The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-09 00:00:00

PERSIA.

The Austrian officers who for a time were per-
mitted to take service in Persia, will return in the
spring. One of them writes that the cruelties in-
flicted upon the unfortunate "Babis " are almost
beyond description. In one case the condemned
man was flayed alive, and then bound to a stake,
where his quivering body served as a target for a
troop of scoundrels there called soldiers• Another
man, who had his ears, nose, hands, feet, &c., am-
putated, was roasted alive.

HEALTH OF LONDON DURING THE WEEK.—Last
week the mortality of London experienced an increase ;
the deaths, which in the two previous weeks had been
922 and 947, rose to 1,042. In the ten corresponding
weeks of 1842-51 the average number was 1,178
which, if raised in proportion to increase of popula-
tion, gives a mortality of 1,296 for the present time.
This average is augmented by influenza, which in
the corresponding week of 1847 was 2,454 persons ;
nevertheless the last week's return compared with
these facts, still indicates a favourable state of the
public health for a population in which a rate of mor-
tality, considerably higher than the average rate of Eng-
land, always prevails. -With reference to the causes of
death, the results of last week correspond nearly with
those of the previous return in the two principal classes,
namely, epidemics and diseases of the respiratory organs ;
but in most of the other classes, there is an increase,
especially in " diseases of the nervous system," which
rose from 96 to 134. Taking particular epidemics,
measles has increased from 15 to 24, while scarlatina has
declined from 72 to 59. Typhus was fatal in 47 cases,
diarrhoea in 21 ; there were none of cholera, and only 4
of small-pox. Last week the births of 851 boys and 788
girls, in all 1,639 children, were registered in London.
The average number in seven corresponding weeks of
1845-51 was 1,396. At the Royal Observatory, Green-
wich, the mean reading of the barometer in the week
was 29.710 in. The mean temperature of the week was
42.4 deg., which is rather below the average of the same
week in ten years. The mean daily temperature was
below the average on three days, Monday, Tuesday, and
was in the north ;
W. ednesday, and on the rest was above it. On Monday
in the south-west.
it was G.n
deg.
9., , below the average ; on Saturday it was
' des. above it. On Monday and Tuesday the wind
during
The
raint he
irne ofstthe wteheek weekwas ose n 3 eirna. y
Andes, the Pioneer of the New York, Chagros, Havannah,
take a mail, but throwuas
for New York.
intended that the Andes should
gs, sailed from the Mersey, this morning
Post-office authorities thegMne s
gence on the part of the
and the Andes, consequently, Were not sent down in time,
mails
will be forwarded
by yti,, sailed without them. The
sails on Saturday next.
Cityh
Philadelphia,
Manchester screw
Theeieamp Canada, which
Cunard mail steamer Arabia is expectecletl,Phisate.' veTfhroemntehwe
steamer also sailed to-day for
Clyde on Sunday next ; and the new sereowa
beloging to the same company, on the 16th inst. Alps,

TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.

