The Sun.
London, England, 1837-04-21 00:00:00

List.

The Marchioness Conynghain, who has been long
in delicate health, continues indisposed at Dudley House,
Park-lane.
The Countess of Newburgh has taken one of the
new mansions in Wilton-crescent.

LONDON,
FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 21, 1837.

We trust we are not mistaken in imagining that we
perceive, in the construction of a series of Bills now
before us, prepared and brought into Parliament by
His MAJESTY'S Ministers, symptoms of a new era in
the legislation of this country. The Bills to which we
allude are eight in number, and are designed to amend
those laws which have so long disgraced the criminal
code of thesekingdoms. Overlooking at this moment the
vast importance of such humane improvements in our
Criminal Law, what we would: chiefly direct attention
to is the brevity, the simplicity, and the general intelli-
gibility of these Bills. One is contained in a single
clause, and the longest does not exceed four pages,
inclusive of the preamble. Now, we regard the sim-
plification of our laws, as a reform, only second in
importance to the enlarged humanity of their spirit.
Hitherto it seemed to be the study of the Legislature
to render its own Acts unintelligible to all but lawyers ;
thus casting a snare before the unwary, and leaving
.the poor, because unable to pay for justice, subject to
the uncontrolled violence of the rich. The Bills Le-
fore us are framed in quite another spirit. They are in
all respects plain, brief, and universally intelligible,
as all good laws ever ought to be. The community
will be fully able to comprehend their purport—to
understand their details, without being compelled to
open with a golden key the doors of a lawyer's office.
We trust the Legislature will see the justice and the
humanity of taking the form of these Bill as a guide
in the construction of all future enactments, civil and
criminal. The best laws are nearly useless to the
people when not condensed and simplified sufficiently
to be intelligible to them.

There will be found in another part of our Paper,
under the head " Commission of Excise Inquiry," ex-
tracts from the evidence of Mr. R AIN Y and Mr. DE-
HA NY, on the subject of Auctions, which well deserve
the attention of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHE-
QUER. Mr. RAINY, whose experience as an auc-
tioneer entitles his opinion to great weight, points out
the pernicious effects of the present Excise law, as it
applies to the sale of property by public auction, and
suggests several alterations which we are satisfied
would be highly beneficial both to the revenue and to
the public.

There is at present a duty of 7d. in the pound on
all property sold by auction, while property to any
amount may be sold by private bargain without any
charge. This duty, however, is levied only on the
property actually sold, that which is bought in being
exempted ; and the natural consequence of this is, that
not only arc the possessors deterred by the charge from
disposing of their property in this way, who would
otherwise do so, but much of what is thus exposed for
sale, especially if it be real property, is bought in,
and sold afterwards by private bargain, in order
to evade the payment of the duty. Mr. 11 A IN Y
suggests, that if the revenue cannot entirely dis-
pense with the duty, it should be imposed in
a different way—namely, by subjec:ing all property
transferable by deed, when publicly sold, to an additional
ad valorem stamp-duty of one per cent. The effect of
this would be to discourage private sales, and to give
the seller, at a moderate expense, all the benefit of
public competition ; while the revenue would realise,
in all probability, a larger amount of duty on the
whole, because not only would a much greater mass of
real property be brought to the hammer, but there
could be no possibility of evading the duty. This we
think a just view of the matter, and is founded upon the
principle, that a light tax is generally more productive
than a heavy one. An estate worth 10,0001., if sold
by auction, pays about 300/. of duty ; according to
the proposed plan it would not pay more than 100/.,
a sum too small to be put in comparison with the
advantage to be derived from public competition, and
therefore much more likely to be risked.
with respect to the sale of personal property, it is
proposed to reduce the present duty of 5 per cent. to
2-i per cent., and to allow no exemption for what may
he bought in, if there shall have been one bidding.
This regulation would strike a deadly blow at those
pocket-picking nuisances, the mock auctions, with
which all parts of London are infested, and which are
now, we believe, to be found in almost all our great
towns in active operation. If the bona fide seller of
goods would thus be compelled to fix the upset price,
or occasionally to pay the duty on those bought in,
he would have more than an equivalent advantage in
the general reduction of half the duty.
Theme are several other recommendations in the evi-
dence of Mr. RAINY, which would, if adopted, tend to
the same happy result—the exposure of those vagabonds
who, under the name of auctioneers are practising daily
frauds upon the public, and the restoration of confi-
dence towards the respectable members of the pro-

fe3sion, which the proceedings of the worthless have
shaken. It appears from the following passage in Mr.
RAINY's evidence, that these surreptitious practices are
extending themselves where better things might have
been expected :

" This would be the means of destroying mock auctions.
Unfortunately, that which may be termed a mock auction, is not
confined to such as are daily carried on in shops, to be ob-
served in passing along the Strand, the Poultry. and other
places; but the practice has been, and is, indulged in very ex-
tensively in many other quarters ; and the public confidence
has been most shamefully abused by gross deceptions and every
species of trickery and quackery."

The report that the Tories are about to resume
office—a report than which nothing was ever more un-
founded—has found its way to Ireland, where it seems
to have occasioned extraordinary excitement, as is
evident by the following energetic passage which we
extract from a leading article that has lately appeared
in the Dublin Pilot. The sentiments may perhaps
be a little exaggerated here and there ; but in the
main, they contain much truth :
" We tell the Tories that there is a spirit in Ireland which
will never again submit to Tory domination; that the friends
of faction, which Toryism in power would let loose upon us,
will be resisted to the death ; and that there is a power among
the people to give that spirit effect. Millions will no longer
submit to be ground down by units. The day that would give
a Tory Ministry to the empire would summon a million of
Irishmen to arms. There would be a fearful rising, a simul-
taneous outbreak, a terrible struggle. A rebellion in one
county in Ireland cost England eighteen thousand men, and
twelve millions of additional debt. A prwdial disturbance in
another took six months of harassing service to 35,000 men
before it was even partially suppressed. What would it cost
were all Ireland in arms? A people, with nothing to lose and
everything to hope, once committed to a conflict—our natural
advantages of position—every valley a ravine, every hill a
fortress, every fence a bastion, a hardy people, and the ap-
proaching season, when they could bivouac in the fields—all
the small military and police stations absorbed by the popula-
tion—union—the courage of right and of despair animating
us within, and the sympathies of the world without. Let
England pause before she will let loose Toryism in Ireland
with this its inevitable result, for, whatever may be the result
of such a struggle, England would come out of it, even at the
best, a third-rate nation."