The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-18 00:00:00

NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

In answer to Mr. H. BAILLIE,
Sir W. MOLESWORTH said that as the papers which
had been laid before the house relative to the charges which
had been made against the New Zealand Company fully
bore out those charges, he saw no reason for asking for a
further inquiry this session.

THE BUDGET.
On the motion for going into Committee of Ways and
Means,

Petitions were presented by Lord Hotham, Mr. Bright,
Mr. Peto, Lord Dudley Stuart, for different medical socie-
ties; by Lord Stanley and other honourable gentlemen,
praying for an alteration of the income tax so far as
it bears upon precarious incomes ; by Mr. Kershaw,
from Stockport, against the taxes on knowledge; by
Mr. Ewart, praying for the repeal of the duties on
butter and cheese ; by Colonol Harcourt, from the
Isle of Wight, against the duty on malt and hops ; by Mr.
Gaskell, Mr. Hume, Mr. Cobbet, and Mr. Milues, for a re-
peal of the certificate tax.

Twe house then went ink committee, Mr. BOUVERIE in
the chair.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER then rose
and said that, although on ordinary occasions the annual
exposition of the financial prospects of the country afforded
abundant material of interest to this house and the country,
and anxiety to the person charged with preparing that
statement, on the present occasion perhaps that interest on
the one hand, and certainly the anxiety on the other, was
greatly increased by many circumstances, including the
great number of motions which had recently been made,
indicating the increased eagerness of the people respecting
financial questions. The political events and shocks which
had enfeebled and overthrown Administritions had made
it necessary to adjourn from year to year financial ques-
tions of taxation. The first portion of his duty would be
to lay before the committee the account of the country,
and he thought he should best discharge that duty by
taking up that account at the point where it had
been left last year by the right honourable gentleman
opposite who then presided over the financial department.
On the 30th of April, 1852, the right hon. gentleman es-
timated the revenue at 51,625,0C9/., and in the month of
December following he stated it at 52,325,0C31., exhibiting
an increase upon his estimate to the amount of 700,0001.
The time which had since elapsed afforded evidence of a
similar gratifying character, for the revenue which the
right hon. gentleman had then judiciously stated at
52,325,0001., amounted, now that we had reached
the termination of the year, to no less than
53,890,0001. (cheers) -- showing an increase of no
less than 1,464,0001. The expenditure of the past year was
estimated by the right hon. gentleman on the 30th of April
at 51,163,0001., but the actual expenditure had been
50,782,0001., and consequently there remained a sur-
plus of revenue over expenditure of no less than 2,460,0601.
But having reached that smooth and steady progress, it
now became his duty to make some deductions from that
sanguine estimate, which he must confess, coming from
the quarter it did, excited his surprise. The increased in-
come was anticpated to be 2,460,0001., it was supposed
that they would have that sum available for the remission
of taxation. Before they arrived at that there was ono cir-
cumstance rather material to examine. What was the es-
timated amount of the expenditure for the year just
commenced. When he looked at the sketch that had been
drawn of it at the period to which he referred, he found it
was as follows :—The expenditure for the year 1852-3 was
estimated at 50,782,0001. ; but the expenditure for 1853-4,
the great bulk of which had already been voted, and in
the remainder of which he could anticipate no reduction,
was 52,183,0001. Therefore, without going into further
particulars, which he was sorry to say would occasion still
further deductions from the surplus, it appeared that
no less than 1,400,0001., or nearly three-fifths of the
surplus was already disposed of by the charges to which
the country was liable under acts of Parliament, and for
the discharge of miscellaneous services which he appre-
hended the house would not be disposed to diminish. His
right hon. predecessor had in December last estimated the
total surplus of the present year at 1,60,0001., and that
the only decrease in that would be a sum of 100,0001.,
which he proposen to apply to the light dues and to
the shipping interest, and a sum of 600,0001., which
he thought would suffice for the increase which he
anticipated in the great resources of the country. His
successors in office had not been so fortunate, nor had the
house thought it right to confine the votes within that
limit. He should now state how that surplus of 1,600,0001.
had been swallowed up. The increase in the navy estimates
amounted to no less a sum than 617,0901., and the increase
in the army and commissariat to 90,0001., and they trusted
that hostilities at the Cape had now reached that stage
that they might consider the extraordinary war at an end,
and when further provision was to be made, it should be
classed under the head of ordinary expenditure. Although
he phould be obliged to submit an extraordinary vote of
200,0001., that vote would be retrospective, and there would
be also a vote of 70,0001. for the commissariat, but that also
might be taken as analogous to their ordinary expenditure.
the increase upon the vote for ordnance as compared with
last year was no less than 616,0001. The militia estimates
had not yet been brought into a shape in which they could
be Lid upon the table, but he was sorry to say there was a
large increase upon the amount at which they 'were taken
last year. The estimates for the present year, on account
of militia, could not be expected to be much lass than
530,0001. This time last year it was expected the estimates
would be something like 300,000/. In all other respects
the scheme for raising the militia had realised all the
anticipations that had formed of it, but the increase
of its expense as compared with the reckoning- of the
late Government would bo about 230,0001. The last item
in this augmentation of expense would be a sum of 100,0001.,
which would be added to the votes for the present year
for the purposes of public education, and of the committee
would be at the pain to add together the first items he had
last mentioned, they would find that although the right
hon. gentleman who preceeded him in office anticipated a
surplus of 1,600,0001. on the financial year 1853-54, the
augmentation of changes which had already been voted
first, or were yet come would amount to no less a
sum than 1,651,0001. As he had, however, already
stated to the committee, there had been some further
improvement in the revenue of the country, and he could now
state that there were some few items of expenditure which
the Government had been and were likely to be able to reduce.
With respect to the amount of charge for packet contract
service, as the item at pesent stood, it was most unsatis-
factory, but it was greatly clisproportioned to the amount
of benefit which the 'public obtained from it; but

