resolved to celebrate the
centenary of their independence by the erection of an
International Exhibition of arts, manufactures, and
products of the soil and mine, in Fairmont lark, Phi-
ladelphia (remarks The Hour). The exhibition will be
held under the auspices of the Government of the United
Stes, as set forth in a proclamation by the President,
signed, July 4, 1873, and will be opened on April 19,
1876, and cloned on October 19 of the same year. Our
cousins across the Atlantic enjoy a well-earned repu-
tation for delighting in "big things," and from the
drawings of the building now in course of erection it
seems as if the Philadelphia Exhibition is to be to all
other international exhibitions pretty much what the
Boston Jubilee was to a promenade concert. It com-
prises a main building, an art gallery, and a machinery,
agricultural and a horticultural hall, covering an ag-
gregate space of about forty acres. In his design for
the main building the architect has evidently been in
some degree inspired by a reminiscence of the World's
Fair of 1851. It is in the form tit a parallelogram 1,880
feet in length, and 464 feet in width. The foundations
consist of piers of masonry, and the skeletonof the super-
: structure is composed of wrought-iron columns, support-
. ing roof trusses of the same material. These coltunns
: are placed about twenty-four feet apart, the sides of the
[ building being tilled in to a height of 7 feet Irma the
I ground with wooden panelling, and above that height
with glass. The larger portion of this structure its one
: storey high, the height to the top of the supporting
II columns being 45 feet, and to the ridge of the roof 70
[ feet. At each corner sif the buildint, is a tower of 24
feet square and 75 feet high, surmounted by four orna-
mental pinnacles. In the centre of the longer sides
are projections 416 feet in length, and in the centre of
the shorter sides similar decorations of outline,
measuring 216 feet. in these are situate the main
entrauees, presenting facokitg rising to a height of
90 feet, and ornamented with corners and pinnacles
corresponding with those on the towers. In order to
add architecturally to the effect of the building, and
to break up the outline, the roof over the central part,
for 184 feet square, has been raised above the aurround-
ing portion to a total height of 96 'feet and four towers,
each 48 feet square, rising to the height of 120 feet,
have been introduced to the angles of the sections thus
elevated.
The general arrangement of the ground plan Flews
a central avenue nave, 1,832 feet in length and 120 in
width, being the longest avenue of that width ever in-
troduced into an exhibition building. On either side
of this nave is an avenue 100 feet wide. Be-
tween the nave and the side avenues are aisles
48 feet wide, and on the outer sides of the building
smaller aisles 24 feet in width. In order to break the
great length of the rouf line, three cross avenues or
transepts have been introduced A the same width and
in the same relative positions to each other as the
nave and avenues running lengthwise—namely, is
central transept, 416 feet in length by 120 feet in
vtilth, and one on either side 100 feet wide, with aisles
betwiten 48 feet wide. The intersection of these
avenues tied transepts in the central portion of the
building ivt tilts in it, division of the tsround floor into
nine open 'Twee free from supporting columns. Four
of thews spaces are 100 feet square, four 100 feet by
120 feet, and the central space, a pavilion, measures
120 foot enure, Tito interbections of tho 4 foot Attlee