The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

MR. JUSTICE WILLES UPON TRANSPOR-

TATION.
AT Warwick assizes, on Monday, two men named
Tombs and Parsons were convicted of burglary at
Birmingham ; and it appeared they had been old
offenders, and sentenced to four years' penal servi-
tude in 1855 at the Birmingham sessions, but the
officers of the prison were ignorant of the reason for
their being set at liberty before the expiration of
their period of punishment. In passing sentence
Mr. Justice Willes said :

This case has to me a very extraordinary complexion,
because in the year when an act of Parliament was passed
by which certain periods of penal servitude were substi-
tuted for certain periods of transportation, the ol.lject
was said to be to substitute imprisonment in this country
for transportation to a penal colony. The act was passed
in 1853, and a great deal of uncertainty has since pre.
veiled concerning its operation. Myself and many per-
sons interested in the administration of justice have
anxiously inquired what is the difference between penal
servitude and transportation? No one reading the acts
of Parliament can understand other than that persons
sentenced to penal servitude and transportation will be
treated precisely in the same way. There is no difference
specified in the act, except the shortening of time with
reference to the term of imprisonment in this country,
it being doubtless considered that this imprisonment
would be more likely to reform criminals than the more
serious punishment of being transported to colony where

SATURDAY,

not stand a siege. The other towns in the principality are
lioudry, Travers, Motiers, Valangin, Le Lode, and Le
Chaux-de.Fonds. The soil of Neufchatel is generally rich
and well cultivated, and the inhabitants who dwell in it are
laborious and peaceable.

Court anb

Her Majesty and the Royal Family have spent the
week at Windsor.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge
on Tuesday visited her Majesty. His Royal Highness
returned to town on Wednesday.
Lieutenant General Sir Cohn Campbell had the
honour of visiting and dining with her Majesty on
Wednesday.

Viscount Palmerston is at present at Broadlands.
Lord Stanley left town early in the week for
Knowsley.

Volitlral.

MOST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CABINET have left
London for the holidays. The Duke of Argyll and
Lord Panmure are in Scotland. Lord Palmerston is
at his own seat at Broadlands. Lord Harrowby is in
Paris. The Marquis of Lansdowne is at Bowood.
Sir G. C. Lewis and Mr. Labouchere are at their
country seats. Sir Charles Wood and Mr. Vernon
Smith are also out of town. Lord Granville and Sir
George Grey returned on Saturday to London. Lord
Stanley of Alderley and Mr. Baines remain in the
metropolis.

A TREASURY COMMISSION has been issued, appoint-
ing Lord Portman, H. Ker Seymer, Esq.,
I K. Brunel, Esq., C.E., Robert RawlinAon, Esq.,
C.E., Professor J. T. Way, J. B. Lewes, Esq., and
Southwood Smith, Esq., M.D., to inquire into the
most effectual means of distributing the sewage of
towns and of applying it to beneficial and profit-
abl• uses.

THE INCOME TAX.
A PUBLIC meeting of the inhabitants of Cirencester
was held at the Town-hall this week to consider the
oppressive and inquisitorial manner in which the
assessments of the income tax are made; the High
Steward, Mr. Bevir, in the chair. Mr. Mullings,
M.P., made the speech of the day. He suggested
that the meeting should not ask for the total repeal
of the tax, but should adopt a prudent course. It
was but fair and right to expect that the war tax
should cease on the sth of April, 1857, and if any
lawyer were to do whet had been done by the Go.
vernment in inserting the words in the bill which
carried on the tax in its present form until April,
1858, after an arrangement for the tax to cease a
year after the conclusion of the war, he would sub-
ject himself to be struck off the rolls. He thought
the entire repeal of the tax totally impracticable.
They must recollect that the tax produced 10,000,0001.
a year. Sir R. Peel only asked for 8,500,0001., and
it was quite as much as they had a right to expect.
He did not think the tax would ever cease altogether.
He believed it would cease as regarded precarious
incomes, but not otherwise. He spoke entirely inde-
pendent of any Government. He thought that
trades, professions, and precarious incomes ought not
to be taxed the same as realised property, and he
would do all in his power to oppose it. Mr. Brown,
in moving a memorial on the subject, expressed his
opinion that the war tax should cease with the war,
and that the Government should have acted within
the spirit as well as within the letter of the law.
Other speakers followed, and the memorial adopted
prayed that the war tax of 9d. in the pound he
abolished from the sth of April, 1857, and that
further inquiry be made as to the practicability of
substituting a bona fide property tax in lieu of the
present income tax.