it was hoped that in the present year there
would be a saving effected of something like 75,0001
(Hear, hear.) There would also he a saving upon the
charge for Exchequer-bills, owing to the diminution in
the rate of interest, amounting to about 65 0001.
while there would be an occasional item of saving
amounting to 135,000 arising out of the Crown
land revenues which would fall due under the
provisions of an existing act and which would
into the category of Ways and Means. There would also
be another saving under the same head, derivable from the
Metropolitan Improvements amounting to 27,0001. (Hear.)
These sums would give funds to about 301,0001. He would
now state to the house the items of the consolidated revenue
and expenditure of the country for the ensuing year. They
were as follows :

Charge on the funded debt ..
„ unfunded debt

£27,500,000
304,000

Making a total of
The charges on the consolidated fund
would be £2,503,000
Army estimates
Navy 6,235,000
Ordnance 3,053,000
Miscellaneous 4,476,000
Commissariat 557,000
Militia 530,000
Kaffir war 200,000
Packet service

Making a total estimated expen-
diduture of the country 0f... 52,183,000
The anticpated revenue was--
Customs
Excise
Stamps
Taxes
Income-tax
Post-office ..
Crown lands • ~
Miscellaneous sources of receipts ......
Old stores ...

... £20,680,000
14,640,000
6,700,000
3,250,000
5,550,000
900,000
390,000
320,000
460,000
He ventured to anticipate a saving of 100,0001. on the
proposed exchange and redemption of stock. Adding up
their estimates I would be seen that the total revenue
amounted
to a sum of 52,200,0001., against which an ex-
penditure of 52,183 0001. had to be set off, this would
Being
show a surplus of 817,0001. anxious, however, not
t) raise undue expectations, he must inform the Committee
that of this sum 200,000/. did not proceed_from permanent or
with regard to the packet service and the harbour of tho
Channel Islands, it was possibla that this surplus might
fall short of the estimated amount by about 100,0001. It
would be safe, therefore, to consider the surplus as
700,0001. This was the state of the revenue of the country,
calculated as nearly as possible up to the present time.
The committee would bear in mind that they had included
in the revenue a fund which had now existed since the year
1842 derived from the tax levied upon income. But that
tax had now legally expired, and it would be for the com-
mittee to consider the circumstances of its re-imposition.
Before entering upon that subject, or detailing the views
of the Government, there were two questions to which he
would refer. The first was with regard to the claims of the
shipping interest. It was the intention of the Government
to propose a plan which they considered would be of

