The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-17 00:00:00

AN INMATE OF A CONVENT POISONED.

i
An inquest has just been
.brought toah. Close before I'
Mr. Fry, coroner for Somerset, at the wteartnu,
u I
Brislington, touching the death of a fine young woman,
named Emma Forty, but known in the convent as Me-
lanie, who was a penitent in the Convent of the Good
Shepherdess, at Amos Court, and who came to her death
through poison, administered to her by the Sister Assis-
tant, Miss Sophia Ryder, in mistake for a medicine which
had been prescribed for her by the medical attendant,
Dr. O'Brien. Miss Ryder is stated to be the daughter
of a Protestant bishop, a near relative of the Earl of
Harrowby, and a niece of Sir George Grey, and she is
herself a pervert. A grea:. number of rumours had got
abroad. respecting the circumstances under which the
deceased had been poisoned, and a very unusual degree
ofinterest was manifested throughout the very lengthened
inquiry.
The jury having viewed the body, a number of wit-
nesses were examined, the substance of whose evidence
was, that the deceased was suffering from an internal
complaint, for which the physician prescribed the pro-
per remedy in the shape of a draught. The dispensing
of the medicines prescribed, however, was entrusted to
Sophia Ryder, one of the nuns, and she in mistake used
oft
tincture of aconite and morphine instead of tine
The _ conse
quinine in making up the prescription. quence was, that deceased died in a few lion
administration of the medicine. A postd
l'rezulted from
nation of the body showed that death
demonstrated to
poisoning by aconite, and it wasais
have been caused purely by accident.
the evidence,
turn a
The coroner having summed up the
they wished tse
na ft
et exra
mt hie.
t°return
death
The foreman of the jury said
"That Emma Forty's
verdict in the following form :

•
was occasioned by the negligence of Miss So thia Ryder,
who administered to her aconite, a poisonou u mis
take for medicine prescribed for her, r CIE):
eider that much blame is attributa t.,41744114,0,:u•t%
of the convent for allowing a p
therein of permitting persons to (1'
from their want of the necessary cictioli77oo3jio*Ti
of their nature. The jury furt
hope that such practice will in tilt
Mr. Gillow, surgeon, said he
rior to say that a change would .71 ac (• .01e
(Mr. Gillow) had formerly dispensed t. • 411tv
until his increasing engagements prevented his so'tf g.
It was here suggested that the term "negligence' im-
plied a duty, so that the verdict might amount to one
of manslaughter.
The foreman said such was not the intention of the
jury. They merely nished to censure the system ; and
ultimately the verdict was modified by altering the words
to "was caused by the administration by Miss Ryder
in mistake," &c.

THE INCOME TAX.

(From the Times.)