Another meeting, in consequence of the: receipt
of a requisition numerously signed, assembled on
Monday evening at the Town-hall, Devonport.
The Mayor, Mr. Watson, in taking the chair,
stated that he quite agreed in principle with the
present movement against the additional 9d., which
was a war tax, and which ought not to be continued
at a time when the people had a right to expect the
blessings of peac?. The tax bore heavily on the civil
servants of the Crown, so many of whom resided in
the borough. Dr. Rowe said that, although the
country had hitherto submitted to the burden cheer-
fully, the time had arrived when it became necessary
to show the Chancellor of the Exchequer that they
were impatient. He moved—

That it is the opinion of this meeting that the increased
income tax now levied has greatly aggravated its previous
inequalities, and that it therefore should be lessened at the
earliest possible period in accordance with the pledge
given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr. Moses Jeffry having seconded, and Mr. Symons
supported, the resolution, it was carried unanimously,
as were others for the drawing up a petition, dm.,
proposed by Mr. Clark, banker, Mr. Ors.m, Mr. Rat-

hI I I I I •ra • • •• • I ••• • • • Imi•••••

DECEMBER 27, 1856.

tenbury, and Dr. Tripe. The three towns of Ply-
mouth, Devonport, and.Stonehouse have now empha-
tically pronounced against this tax.
An influential meeting was held at Cheltenham on
Tuesday, Captain Berkeley, M . in the chair. Captain
Berkeley, in opening the proceedings, briefly referred
to the history of the tax, spoke of its increase in the
time of war, and expressed his opinion that, as we
were now at peace, it was no longer required. Mr.
Tartt then moved a resolution, affirming that—

The present tax of ls. 4d. in the pound is enormous in
amount, and, from the manner in which it is assessed, is
in many instances inquisitorial, unjust, unequally and
offensively levied, and that its continuance beyond the sth
of April next would be a violation of faith and of promises
made at the time of its enactment by her Majesty's
Government.

The resolution was seconded by Mr. Hale and
carried unanimously. Mr. W. H. Gwinnett, solicitor,
moved the second resolution :

That the mode of assessment of the income tax is
repugnant to the feelings of every Englishman, calculated
to admit of extortion on the one hand and extreme evasion
on the other; that the war being ended it ought not to be
continued ; and pledging the meeting to use every legiti-
mate means fur procuring its immediate modification and
ultimate abrogation.

Mr. W. S. Davis seconded the motion, which was
carried. The Rev. Mr. Humphreys, head master of
the Cheltenham Grammar School, moved the third
resolution, affirming that the meeting did not object
to " a fair and equitably apportioned tax upon
realised property." Mr. Humphreys maintained
that the fairest direct tax was a tax on realised pro-
perty, not a tax on precarious income, and that if an
income tax be rendered absolutely necessary by the
nature of things, the graduated or sliding-scale should
be applied to it. It should be graduated in propor-
tion to the means of those who have to pay it. Mr.
H. Davies seconded the motion, expressing himself
favorable rather to indirect than to direct taxation.
The resolution was carried, and a petition to I'arlia•
went was agreed upon.
A numerously attended meeting was also held the
same evening at the Guildhall, Rochester. The
mayor, who is one of the local commissioners of the

income tax, said he was most anxious to see the tax
abolished, for, after his experience as a commis
sioner, he regretted to say that the impost offered a
premium to rascality, and was a curse to the country,
the honest man paying, while the suborner of per-
jury escaped. Mr. H. T. Enerest, denounced the com

who made the assessments to the income
tax as a Star Chamber assembly, bound to secrecy, and
moved a resolution to the effect that an income tax
on the trades, professions, and general industry of the
country is unjust in principle, and that, from the
despotic, inquisitorial manner in which the assess-
ments are made, it is obnoxious and injurious to the
community, and therefore that it ought to be
abolished at the earliest possible period. The reso
lution also stated that the continuance of the present
additional war tax of 9d. in the pound beyond the sth
of April next would be a violation of the spirit of the
act of Parliament, by which the public were led to
believe that this impost should not be continued for
more than one year after the termination of hosti
lities. The resolution was unanimously adopted,
and, after the meeting had been addressed by Mr. J.
Foord, Mr. J. Thomas, and Mr. F. Wheeler, a peti-
tion to Parliament, praying for the reduction and
subsequent repeal of the income tax, was unani-
mously agreed to, and received the signatures cf
nearly every person present at the meeting.

An important meeting was held at Shrewsbury, on
Wednesday, when resolutions were passed strongly
condemning the present mode of assessment, and a
petition to Parliament agreed to praying that after
April nex, the present tax might cease.

THE LIVERPOOL FINANCIAL REFORM ASSOCIATION
have published an address to the country proposing
the revision of the present system of taxation and the
establishment of an equitable &cheme of direct taxa-
tion, which " shall exact from every man above pau-
perism, or not closely bordering upon it, his fair con-
tribution to the just necessities of the State—nothing
more and nothing less, and the abolition of Customs
and Excise duties, with all their train of evils, social
and moral, fiscal, commercial, and political." In a
second address Mr. Robertstone Gladstone, and the
association, promise to " point out more distinctly
the evils and injustice of the present system, and
also suggest a scheme of taxation which shall be
most productive to the revenue, at the smallest cost
of collection, just towards all classes, and, at the same
time, press least injuriously on the springs of com-
merce, industry, and manufactures."
MR. MONCETON MILNES, at the Pontefract Mechanics'
Institute, last Tuesday, delivered a speech in favour
of national education. Mr. Milnes said :
Our great object is to educate the children of this
country at once secularly and religiously—in other words,