considerable benefit to that interest without inflicting any
charge upon the Government. With regard to the West
India interest, he regretted to say that there appeared to
be little chance, in the view of the Government, of there
being anything to be done by the Government in their be,
half, consistent with their more extended ditties to the pub-
lic at large. With regard to the reduction of the duties upon
sugar, in proportion to the fall in the duties upon foreign
sugar, so as to maintain the differential rates, it was
entirely impossible for the Government to hold out the
smallest hope of their being able to recommend any mea•
sure on that point. With regard to the question of
refining sugar in bond, the Secretary of the Treasury
would take a future occasion of entering more at length
upon that question ; but the Government had not as yet
discovered any method of granting that privilege which
would be satisfactory to the West Indian interest, the refining
trade not involving any heavy loss to the revenue. Neither
could anything be done with respect to the duties upon
spirits. The only way in which there seemed any likeli-
hood of doing anything to benefit these colonies was by en-
abling them to economise the expenses of their government.
(LEFT SPEAKING.)

CONCENTRATED AND DILUTED POISONS
FROM DEAD BODIES.

Death is rife, disease always prevalent, in the vicinity
of intramural burial places. Men accustomed to the
work of grave-digging have, been suddenly struck down
by concentrated emanations from the dead. By a just
retribution, the agents in the iniquity furnish, if not the
greatest• number of examples, yet, according to my ex-
perience, the most remarkable victims. We have nu-
merous instances of grave-diggers, sextons, &c., be-
ing destroyed as it were by lightning. The poison
which produces, when concentrated, such terrible
consequences, must necessarily give rise to various
degrees of disorder or actual disease when admini-
stered in a more diluted form. This I have abundantly
demonstrated. The effects vary according to the degree
of dilution on the one hand, and on the condition of
health, or in other words, the resistance offered by the
individual to its reception. It is in this simple, yet all-
pervading truth, that we must seek the solution of a
difficulty that has long puzzled the reflecting. We know
as little what constitutes that mysterious power—the re-
sistance to proved sources of disease in individual or-
ganisations, as we do of the animating or vital principle.
If, however, we are yet profoundly ignorant of what
causes the heart to beat, the stomach to digest, the
brain to think, the nerves to feel, and our active limbs
to move, facts have taught us that any cause which
weakens the power of resistance, facilitates the action
of miasmatic agencies, and that these agencies are most
rife'and most destructive in the neighbourhood of the
receptacles of the dead. It is true the effects are often
insidious, or mixed up with those arising from other,
but infinitely less easily preventible cause of disease
and hence a few interested parties were enabled to assert
the wholesomeness of graveyards, until the body of evi-
dence which I accumulated became overwhelming, and
reduced them to silence.

Amongst the slighter effects which have been proved
to arise from residence in the vicinity of over-crowded
burial places, I would enumerate eruptive diseases,
headache, giddiness, disorders of the stomach, and
bowel complaints of various kinds. The digestive or-
gans are'very soon deranged Under the influence of the
impure air respired, and a long catalogue of secondary
mischiefs is the result. These. maladies are too often at-
tributed to other causes, but long experience and close
observation force me emphatically to re-assert that
the chief, the primary, the most easily removable
cause of mischief is the proximity to human habi-
tations of public and private burial places. This
is shown to be the case, by the fact that removal
from the poisonous localities is soon followed by restora-
tion to health, and that no amount of medical skill can
benefit the patient so long as he breathes the products
of his deceased neighbour, who is often buried under his
back parlour windows, or, as has happened, beneath his
own kitchen floor.

Can we doubt, then, that instances of sudden death,
malignant fevers of various kinds, assuming forms not
to be found elsewhere—typhus fever, that scourge of
crowded cities, cholera, consumption, and many other
fatal disorders, likewise prevail more frequently and with
increased intensity wherever crowded graveyards abound?
—On the Past and Present State of Intramural Burial-
places, by G. A. Walker, Surgeon.

RACING FIXTURES FOR 1853.
The figures within parenthesis denote the number of

Malton (2)