On Friday last, a deputation of officers from the
leading assurance companies of the kingdom at-
tended in Downing-street to present a memorial to
the Prime Minister on the subject of the existing
Income Tax. The remonstrants, it is understood,
were courteously received, and apprised by the
mouth of Lord Aberdeen himself that the impost
in question was under the earnest consideration of
Government, and that the abilities of the entire
Cabinet ;would be taxed to effect an equitable solu-
tion of the problem. The assurance thus given
will naturally be deemed satisfactory ; nor have
we any desire to derogate from- the credit of the
first Administration which has- thus accepted its
proper obligations to the public. We do, never-
' theless, consider that the conduct of British states-
men in this respect through eight long years at-
taches an imputation to their science or their po-
licy which even successful reforms will fail entirely
to obliterate. If any reader conceives that we are
speaking with too great severity, we request his at-
tention to the observations subjoined.
The income tax was an experiment of direct tax-
ation avowedly designed to fall upon every man in
the best ascertainable proportion to his means.
Small incomes were exempted altogether, special
deductions were permitted in the cases of farmers
and tradespeople, and schedules were framed for
the accurate classification of the different descrip-
tions of receipts on which the Government duty
was to be demanded. The scheme of taxation thus
organised, after taking cognizance of the various
kinds of property and income so far as to bring
them all within the scope of the act, proceeded to
assume that nofurther distinction subsisted between
them. One person possessed a capital of 10,0001.,
producing 303/. a-year income ; another possessed
a capital of 5,0001., producing the same yearly re-
turn, because the annuity was terminable, and be-
cause a portion of the yearly payment represented a
part of the capital repaid with the interest. The Go-
vernment scheme declared these two incomes to be
identical. A third person possessed a landed estate,
producinghim 500/. per annum, depending on no suc-
cess or exertions of his own, and surviving him for
the benefit of his descendants ; a fourth realized by
his daily toil an annual revenue of the same arith-
metical amount, bub of uncertain duration and cer-
tain terminability. Government declared these
two incomes identical also. It declared, in short,
that there was no distinction in taxable qualities
between imperishable property and precarious pro-
fits. In defiance of the common sense of the
country and the manifest assumptions of every-day
life, it was held and assumed that incomes of a
given amount, whether earned by labour or arising
spontaneously from capital—whether continuable
for five, fifteen, fifty, or five hundred years, were
all of the same valte, and that each and all enabled
the possessor in exactly the same degree to contri-
bute to the exigencies of the State.
Now, we have no wish to scrutinize too minutely
the circumstances under which this tax was first
imposed in 1842. Perhaps at that moment it was
really believed that the impost would not be re-
quired or not tolerated beyond the brief period
originally fixed for its duration. Perhaps it was
thought that an elaborate reconstruction of its pro-
visions would look too like the introduction of
direct taxation as a permanent feature in the
budget, and that the revival of an old tax in its
old form would be more consistent with the idea of
a sudden and temporary emergency. On this
point, we repeat, we will not insist ; but what we
assert, and in confirmation of which we appeal to
the reader's own knowledge, is, that almost the en-
tire body of reputed "statesmen" did, while they
foresaw and advocated the continuance of the tax,
oppose themselves, by all possible means, to the
correction of its notorious inequalities. If the
question had been left in their hands, the very
problem on which an able Administration is now
strenuously engaged would never have received
any attention at all. It was with great diffi-
culty that Mr. Hume could obtain even his
Committee of Inquiry upon the subject, and
when the committee had been at work strong ob-
jections were made to the publication of the evi-
dence. When the universal indignation at this
financial injustice produced a thousand propo-
sitions of reform, the " statesmen" of the House
availed themselves of this very fact to argue, with
edifying gravity, that where no two persons agreed
upon the same remedy there could be no remedy at
all. All positively affirmed, on their own personal
convictions, instinct, and experience, that it was
absolutely impossible to distinguish between per-
manent and precarious incomes--that the income
tax could never be adjusted—said that as long as it
was maintained at all it must be maintained as it
stood. And what position have they now assumed
before the eyes of the nation ? These
*very men
have practically confessed that their assertions had
no foundation at all. One after another, under the
influence of a wholesale competition for public con-
fidence, they have given in their adhesion to the
truth. One party at length advocated the simple
but effectual proposition that schedules of incomes,
already distinguished in every other respect, should
be distinguished by different rates of impost also.
Another acknowledged, through its leader, that
" it might be possible to distinguish between per-
manent and precarious pos.:: sssions ;" and at 'length
all became so completely of one ac. ord on the main
point at issue, ti At the only dispute was which
could perform mot dexterously that very operation
which, a few months earlier, they had combined to
assert could never be performed at all.
By these proceedings the whole industry of this
most industrious country has been subjected,
through a series of trying years, to a most unfair
taxation. The knowledge and intellect of the
professional and commercial classes were set in
open and declared opposition both to the tax itself
and to the excuses by which its continuance was
defended. Any actuary in London would have
undertaken to produce a scheme which should, by
common confession, have approximated 90 per cent.
more closely to absolute justice than the scheme
maintained by Government, in alleged dread of
getting a more unjust one. Be it remembered,
that the particular point on which Friday's protest
was recorded, though it called forth the remon-
strance of 61 assurance offices, representing a capital
of a hundred millions sterling, and, what is even
more, a matchless a ggregate of knowledge and ex-
perience on this very subject, was, after all, but one
point in the general complaint of the kingdom. It
is perfectly true that the identification of term_
ble with perpetual annuities causes a monstrous
class
imposition on one class of annv;,'-ants, but the of annuitants is infinitely smaller
which has no annuity at all,
a nd than that class
which theless taxed on a single is never-
year's earnings exactly r S
if those earnings, without any further 61a19our, were
to endure for ever.
The deputation showed most
convincingly that the
minable annuity comprised,
beinsidsteaslmtheentporoffiatsteorf-
the suin invested
and that
this was only a certain portion of the capital,
this capital by the present law was actu-
ally taxed as income. This was indisputable ; but
one of the faults of a system
Which was resolutely defended by British states-
men as more faultless than any which the know-
ledge of the nineteenth century could devise.
It remains on record that the conductors of our
public business have held injustice to be neu-
tralised by the universality of its operation.
They did not deny that the recipient of a ter-
minablee annuity was unfairly treated as a lifannuitant ; they did not deny that arerman
trades-
man earning 509/. a-year was a
v poorer
land ;
than the possessor of 500!,
the innxjendstlinceusbtright to naur.
11,1Per° their taxable
they not deny that in a taxa:- en'
was tractabdly desirable to consi
as
every income
value. What they said was, that•alue, was taken and
in the kingdom, of whatsoeverti'cai amount, and as
incomes it
assessed at its naked aritthh
luereefore needs suffer some
every person taxed
injustice, the other gained, or, if all
nrar. Finally,
either one lost became nothing at all,—that
lost alike, none d
hwa(l;:er:JY
'edged that the experiment thus
it is quietly ackn
public opinion has compelled a reform,
now that
positively and repeatedly declared impossible had
er been tried. Of its success we have no
knienvdayeLibt i but the very facility will only place
in a stronger light the unsoundness of the states-
inanshiP by which injustice so easily remediable
was so oustinately maintained.

CHAPTER OF THE GARTER.—Summonses were issued
on Saturday for a Chapter of the Order of St. George to
be held to-morrow at Windsor Castle, for the election of
two knights. The Duke of Norfolk (Lord Steward)
comes from Arundel Castle to attend the investiture.