The National Register.
London, England, 1819-03-29 00:00:00

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No. 11G8.—VoL. XII.]

PARLIAMENTfOr the last ten days (with the excep-
tion of an instance to which we shall advert here.
after) has been chiefly engaged in attempting on one
side to procure some relief from the heavy burthen
of taxation, and to enforce retrenchment ; and on
the other, to resist them both. Several petitions have
been presented to the House of Commons by Mr.
Anson and others, for the repeal of the Tax upon
Horses used in Agriculture. The pressure of this
burthen is unquestionably severe ; and the more se-
vere from the partial weight with which it bears
upon particular individuals. It is argued by many
that corn, as an article of the first necessity, is no
proper object even of indirect taxation, and that not
only our own produce, but the produce of the whole
world, should have a free and unfettered introduc-
tion into our public markets. This is the universal
gnment of the commercial part of the community;
and if the principle be sound, they must unite heart
and hand with th agricultural part, in endeavour-
ing to get rid of a load which must ultimately fall
upon the consumer ; as the effect of all checks upon
agriculture is to lessen, in a rapidly increasing ratio
of velocity, the quantity of its produce ; and thus,
notwithstanding the resources of foreign supplies,
to enhance the price of grain. But independent of
this general claim to support on the part of the pe-
titioners, we cannot forget that, whilst the best and
richest soils of England are either devoted to pas-
turage or cultivated as arable with co:nparatively
little labour and few horses, the poorer and lighter
soils which compose so large a portion of our
country, must either be cultivated upon a system
which demands the greatest quantity of both, or be
left to weeds, barrenness and rabbits. Again, Nor-
folk, perhaps more than any other county in En-
gland, has the happiness to possass a very numerous
body of small landed proprietors,—a race of men
valuable to society, and which every good govern.
ment will make it an object to protect. From a
variety of causes too numerous to particularize, it
is well known that a very large proportion of their
small properties are mortgaged, some for one-
half, some two-thirds, and many more for very
nearly their full value, leaving the nominal owner—
for in fact he is no more—in a worse condition, as
tr ,is ability to discharge any public burthen, than
the mere tenant at will. But how does this tax deal
with this description of persons ? It most inequitably
passes over all these obligations without any notice,
and begins first by taking the value of the rent of
their occupation, _then doubles it because held by
the proprietor, and thus makes them subject to the
very highest scale of duty ; whilst their next neigh-
bour, upon an equal extent of business, and paying
less for rent than the little owner has to pay for in-
terest, escapes upon the lowest. The one pays his
five shillings a horse, the other seventeen shillings
and sixpence. We could point out so many cases
of real and oppressive hardships ari,,ing from this
defect, that, if they were fairly submitted to the
r•otice of the legislature, they must engage its atten-
tion and procure redress.

The Salt duties have also been made the subject
of parliamentary discussion. Their present annual
produce to the revenue is about one million and a
half; and the cause assigned for their admitting of
no reduction is, that, excepting the sum above.men-
tinned, and thus raised, not a single shilling will be
Available towards the reduction of our public debt,

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in possession of the particulars of this melancholy
instance alluded to, yet we have scrupulously for- '
borne to state them, because we thought it a case
which could hardly fail to find its way to a British.
judge and jury, and were therefore unwilling to •
subject ourselves to the imputation of biassing the
Public mind upon it. It has now however gone forth,
and all further restraint is needless. It is as follows:
A poor, woman named \Vorm, whose husband was
employed in a nursery-garden occupied• by a man
named Martin, and adjoining a corer belonging to
Lord Suffield, in the parish of Thorp:: and imme-
diate neighbourhaod of Gunton, happening to tres-
pass into the said cover, for the purpose of gather.
mg a few sticks, in the latter end of January last,
had proceeded but a very few steps withia it, when
she unfortunately touched the wire of a spring girl
constructed with two barrels, and received, almost
Irons the very mouth of the muzzles, the whole con-
tents of the charge in her legs. We need not add that * •
her • situation was for some time exceedingly pre-
carious, or that hersufferings were extreme. The shot
had penetrated so deep as to admit of no extraction;
and there, though the poor creature k now recover-
ing, they still remain. The keeper (who called on
her the day after) congratulated her on even such an
escape; and told her that a few yards further there
WAS a gun planted with three barrels, which must
have killed her. Now that the noble lord himself
thinks the adoption of such means fOr preserving
his game perfectly justifiable, that he shrinks from
no consequences which may follow them, however
dreadful; nor even contemplates such cases as we
have above cited as having any claims even to his
charity and compassion,—we can have no doubt;
because otherwise they would not be pursued in the
first instance, and in the next somAeparation would
have been made to the wretched sufferer. On the
contrary, his lordship has never once condescended
to visit her, or to bestow upon her one single farthing
from his own to..ket. Upon a humble and urgent ap-
peal made to him by her husband, his lordship did
indeed, as a magistrate, recommend her case to
the eicers *per parish, and directed them to allow
her one _chilling a week for owls. They have also
since paid two shillings a week for the board •of a
nurse eve 9 attend:d her. We must here state that the
poor sufferer has three children, the eldest fourteen
years old and a cripple; that the earnings of her
husband have never exceeded nine shillings a week;
and that she was at the time of committing the
trespass in a state of the greatest poverty. We
mention- these things however, solely to prove what
must be the feelings and impression of his lordship
upon the perfect right and justice with which such
destructive engines may be used even in the opts day
time: and it is because we presume to differ from
him in icao, both upon the lawfulness, the natural
justice, arid the humanity of such measures of pre-
caution being applied,—that we do most earnestly
wish that this ca-e may yet be tried.
,It is import-
ant to society that we should know whether we have
any right to be our own avengers on such occa-
sions, or whether the laws be riot the proper au-
thority to which offences should be referred. And
even if the interference of the laws may he thus su-
perseded, still again it is important that we should
know whether we have a right to inflict a much
heavier punishment than the law itself awards, and
even to take away the life of a fellow creature for
an act which our existing statutes would at most
punish by a few weeks imprisonment- We remember
a case of this sort tried before Baran Richards a few
years ea.() in the Midland Circuit, in which a boy
b
had entered a wood for the purpose of cutting a
stick, and was wounded by a spring gun; when the
jury not only awarded very heavy damages to the
party injured, but the judge also distinctly assured
the defendant, that if the boy had died, he would
have held him liable to °mewr for the murder.

We observe that the Northern Counties have succeeded
in their application to have two general Gaol deliveries in
the year, and that Mr. 'Woe is appointed to preside as
Judge. Not wick will now, therefore, be the only place in
the Kingd to which this act of justice is denied ! Mr.
Smith has funiArti no answer U. his Coninitnents as to the
probable fate At their petition, and we presume, of course
that he is trite content things should remain as they
ate.