The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-22 00:00:00

SEEDS.

We have to _report continued inactivity in the demand
for seeds, but withoUt leading to any potable change in

THE COMING REIRE CHMENT.

(From the Money Market Review.)

We stated some time ago a considerable reduction
would be made in the estimates of 1863-4. No man
reads the signs of the times more accurately than
Lord Palmerston, and his lordship sees that enor-
mous military expenditure after awhile inevitably
brings about popular discontent. He cannot fail to
see that wherever the popular voice can make itself
heard on the Continent it demands a reduction of
military expenditure, showing that the people
themselves are averse to war. Nothing will avert
serious trouble in Austria, France, Russia and Italy,
but a relief from taxation, the burden of which has
become oppressive solely through excessive arma-
ments. Yet the flagrant fact remains that, not-
withstanding this high scale of taxation, the ex-
penditure of those countries greatly exceeds their
revenue, leading to constant deficits. If England
would but set the example of reducing her war
expenditure, every country would, partly from ne-
cessity and partly from choice, be compelled to fol-
low her example.

These considerations, combined with the growing
discontent at home with our enormous expenditure,
have induced Government seriously to consider how
a reduction may be best brought about, without im-
pairing the efficiency either of the army and navy.
If we are not mistaken, the reduction will not be so
much in the numerical force of either army or navy
as in the staffs both at home and abroad. Our colo-
nies will have, as is the case with India, either to
provide a force for their own protection in times of
peace, or to pay the expense of any troops they may
require. The saving that will be effected in this
respect alone will amount to a very considerable
sum, quite sufficient, it is said, to allow of a reduc-
tion of one penny in the pound in the Income-tax,
and the abolition of those obnoxious and vexatious
petty taxes with which Mr. Gladstone has worried
the commercial world.

We should not be at all surprised if the reduction
of expenditure were to amount to at least two mil-
lions.

LVEQUALI7Y OF SENTENCES.

At the Surrey Sessions, on Monday last, a widow named
Mary Howell, aged 69, who had been committed, by the
Mayor of Kingston, on the charge of unlawfully attempting
to commit a certain felony, that is to say, to kill-and mur-
der herself, at Kingston-on-Thames, pleaded guilty to the
charge of attempting suicide, and was sentenced, by Mr.
Tilson, to six months' hard labour at Wandsworth. This
appears to be a very severe sentence—more than many of
the metropolitan magistrates inflict upon notorious thieves
and garotters, or upon ticket .of-leave men found loitering
about the streets at midnight, with the implements of bur-
glary in their possession. There may have been some pecu.
liar features in the present case warranting a different treat-
ment ; but the way of dealing with would-be suicides is
usually to remand them to prison for a week, and after
they have had the benefit of a little conversation with the
chaplain, to acquit them. At these very sessions, the
same chairman sentenced a man found guilty of lar-
ceny, after a previous conviction for felony, and two
other convictions, to no more than this poor widow was
ordered to undergo. Further, at these same sesasions, the
same chairman sentenced a man found guilty of larceny from
the person, after a previous conviction for felony, to no mote
than the wretched widow has to endure. Two other men,
who pleaded guilty to the serious charge of robbing their
employer, were sentenced to the same magical six months'.
A man for keeping a lewd and disorderly house—one of the
greatest pests, and nurseries of vice and crime in the whole
borough of Southwark, had the same. Whilstit fifth man.
found guilty of unlawfully attempting to steal a watch and
chain from the person of Henry Howick, and a sixth, who
pleaded guilty to embezzling the money of his master, alike
received the same sentence as the poor old widow of 69
whose offence we do not wish to extenuate, but whose
misery might have pleaded somewhat on her behalf. Pos-
sibly, after all, she was so desolate and wretched that the
prison and hard labour were deemed the best restoratives for
her peculiar malady.— West Surrey Times.