The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-02 00:00:00

THE REPEAL OF THE PAPER DUTY.

some ladies in Italy. " Sir Jasper Carew" is con-
tinued in three chapters, entitled " The Price of
Fame," "Dark Passages of Life," "Ussafich." The
story becomes very melancholy, indeed. In the
first chapter the unfortunate actress goes mad.
She had been a great favourite, but suddenly the
tide of popular favour turned against her, and she
could not bear up against it. The hero of the nar-
rative was driven to despair by her untimely end,
and for some time he lived in a state of apathy.
At last he joined the French army, and met with
his usual ill luck, for he offended the officers of his
' regiment, and, losing all his self-command, struck
one to the ground. He was condemned to death,
but saved by the intervention of a friend, Count
Ussafich, the Pole, who was before mentioned in
the story. He left the army, and lived with him
for a while, but the count engaged in a duel, which
proved fatal to his adversary. The consequence
was, he and Jasper Carew took to a hasty flight,
and we leave them hurrying to Namur in hopes of
being concealed from their pursuers.

Colburn's United Service.—" Military Schools
and Colleges in France" is concluded in this month's
number. At the end, the author of the various
articles that have appeared on this topic observes
that there still remains much to be said on the
subject, and that he has been advised by some
friends to reproduce what has already appeared on
an enlarged plan, in a volume or two. If such
should eventually be done, there is no doubt that
a very useful work might be made of the materials
before us. "The Internal Condition of Austria"
is discussed at great length, and great stress is laid
upon the necessity of abolishing absolutism. It is
thus urged :—" Will ye, oh Austrians ! throw all
the crimes, follies, and mistakes, which are inse-
parable from even the best of governments, upon
the head of one man. The question between a
constitutional government and an absolutism is
simply whether all are wiser than one—if it is pos-
sible that the possessor of absolute power can al-
ways abstract himself from human prejudices and
passions, and the influences of those interested in
the continuance of abuses 1" " The Siege of Syra-
cuse" is an interesting subject, which is treated of
with ability. " The ancient city of Syracuse covers
an elevated plateau, resembling in its shape the
form of an isosceles triangle." " Greeks, Cartha-
ginians, Romans, and Saracens successively pitched
their tents upon the Olympeium." This account
will be continued.

Colburn's New Monthly. "The War with
Russia," of course, is one of the chief articles in
this number. It contains extracts, from two
volumes recently published, which give circum-
stantial accounts of the peculiarities of both Turks
and Russians. A paper on Yucatan and Lake
Itza is curious and entertaining. No. VI. of
Tales of my Dragoman is a romantic story, entitled
" A Padischal Rowland for an Islam Oliver."
" German Singers and English Audiences" is a
narrative of the "Kolner Manner Gesang Verein",
who visited England last year, partly from the
desire of aiding the cathedral building fund. Their
descriptions of England and the English manners
are entertaining, and their criticisms, in many in-
stances, just ; but it is somewhat ungenerous,
after the cordial reception they met with, and the
encouragement they everywhere received, to laugh
at the English taste for music, and assert that " no
nation in Europe has been treated in such step-
motherly fashion as regards musical talents and
ear as the English." This remark does not pay a
very high compliment to themselves, as they appear
to have so well suited the English taste. There is
a longand interesting criticism on "Ruskin's Stones
of Venice," and a pleasing series of " Vignettes"
from a poet's portfolio. There is the commence-
ment of an agreeable domestic story, entitled "A
Visit to Worcester", by the author of " The Unholy
Wish," and a paper " About Lord Brougham " is
interesting. The story of an old Manor-house is
a ballad in Mrs. Acton Tindal's pleasing and melo-
dious style. " The Orphan of the Wreck" is another
metrical contribution, relating an incident in the
late wreck of the Tayleur, in which was found a
young child about a year old, whose parents were
supposed to have perished.

Bentley's Miscellany. —The readers of " Aspen
Court" will regret to miss it this month from the
pages of Bentley, owing to the illness of the author.
The first article in the present number is a paper
on " The Emperor Nicholas, and the War in the
East," which is accompanied by a map of the lower
Danube and its adjacent provinces. " Arthur
Arden, the Medical Student," is continued, and
relates the mistakes of a country visitor to London.
" Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe in 1853,"
by Grace Greenwood, describes her acquaintance
with several literary celebrities of the day, but
there is something too personal in the introduction
of living characters into such an account. It
might be tolerated in another country, but to pub-
lish it in the very town in which these individuals
reside, is something like a breach of confidence. It
is too much the fashion nowadays to intrude upon
private life, and to make the most open attacks upon
the domestic affairs of any one of literary or political
note. There is an interesting paper on the opening of
the Houses of Parliament, in which it is remarked
that in the present Ministry, who have shown so
little diplomatic talent, there are no less than five
members who have filled the post of Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, namely, Lord Aberdeen,
Lord Palmerston, Lord Granville, Lord Clarendon,
and Lord John Russell. Truly, experience is not
always instructive. " Constantinople : its Supply
and Defence," is an article on a subject of much
present interest. " Confessions of a Middle-aged
Gentleman" is a humorous tale.

