The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-11 00:00:00

476,3721., and the quarter of 98,7421. On this
point we must take into consideration the fact,
that there was a nearly similar addition to the
receipts this time last year when com-
pared with the corresponding quarter cf 1851.
We must also recollect that several reductions
have been coming into operation just now, and
that, consequently, stocks have been materially
reduced, and yet we still find the large improve-
ment above referred to.
In " Taxes" there is an improvement on the
year of 27,1591., but a falling off on the quarter
of 29,996/. The Property Tax, however, shows
an increase of 204,1911. on the year (equivalent
to an addition of nearly seven millions to the in-
oomes of the industrious middle classes, for these
are the only incomes that fluctuate materially),
and of 24,4671. on the quarter. The changes in
the area of taxation have not yet come into prac-
tical operation, as no money has as yet been col-
lected from persons having incomes amounting to
1001., and less than 1501.
Of the ether items it is sufficient to say that
the " Post-office" shows an increase of 45,00 W.
on the year, but a falling off of 25,0001. on the
quarter. The " Crown Lands " an advance of
182,8881. on the year, and of 10,0001. on the
quartet ; and the " Miscellaneous," of 22,4001.
on the quarter, but a falling off (the only one in
all the items), on the year, of 110,033/.
So much for the ordinary branches. On the
extraordinary there is an increase, on the year, of
133,8801., but a diminution, on the quarter, of
16,2391., while the repayments of advances show
that the general prosperity has enabled the pub-
lic debtors to exhibit much greater punctuality
than heretofore, the addition to the payments
be:ng for the year 618,0081., and for the quarter
207,2121.

We heartily congratulate our friends on this
very favourable state of things. We only trust
that it may be continued, and that the working
classes may not have themselves to blame for any
diminution in the consumption of Exciseable
commodities that may reduce the receipts under
that important item in the national balance-
sheet. We know not how the alarmists will
attempt to get over such an imposing array of
figures, or venture to assail the public credit of
a State based upon such solid foundations.

We wrote a few days ago on the assumption,
justified by the information which had then ar-
rived, that Miss CUNNINGHAME had distributed
the tracts and Bibles in conscious and somewhat
ostentatious defiance of the Tuscan law. We are
most happy to recal this assumption on the expli-
cit assurance of our countrywoman, that she was
at the time entirely ignorant of the law ; an as-
sertion which we could most thoroughly credit in
the face of all the police lies or witnesses which
can be furnished from Tuscany. Moreover, it is
corroborated by the fact, that the new penal code
for Tuscany only came into operation on the first
of last month ; and that it is under this code that
Protestantism is made for the first time a felony.
It appears also that the edict itself is not
only very recent, and, therefore, presumably
unknown to a foreigner, but that it is even of
doubtful validity. The DUKE had given his sub-
jects a constitution including a certain measure of
religious liberty, and this edict is in direct viola-
tion of it. To be sure petty continental despots
following their greater brethren, have been ready
enough in recalling constitutions they had granted.
It would seem, however, that the Duke has issued
an edict which alters a former solemn charter,
without the important form of previously abro-
gating the more liberal enactment. All this,
however, must be left to the lawyers. We stand
firmly on the ground that England will never suf-
fer a subject, and a female too, to be imprisoned
for unconsciously violating the newly-promulgated
law of a foreign country. The Earl of ABER-
DEEN is a fellow-countryman, and, we pre-
sume, a co-religionist of Miss CITNNINGHAME,
and much as he may sympathise with Continental
Autocrats, he is doubtless Scotchman enough to
protect a Presbyterian lady guilty only of not
knowing the extent of Grand-ducal intolerance.
We can hardly doubt that he will concur heartily
with the Foreign Secretary in such "official repre-
sentations" as will be potent enough with a despot
whose subjects would fling him into the sea at
half a word of encouragement from us.

While, however, we assume that England will
never submit to months of negotiations for the
liberation of one of her daughters, whom she
knows to bo most unrighteously imprisoned, we
by no means recal our censure of many censurers
of the DUKE. No terms would be too strong to
express our indignation at his persecuting
enactments. They are a disgrace to Christianity ;
they are undoubtedly, as Lord CLARENDON says,
" opposed to the spirit of the Gospel," but we
wish we could add with him " opposed to the
spirit of the age." The spirit of the age is still
for Governments to have pretty much their own
way in matters of religion. It is so with little
exception from Petersburgh to Madrid, and our
own " enlightened and free country" furnishes,
after all, but an inconsistent exception to the rule.
The Duke could point out to an Irish Church
here, a very small minority, subsisting entirely on
the spoils of Catholics. He could remind us that
an arbitrary Monarch, throughout a very long
reign, deterred some of the ablest and most
powerful ministers England ever saw from
bringing forward any measure of Catholic
emancipation. He could tell us of declara-
tions required from Oatholic Members of Par-
liament and Dissenting Municipal Councillors,
" that they would not injure the Church as by
law established." He could, if he carefully rum-
maged our Church laws, find that most unrighteous
powers of oppression still remained in the hands
of English Bishops, but that they are simply
afraid to use them. We once asked an intelligent
Dissenting solicitor to tell us the legal disadvan-
tages of Dissenters ; he mentioned several more
obvious ones, but assured us that it was quite a
study to ascertain what might and what might
not be done to Nonconformists. One recent
fact is very striking, as exemplifying the
Tuscan temper of the English hierarchy. When
Lord LYNDHURST brought in his noble bill
to relieve Dissenters from the consequences
of many old acts, he dared not for fear of the
bishops repeal the Acts themselves ; it would have
endangered his bill ; the penalties only were re-
pealed, and Dissenters left, consequently, liable to
prosecution for contravening the acts themselves,
which, it is said, would amount legally to a mis-
demeanour. Even Spain could point to Church
laws (and Church clergymen too) which refuse
Christian burial in the parish churchyards to the
child of a Baptist or a Quaker ; and not only do
Acts of Parliament give all their good things, even
to the chaplaincy of a gaol or a workhouse, to the
dominant sect, but only the other day the sup-
posed liberal Corporation of London, by a majo-
rity of 35 to 27, prohibited the most qualified
Dissenter from being Master of its ORPHAN
SCHOOL. But we forbear to multiply illustra-
tions. We do not write these things to extenuate
Tuscan intolerance, but to remind many how
much they need to clear their own vision while
they are taking others to task. Religious Liberty
is but ill understood in England itself.

Every day's intelligence affords additional con-
firmation of the melancholy fact, that violent and
aggravated assaults against the person, more espe-
cially of women, are on the increase, and that the
Act of last session, notwithstanding its stringent
provisions, is utterly inadequate to meet the exi-
gencies of the case. Not a single journal is pub-
lished in which we do not read of some miscreant
being brought to the bar to answer for severe
injuries inflicted on one of the weaker sex, gene-
rally a wife or mistress, without any provocation
whatsoever, and under circumstances exhibiting a
degree of brutality that could scarcely be credited,
proved beyond the possi-
if they had not been
bility of doubt. It seems too as if the depraved
taste for women-beating did not arise very sud-
denly, that it requires careful development and
cultivation. In almost every instance the first
part of the statement refers to a long course of
habitual ill-usage by the prisoner against his unfor-
tunate victim. We can trace the rise and progress
of the practice—fostered by a long course of