The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-21 00:00:00

but to improve, Our object le a mkt it KA
a measure as ' ill command the approval of the
country.
Mr. Gladstone has done a great injustice to "a
large class of the comnnmity the least able to bear--
it, in perpetuating the existing equality between
precarious and *Td incomes. But that will only
be one of the objections which will be urged against
the income-tax as it is now to be proposed to the
house. The very long term to which he proposes
extending it, is one to which the country has an
insuperable objection. When in 1842 the obnoxious
impost was first proposed, we were told that it was
only intended to last for three years. Under one
pretext or other it has been renewed time after
time—sometimes only a year at once—until the
present hour. And now Mr. Gladstone comes for-
ward and proposes to renew it for another term of
seven years,—so that we are not only to have the
tax for certain during that long period, but to have
it in its present unjust and unequal form. Besides,
even were the country, in the excess of its patience
and generosity, to acquiesce in the renewal of the
tax, as it now stands, for a term of seven years,
what guarantee, what security have we that the
tax will then cease ? None whatever. It is just
as likely that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of
1860, will be as fertile in finding reasons for the
renewal of the income tax then as the Right Hon.
Gentleman who now fills that office.
We do, therefore, trust that the independent
members of the House of Commons will resolutely
resist the proposal of Mr. Gladstone to renew the
tax for so long a period as seven years. The right
lion. gentleman carries his boldness a trifle too far
when he makes such a proposition to the house.
If the house assent to it, they will act in defiance
of the wishes and betray the interests of their con-
stituents. But we hope better things. We are
confident the event will show that there is enough
of honesty, of consistency, and of independence in
the present house to defeat any motion for a seven
years' renewal of the tax, and that an amendment
in favour of a two, or, at most, a three years' re-
newal, will be carried,

OP ATTEMPT TO MURDER.

LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY.
A young man of respectable exterior, named Vivian
O'Keefe, was charged with having attempted to murder
a girl named Jane Riley, on the 13th of March kat, by
discharging the contents of a loaded gun at her, in a
shooting gallery in Williamson-square, near the Theatre
Royal. The hearing of the case had been deferred in
consequence of the inability of the prosecutrix to give
evidence, owing to the precarious state in which she has
been since the occurrence. _ _

The prosecutrix, having been assisted into court, gave
the following evidence. She said—About 12 o'clock on
the morning of the 13th March I went into a shooting
gallery in Murray-street, Williamson-square. I wanted
to see the master. As I went in I saw the prisoner
standing on the steps. I heard him say to a friend, "I will
have another shot, and then I will go home." He then
followed me into the gallery. I went into a small room,
called the snug, to see if the landlord was in. Whilst I
was there the prisoner came in and asked me to come to
him. I did not speak to him. He then smiled and took
up a gun, and said he would shoot me. I thought he
was joking, and said, " Oh, don't." I then turned my
back, and had hardly done so when the gun went off,
and I felt a ball penetrate my shoulder. I believe I was
afterwards taken to the Infirmary. The prisoner ap-
peared rather tipsy.
Mary Ann M'Laren, wife of the man who keeps the
shooting-gallery, corroborated the prosecutrix's evidence,
and added that she saw the prisoner present the gun at
the prosecutrix, and heard him say to her, "I'll shoot
you." After saying so the prisoner pulled up the ham-
mer of the gun, and fired at her. Prosecutrix screamed
out, saying she was shot, and blood began to flow from
her shoulder. Witness then said to prisoner, "You
have shot the woman, and I'm ruined." He said no-
thing, but smiled, and left the place.
A police-officer deposed to taking the prisoner into
custody at his lodgings in Islington-terrace the next
morning. Hu denied all knowledge of the transaction,
and said he did not remember having been in a shooting
gallery the evening before.
The surgeon to the Royal Infirmary deposed to re-
ceiving the prosecutrix into the infirmary, as a patient,
on the morning of the 13th of March. On examining
her he found she had been shot in the shoulder. The
charge had entered the upper part of the shoulder, and
passed into the spine. Had attended upon her since,
and had not been able to extract the ball, but had
traced it about four inches, and believed that it was at
present lodged in the muscles of the back near the spine.
He believed the prosecutrix to be at present out of
danger.

Air. Snowball, solicitor, appeared for the prisoner,
and urged that there could not be a committal under
the act of 7arlia,ment, as murder was not intended.
The magistrate's clerk said that under the section of
the act it would undoubtedly have been murder had the
prosecutrix died ; and after a few minutes' conversation
the presiding magistrate said it was a very serious
charge, and he felt bound to send it before a jury. The
prisoner was then committed to take his trial at the
assizes.

Bail having been applied .for, the prisoner's father
came forward and said, that he was a housekeeper re-
siding in Dublin, and connected with the press there.
The magistrates declined to accept his bail, and
ordered the prisoner to find bail himself in 1001. and
two sureties resident in Liverpool in 501. each.