Ainsworth.—" Nicholas Flamer' proceeds as
usual, chiefly narrating the adventures of the
Templars. It is followed by an interesting com-
parison of the progress of the inventive art in
France and in England. A variety of tales and
sketches are, as usual, to be found. Among them
may be mentioned a village tale, " Winter Stories,"
which relate to ghosts, as winter stories should,
and " Hereward of Brunne," a tale of the
Conquest. The only poetical contribution is a
simple song by J. E. Carpenter, called " The
Floweret of a Day."

Tait.—The first paper in Tait is a continuation
of the essay which appeared last month, on the
" Mythology of the World to Come." It gives in
this number a sketch of the superstitions of the
earlier centuries. It is not yet completed. It is
followed by an eastern tale, entitled " Nargisi,"
from which it appears that human sacrifices have not
been altogether suppressed among the religious sects
in India. There is an interesting article on the
" Reporter's Gallery in the House of Commons,"
which gives some amusing details of their first
entry. "My first Whale," is an account of an
adventure in the arctic seas. " Med Smith," a
story of the middle classes, not remarkable for ele-
gance, is continued. There is an article on the
" New Poets," which shows much good sense in its
remarks. There is also an entertaining account of
the "French Charcoal Burners," and several other
papers of interest.

The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Re-
view.—Some remarks are made on the life of
Charles James Fox, recently published. It is said
that the memory of the distinguished statesman is
done ample justice to in these volumes. " They
give us vivid glimpses of his genius as an orator of
his greatness as a statesman, of the many attractive
qualities in his personal character. Perhaps no
human being, wrote Gibbon, was ever more per-
fectly free from the taint of malevolence, vanity,
or falsehood." " Grotius on the Rights of War and
Peace" may very likely contain some useful hints
Land
and the present momentous epoch. " Rhine and
and its Romance" is an interesting sketch of someth
legends of a romantic nature. It is observed at
the spot sacred to mystery and supernatural agency
is between Cologne and Mayence. Every stream
re-echoes a story of an elf or an imp, and every
meadow on its shore is danced upon by gossamer
fairies, or galloped over at the witching hour of
night by ghastly ratters and skeleton steeds." Se-
veral instances are given of the tales referred to,
which are of an extraordinary nature to be credited
in the present day. " Early Female Asceticism"
contains notices of Paula and Eustochium. Paula
was a Roman lady, remarkable for a holy life.
Eustochium, her daughter, followed in her steps.
Jerome composed her epitaph. "To this record
it is that we are indebted for the detail of the life
of the ascetic Paula, in which, if there is much we
may blame or cavil at, there is assuredly no less
that commands our respect and admiration.