Yesterday, a deputation waited on the Earl of Derby,
at the Treasury, for the purpose of presenting to his
lordship an address from the Association for promoting
the Rcoepnesaisl of the
consisted
ofaTaxlargees on
numberwl
enr oofedge T
gentlemen
. he
deputa-
tioninterested
din the subject, and included Mr. Hume, M.P., Mr.
Milner Gibson, M:P., Sir John V. Shelley, M.P., Mr.
Ewalt, M.P., General Sir De Lacy Evans, M.P., Mr.
Charles Forster, M.P.. &c.,
Mr. MILMER GIBSON introduced the deputation, ob-
serving that the present step had arisen from a resolu-
passed at a public meeting, to the effect that a deputation
should seek an interview with the Governmen, in order to
bring under their notice the anomalies of the Newspaper
Stamp Act. It was considered that the present was a
fitting opportunity for bringing forward this question, be-
cause the Government had introduced a measure into
Parliament with a view to extend the Stamp Act, the At-
torney-Generel bavinggiven notice of a bill to that effect.
The members of the present association thought it de-
sirable that the Government should be put in posses-
sion of all the anomalies which now existed under the
law, and it was with this object that they had requested
his lordship to receive their deputation. For himself he
was in favour of a repeal of the newspaper stamp act,
but his present purpose was simply to point out to the
Government the pernicious effects of the law, and to call
upon the Government to provide some adequate remedy
for the evil.
Mr. COLLETT presented an address to Lord Derby, in
the course of which the deputation put forward their
views as follows :—" It would detain your lordship too
long to listen to a lengthened statement of the many
mischievous effects of the newspaper stamp ; but we
may, perhaps, be permitted to notice a few of the most
glaring. It is a penalty on the record of facts,
on the history of to-day, on the events current
amongst us; and, to a very large extent, this penalty
amounts to a prohibition. The penny is 25 per cent.
on a fourpenny paper, but it would be 200 per cent.
on a halfpenny paper; yet a halfpenny paper would ex-
actly meet the wants of millions of the working classes,
because the orice would suit their straitened means,
while the size would suit the limited time which
they can afford to give to reading. For want of this
stimulus, many hundreds of thousands in the agricultu-
ral and mining districts are unable to read at all, while
in the towns, the vacuum created by the suppres-
sion of facts, is filled up with fictions in which the pre-
dominant feature is an exaggerated portraiture of
the vices of the higher classes of society. Even
the private fictitious history of the Sovereign is given in
such publications, while it is forbidden by law to publish
those occurrences of her daily life which form the staple
of the Court circular. All sorts of sedition or obscenity
may be published without a stamp. Attempts to throw
discredit on the personal character of the Sovereign and
arguments against monarchy as an institution are per-
mitted ; but to inform the public that her Majesty held
a drawing-room last week is illegal. A reference
to the evidence taken before the committee of the
House of Commons, which sat last year, will show that
the high price of newspapers has a tendency to promote
drunkenness, by obliging working men to go to the pub-
lic-house to hear the news read instead of reading it them-
selves at home ; and the tables published in the appen-
dix show that the greater part of the London daily press
is not supported by its readers, and is fast tendingtowards
extinction. The circulation of the daily press exclusive of
the Times was in 1846, 13,000,000, and in 1850 was only
8,719,840. We attribute this declension to the ne-
cessity which exists under the stamp that every news-
paper should be printed at fivepence. The 6 and 7
Win. IV., cap. 76, forbids any news to be published
without a stamp, and this is the opinion of the Board of
Inland Revenue, and of the present and late legal ad-
visers of the crown. But it is not the opinion of the
Court of Exchequer, and it is therefore proposed by the
Attorney-General to permit news to appear in unstamped
monthly publications. If it be penal to publish news every
day or every week, we know not why it should be right to
publish it once a month. What is to prevent four per-
sons from so arranging their monthly publications as
to give their readers the advantage of a weekly paper ?
The Stamp-office would threaten their publisher with
the penalty for publishing in the middle of the month,
but will they sue for the penalty ? My lord, there
being doubts as to whether this clause is repealed
or not, the Stohe-upon-Trent Monthly Narrative is
published in the middle of the month, in order to
try the question. The Solicitor of Inland Revenue
has warned the publishers of the illegality of their
conduct, but has not accepted the challenge of their
attorney to commence a prosecution ; and the Attorney-
General has declared from his place in Parliament, that as
they only violate the law, but do not defraud the revenue,
he does not think it inconsistent with his duty to refrain
from a prosecution. Thus, my lord, the law is violated
by the express permission of your lordship's Government.
Nor does this stand alone ; the security clause, which was
enacted especially for small and cheap periodicals, is now
only enforced against stamped newspapers, leaving free the
very publications against which the clause was directed.
But this is not all. We have here a volume of un-
stamped weekly papers containing news every one of
which is liable to stamp duty. It appears to us that the
law is to be altered because the Government does not
like to obtain a decision against a work edited by Mr.
Chas. Dickens. There are other useful and popular
writers whom the Government would not like to put
down. Will your lordship engage in a crusade against
the Athena-um, the Builder, the Legal Observer, the
Lancet, the Medical Times, or Punch? And yet such
is the only consistent course if you continue the law
which composes the stamp on weekly papers."
Mr- HUME wos anxious to
.say a few words in ad-
dition to and in explanation of, the address. He would
would direct his observations to two main points—the
state of the law and the cause of education. The
volume now before his lordship, containing a variety of
unstamped publications which disseminated news, com-
prised only a small portion of what might be collected,
but the object of presenting these examples to his lord-
ship was to show that publications were allowed for local
distribution without a stamp, and that if a stamp
were affixed to them they might be transmitted
throughout the country. Now this plan he considered
very simple in its operation, and in point of justice it
was one which ought to be generally adopted. The At-
torney-General had brought in a bill, and it was fit and
proper that the Government should be made acquainted
with the evils of a law that could not be satisfactorily
and consistently carried out. Out of some 200—or at
least 150—publications which appeared, there were
none which ought not, if justice were done, to be put
upon the same footing as the unstamped werks before his
lordship. If, therefore, the Government had found
the necessity of asking for a grant of 150,0001., to ex-
tend the knowledge of the arts and sciences, and to
provide the community with those advantages which
had hitherto been denied them, the time had ar-
rived for them to re-consider these important mat-
ters. There was no reason whatever why the
publications to which he had alluded should be
exempt from the stamp ; and neither Mr. John
Wood, of the Inland Revenue, nor Lord John
Russell had been able to point out to him why they
should be regarded in a different light to other pro-
ductions which it was thought necessary to stamp,
He would now remind his lordship of what he
must have observed during his visit to the Unitee
States. Newspapers were published upon such
a principle in that country that all persons were
enabled at a very small cost to obtain a paper containing
news connected with their own immediate interests and
with the particular locality in which they resided. Why
not give to the people of this country the same advantages
which existed in the United States ? As regarded the
deficit which it was supposed the repeal of this tax would
produce in the finances of the country, he would under-
take to guarantee the government whatever amount of
revenue they might expect to lose, provided they sanc-
tioned local publications and the principle of stamping
only such copies as they desired to transmit by post.
The total number of newspaper stamps annually circu-
lated in England amounted to 95,000,000 ; whereas in
America the number of newspapers annually was 430
millions—a circumstance that was to be accounted for
by the fact that in the latter country no stamp was con-
aidered necessary. He thought that the great impetus
and advantage which America was rapidly gaining was
in a great measure to be attributed to its cheap press ;
and, in his opinion, the plan now proposed was one of
the many means which ought to be adopted in this
country to remove that ignorance and to promote that
moral and religious knowledge which ought to exist in
every part of the country. The subject was one well
worthy of the serious consideration of Government, and
he trusted that it would ere long receive due attention
from the Administration.

