The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-20 00:00:00

charge parties fairly on the amount of capital en-
gaged in their business, whatever might in its
nature. Even the good-will, if transferable.
would become an available item in the calculation,
The amount could be ascertained with comparative
ease. The machinery by which it is proposed to
levy the contemplated tax on successions would
fully answer the purpose. There never has been
even a suggestion of fraud in fixing the true
amount payable under the Legacy Duties in which
the same' elements, even to the good-will of a
trade or calling, must enter into the calculation.
And there would be even less in levying the
amount annually than when the matter arose only
once in a generation.

It would be attended with another and ex-
ceedingly beneficial result. It would compel
every merchant and trader to know the true
state of his affairs—to have timely notice of
approaching insolvency—and afford to the Court
of Bankruptcy unquestionable evidence of any
violation of the commercial code by those who
are brought under its operation. In such cases
exclusively the returns of the bankrupt should
be made public, and considerable fraud would be
thereby prevented ; inasmuch, as there would be
the certainty of future exposure in the event of
any foul play. The advantages resulting from
every man within the operation of the Bankruptcy
laws being compelled to keep at all times an
accurate balance-sheet, showing the real state of
his affairs, would be incalculable. We really
believe that it would be productive of far greater
benefits to the trade and commerce in other
respects than the amount of relief afforded in the
assessment of the impost, great as it would be.
There is yet time to effect this great amelioration,
to obtain this invaluable boon from the Legis-
lature. But there must no longer be any degree
of carelessness or apathy—no longer a culpable
indifference—on this vitally, important subject.
Fiscal Reformers must be up and doing. They
must remind their representatives that no party
feelings, or party interests, can justify a disgrace-
ful violation of all their former professions ; and
that, if they should obstinately persist—in every
respect so unjustifiable—a day, and that perhaps
not so very distant, will come, when they will
deeply and bitterly expiate their present aban-
donment of principle, their bold and unblushing
tergiversation.

The Noble Author of the Durham Letter must
have listened with no ordinary pleasure the other
night to the praises of Mr. LUCAS. The marvel
in that Mr. DUFFY did not " rise in his place "
and accuse the Noble Lord of openly bribing the
Irish Members. Lord Joror has, at any rate,
made his peace with the POPE'S band. He at-
tacked Ecclesiastical Titles, but defends the Holy
Gates of Nunneries. His Act was intended for
waste paper, his intervention for Nunneries as a
reality. Good Catholics now understand his
animus. They have condoned the sham offence,
and accepted the real service. Henceforth Irish
votes are, secure. Happily, in this case, Lord
JOHN is not the House of Commons. The House
helped him through with his sham, and it now
gives rather inconvenient evidence of deter-
mination to carry through its own reality.
We think the majority quite right, and
Lord JOHN'S speech one of his feeblest. The
facts narrated by Archbishop WHATELY and the
Bishop of NORWICH, with others which were ad-
duced, although of necessity chiefly anonymous,
were cases strong enough to demand either a com-
mission of inquiry, or a positive Act. It may
please Mr. LUCAS to designate them " cock and
bull stories," but neither Protestants nor Catholics
believe them to be so. The history of nunneries
is patent, so far as possible, to the world. The
laws of Roman Catholic States in regard to them
are before us also, and both testify loudly enough
to the danger of substantial, sometimes even of
most cruel, despotism on the part of Lady Abbesses
and Lady Superiors. But we go further, and
maintain that any institutions which, like nun-
neries, are capable of becoming the instruments of
severe parents, or of hard-hearted relatives, or of
priestly tamperers with the young and enthusiastic
ought to be subjected to regular supervision, even
though no single case of forcible detention had as
yet been made out against them. The inmates of
such dwellings ought to be asked periodically whe-
ther they continued there of their own free will
or not. The defect of Mr. CHAMBERS' bill is that
it does not go far enough. No young person, no
one, indeed, under thirty at, least, ought to be
allowed to take a vow at all without the consent
of competent civil authorities. There ought to be
some ene to apprise an unsuspecting and enthu-
siastic young persons of what is involved in parting
with all their property, secluding themselves from
the world, and throwing themselves practically on
charity for support. There is no need in the world
for the visitation or examination to be offensive.
A Roman Catholic layman might always form
part of any commission for such purposes, and
none but gentlemen could be selected for it. The
reasons for some measure are becoming all the
stronger from the enormous increase of Anglo-
Catholic nunneries. They amount,. according to
Mr. CHAMBERS, to not less than 100, and the
Catholic nunneries to 75, containing together
up wards of 3,000 inmates. They may in many
cases do much charity in the neighbourhoods
around them, but it is alarming to think how the
opportunities are thus multiplied, not merely of
employing single ladies advanced in life in useful oc-
cupations, but also of seducing the inexperienced to
sacrifice all their property and prospects, and thereby
to make themselves irrevocably dependent on the
nunnery itself. Notwithstanding Lord HOWARD'S
disclaimer, the British public is perfectly sure
that priestcraft was on the very verge of grasp-
ing his present lady for her fortune's sake, and
that nothing but the public upstir defeated the
nefarious purpose. If Roman Catholics and An-
glicans see fit to create institutions capable of
abuse, they ought to thank the State for preserv-
ing them by law from the danger ; they ought to
deem it an advantage that the religious and volun-
tary character of their institutions is guaranteed
by the securities taken by the State that no one
should be detained in them but by their own free
will. It is true we cannot break the fetters of a
premature and superstitiously-regarded vow, al-
beit such vows are infinitely better broken than
kept, as old LUTHER and his KATE could well
bear witness ; but if we cannot deliver these un-
happy and trembling victims of priestcraft, we
may insure that no one shall be held by any other
bondage than that of a priest-ridden conscience.
We accept Mr. CHAMBERS' bill, therefore, as an
instalment, and an instalment only, of the
supervision necessary for nunneries, and hope
it will reach the House of Lords, where, we
hope, it will be safe enough. The absurdity of
an outcry about religious liberty, and that, too,
from the co-religionists and defenders of the
Duke of Tuscany, is absurd enough. It is reli-
gious tyranny, not religious liberty, which Mr.
CHAMBERS attacks. To as little purpose is it to
talk about the " privacy of domestic establish-
ments," and to tell us that every man's house is
his castle. It is his castle 'no longer than it is
free from suspicion—no longer than it is not ap-
plied to purposes which may be of injury to the
public. As Mr. CHAMBERS observed, it can be
entered at any time if a fraud upon the public
revenue is but suspected ; and it is hard if it
cannot be entered when a fraud upon the liberty
of the subject is suspected. Let every English-
man's house, however, be his own castle ; bht the
question is—Shall it be a Bastile for others ?

OFFICE OF CITY CHAMBERLAIN.—In consequence of a
death-vacancy, it will be perceived that a contest is
now set on foot for the office of City Chamberlain.
Among the candidates who have already appeared, there
is not one, we conceive, possessing stronger claims upon
the support of his fellow-citizens, or one who is more
likely to command their suffrages, than Alderman Fare-
brother. His well-known business habits, together with
his professional and commercial engagements —to
say nothing about the "integrity, energy, and im-
partiality," which were pronounced to be as con-
spicuous as they are unimpeachable, only yesterday
at a numerous meeting convened_in Vintners' Hall—the
ability with which he is remembered to have discharged
the duties of chief magistrate, combined with the worth
of his long civic reputation, all seem to point him out
as peculiarly fitted for
_the_office of City Chamberlain,