•
LAUNCH OF A PORTUGUESE MAIL STEAM-PACKET.—
Messrs. Rumplays, Tennant, and Dyke, of Deptford,
having contracted to supply two mail steam-packets for
conveying the mails on the Brazils station, and the first,
built of wood by Mr. Thompson on the diagonal prin-
ciple, as introduced by Mr. Lang, now master•ship-
wright at Pembroke-yard, in his design for the Banshee,
being ready for launching, on Tuesday last a considerable
slumber of spectators assembled, and Miss Huinphrys,
having christened the vessel, naming her the Santa Cruz
(or holy Cross), and breaking a bottle of wine on her
bows, she immediately glided off the slip into her future
element. The Santa Cruz is 166 feet in length, 21 feet
in breadth, 11 feet deep, and has accommodation for 60
first-class passengers. Her engines are of 90-horse
power, with feathering paddlewheels. She is the first
vessel built on the diagonal principle entered at Lloyd's
as 13 Al. She was towed to Messrs. Humphreys,
Tennant, and Dyke's establiab.m.ent at Deptford inunea
distely after, to have her enginea Fit on board.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has his budget now
in hand, and no time should be lost by those who desire
the repeal of the paper duty. The educational and
moral aspect of this question, however interesting and
however serious, has its own proper time for being
brought forward, and may be injured by being thrust
upon either ministers or the public at an inappropriate
moment. But the commercial view of the paper duty
is one which belongs peculiarly to this season, and one
which, to say the plain truth, will bear no delay. If
we were at war with half-a-dozen nations, and had been
at war half-a-dozen years, it would still be good policy to
repeal the paper duty immediately. The injury now
arising from that duty is so extensive, that the national
saving by repeal would constitute a rich fund out of
which to pay better taxes. Omitting all considerations
of the spread of literature and political information
among the people, and regarding paper merely as we
would any other commodity, the truth is that the state
of the manufacture is becoming very serious. Paper is
so scarce, and not only so dear but so indifferent, that
something must be done. Many things must be devised
to bring round the manufacture and trade to a sound
state ; but nothing can be done till the duty is repealed.
It must be remembered that paper is used for many
things besides books and newspapers. If Mr. Gladstone
is not completely aware of this, he should see some Shef-
field and Birmingham manufacturers, and hear from
them the details of the singular fact, that certain
branches of our manufactures are excluded from foreign
markets by the cost of the one item of wrapping paper.
Various articles, which the Americans have no natural
facilities for making cheaper than we can, are sold by
them, without competition from us, because the profits
of the sales would be precisely absorbed by the cost of
the wrapping paper at home. Very large markets are
closed against us in India and throughout the east, and
in Africa and elsewhere, by this one superiority on the
part of the Americans. Again, there are large branches
of manufacture, of which paper is the raw material,
which we are in danger of losing altogether, or of being
unable to introduce, from the dearness and badness of
the article. The whole range of the papier-mache manu-
facture, from hand-screens to colonial dwelling-houses
and churches, is the first that occurs ; but it is far from
being the only one. When the census supplement on oc-
cupations comes out, we shall be able to form some idea of
the amount of subsistence which depends on the pro-
sperity of the paper manufacture. Meantime, we know
that the number of people employed directly in the
fabrication of paper, some years-since, was reckoned
at 30,000, and that the annual value of the manufacture
was not less than 2,000,0001. If we reckon the trades
employed in the apparatus and appliances of the manu•
facture its importance is obviously very great ; and if
we add the inventions of recent years, the development
of foreign commerce, and the rapid improvement of
American manufactures of every kind, it appears that
the case is urgent enough to demand the immediate at-
tention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The mischief is of two kinds—that which arises from
the excise duty, and that which is occasioned by the
scarcity of the material. We need not settle which is
the greater of these two evils as long as we know that
there is no remedy for either but the removal of the
duty. While every other branch of manufacture is un-
dertaken and improved by fresh hands, there are no new
paper mills, or they are very rare. It is only men of
large capital who can enter into a business of which they
have not the free management and the complete command;
and it is only those who have long been familiarised with
the interference of the Excise who will engage in a busi-
ness where such liabilities are concerned. All the need-
less and wasteful trouble introduced in such a case—the
wetting, and drying, and rewetting, the visiting, and
peeping, and spying, and marking, and weighing, the
restrictions as to locality and methods—the whole plague,
in short, of Government meddling—is quite enough to
determine any man's choice in favour of some other ma-
nufacture, wherever a choice exists. The fewer and more
habituated are our paper makers, the less chance there
is of improvement, and of inventions and discoveries that
may increase the supply.
As to this necessary increase of supply, we have some
experience of what the effect of taking off taxes really is.
In 10 years from the reduction of the paper duty in 1836,
the production was declared to have about doubled ; and
the increase was, in fact, much greater than this, for the
increase was estimated by weight, at a time when the
introduction of the new postage caused a prodigious
resort to thin paper. Eight years more have now passed;
and we are almost aground for a supply. If the manu-
facture were thrown wholly open, made entirely free,
the taxpaying resources of whole classes would improve
out of all proportion to the amount of the tax.
A most striking fact in the history of the manufacture
is very suggestive as to the results, in regard to supply,
which would follow the removal of the duty. There
have been alarms before about the failure of the raw
material. We have been accustomed to go far for our
rags—even as far as Trieste, for the collective rag-hags
of the Austrian empire. While we were doubting about
the continued sufficiency of the supply from abroad,
people at home were improving their processes and ap-
paratus. This made paper cheaper ; and the cheapness
caused such a demand that we found out a new store of
raw material at home, in the sweepings of our flax and
cotton mills, which were before used as manure. The
remarkable fact is that, while paper was growing cheaper
and coming more into demand, our importation of rags
declined. If the manufacture were now set free, there
would be more improvements, more discovery of new
material, at home and abroad, and a quickening and
expansion of commerce, in not only paper but a hundred
articles besides, that would he of more consequence to
our national finances than any Excie duty ever was to
any Government.
As to the time for urging this matter—it seems that
no time can be amiss for extinguishing a loss, and se-
curing an honest profit. We are urging, not a sacrifice.
but a gain. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would
allow us to tax ourselves, to the amount of the existing
paper duty, we could engage to propose a variety of
modes of taxation innocent in comparison. The most
blundering of us could hardly hit upon another so ob-
jectionable, and we earnestly hope that the agitators for
the paper duty repeal will adopt resolutions for vigorous
action upon this subject, and that they will zealously
carry out what they resolve upon.—Daily News.