Mr. EIVART, M.P., cordially supported the proposi-
tion, as being most conducive to the interests of public
education and public order.

Mr. Digby Seymour, M.P., Sir J. V, Shelley, and
other gentlemen having offered a few observations in
favour of the objects of the deputation,
The Earl of DERBY said lie had listened with
great attention to all that had been said, but
it was not to be expected that he should enter
at once into the details of this great and complicated
question. There was one point, however, upon
which he was quite clear, viz.,i that the law. upon this
subject as it at present stood, was not in a satis-
factory position, and whatever the law was it ought
undoubtedly to be plain, and simple, and effectual,
for the purposes for which it was intended. He
thought the present government had shown no incli-
nation to discouiTage the dissemination of knowledge.
The question of these varions taxes—more particu-
larly the advertisement duty was already under
their notice, although, from financial considerations,
they had been precluded at the present moment
from dealing with it. He was prepared, however, to
admit, and without undervaluing the importance of the
other branches of the subject, that the present adver-
tisement duty was of an objectionable character ; and he
should say, that if it were possible and consistent to
recl!ice or repeal it, one course or the other would meet

_ .
with the recommendation of Government. The subject
was one of great importance, and it would receive every
attention from himself and colleagues.
The deputation then retired.

THE MURDER NEAR STAFFORD.—CORONER'S • IN-
QUEST.—This investigation, which was at first conducted
under certain restrictions, was subsequently, through
the courtesy of the coroner (W. W. Ward, Esq.),
thrown open to the public. Since the previous meeting
of the jury, as we have before stated, four men, named
Charles Moore, Peter Kirwan, Edward Walsh, and
Henry Blackburn, one of the sons of the deceased, have
been committed on the charge of wilful murder, by the
magistrates. The inquiry before the coroner was re-
sumed on Tuesday morning, when a quantity of evidence
inculpating the prisoners was taken, and the inquiry
was adjourned.