THE FIRE AT APSLEY PELLATT'S GLASS-WORKS.—
It was found out yesterday that the damage done by
the fire at Apsley Pellet's Glass-works was considerably
greater than was at first expected. The stock in trade
in the show-rooms was of great value, and comprised
probably as fine a collection of crystal articles as can be
found in any house in the same hue of business in the
metropolis. Amongst the number were several costly
chandeliers, including the one that attracted so much
admiration in the Great Exhibition of 1851. It is re-
ported that that article alone was worth 3,0001. Unfor-
tunately all that remains entire of it is the frame, all the
beautiful glass drops having been melted. Nearly all
the other goods in that compartment are likewise re-
duced to mis•shapen masses of broken glass. The total
loss must amount to several thousand pounds sterling.
A COMMON ON FlRE.—Yesterday afternoon, between
one and two o'clock, some evil-disposed persons set fire
to the furze plantation between Feltham and Twicken-
ham. Before any assistance could be obtained the flames
had travelled with lightning speed over some acres of
ground, destroying in their progress many hundred
valuable furze trees. At one time the flames were
rising many feet into the air, and presented a singu-
larly grand spectacle, which was witnessed by hundreds
of persons travelling by the London and South-Western
Railway. A great many farm labourers having been
obtained, they wont to work, and with the aid of
shovels and hand-poles, they managed, after some
hours' labour, to cut off further extension of the de-
structive element, but not until some acres of land had
been swept clean of what was growing an hour or two
before.
ANCIENT ROMAN PAVEMENT IN THE CITT.—A re-
markably fine specimen of ancient tesselated pavement,
of very beautiful design, and in excellent preservation,
discovered a few weeks since on the site of the old
Excise-office in Broad-street, was yesterday submitted
to the inspection of a large number of the cognoscenti, on
the invitation of Mr. Tite, the well-known architect,
under whose direction a pile of magnificent buildings,
for the accommodation of the merchants and bankers
of London, is now being raised, upon the spot where
the Excise-office formerly stood. Gresham College,
once the residence of Sir Thomas Gresham, formed
a
having
p i nc ip a
been p asrotl
dof
to thesitee
own
hthhey oldthe Excise-office,eerperati
on
the
about 1730. The relic ofantiquitydiscovered just
was not found under • •
any portion of this house, but
under an adjoining property, which the Crown subse-
quently purchased, and upon which stood the once
celebrated Sun Tavern. When the Excise-office was
built, the vaults under the Sun Tavern were allowed to
remain undisturbed, and for many years past they have
been used as stores for contraband spirits forfeited to
the Crown. These vaults bear evidence of having been.
built about the period of Henry V. or Henry VI.,
but it is a remarkable fact that in no case does the
foundation of the arches or walls reach the surface of the
Roman pavement. The hypothesis, therefore, is, that the
ancient building of which the hidden pavement must
have formed one of the floors may have been burnt
down or fallen into ruins, and that the superincurn-
bent rubbish, becoming a solid mass, the arches wore
pitched thereupon. In consequence of the discovery of
some fragments of Roman pottery at an early stage of
the excavations, Mr. Edward Clayton, the resident
architect, gave iestru ctions that the works should proceed
with great caution ' • and it is owing to this circumstance
that the pavement has been so well preserved. It was
first discovered by two men while sinking a hole for a
scaffold-pole, and information having been conveyed
to Mr. Tite and Mr. Clayton, they directed that every
care should be taken in uncovering the remaining por-
tion. The result has been the laying bare a surface, 28
feet square, with comparatively few imperfections—
the colours being admirably preserved, and the design
perfect throughout. From the centre square, representing
"Ariadne on the Leopard," it seems probable that the
pavement belonged to a triclinium, or dining room,
though several connoisseurs, yesterday, pronounced it
to be the floor of a bath-room, However this may be,
it is in a remarkable state of preservation ; and though,
perhaps, inferior to the best-preserved specimens at
Rome, is fully equal to those found at Pompeii, and
other provincial cities of Italy. Mr. Haw
.ins of the
British Museum, was among Mr. Tite's visitors yester-
day, and it is understood that the beautiful relic will
probably be deposited anion other antiquities of
iusaar clathcter m that colisotim