The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-14 00:00:00

LLOYDS' SHIPPIIya--(THIS DAY.)

LONDON, April 14.—Wind, thin day at Noon, N. to
N.N.E., moderate breeze, and cloudy,
RAMSGATE, Aprii 13.—Wind, N.N.E., strong. Sailed
—Figaro, New York.
CHATHAM, April 13.—Wind, E.N.E., strong. Arrived
—Etheldred, Sierra Leone.
DOVER, April 13.—Arrived—Ellen Cork, St. Valcry, for
Sunderland, very leaky, and pumps choked.
DEAL, " April 13.—Wind, N.E., Arrived from
the River, and sailed—Hailequin, Adelaide, S.A. ; Tartar,
Algoa Bay ; Wind, St. John, N.B. ; Diana, Melbourne.
Sailed—Countess of Batave, Valparaiso.
PLYMOUTH, April 13.—Wind, N.E. Arrived—H.M.'s
steamer Scorpion, West Indies. Sailed—Medora, Port
Philip. The Emma, of Liverpool, was lost near Bonny,
Feb 10 ; crew saved.

PORTSMOUTH, April 13. Wind, N.E. Arrived—Mary
Evans, New York.

,
FALmouTH, April 13.—Wind, N.E., strong. Sailed—
Kron, Prius ; Oscar, Quebec ; Alchymist, do. ; Solertia,
Shedia3.

SOUTHAMPTON, April 13.—Wind, N.W. Sailed—Cap-
tain, Quebec.
LIVERPOOL, April 13.—Wind, N.N.E. Sailed—Earl of
Elgin, Sydney, N.S.W. ; Jupiter, Melbourne ; Flint, do. ;
Flora Bella' do. ; Jas. Scott, Shanghai ; Capilla, Singa-
pore ; Jane Morice, Port Natal ; Tremont, Africa ; Cum-
berland, do. ' • Dickey Sam, Buena Ventura ; Annie Wor-
rall, Luna ; Sutlej, Valparaiso ; and the rest of the out-
ward bound—in all, a fleet of above sixty vessels.

PORT TALBOT, April 13.—The Thos. and Sarah, Newport
to Swansea, has been got off the rocks.
LOWESTOFFE, April 13.—The Ann Mills, of London,
from St. John's, N. 8., which was brought in here, March
7, much damaged, after being on shore, went on shore
again yesterday, but was assisted off.
POOLE, April 13.—Wind, E. Sailed—Delia and Caro-
line, Quebec. _ _

Aprill3.—Wind, N.E. Sailed—Alfred, New
York ; Garonne, ditto ; Eleanor, Quebec ; Gentille, King
George's Sound ; Vocalist, Cape de Verd ; Arolus, Ber-
muda ; Emily, St. Thomas.

SHlELDS.—Sailed—Friends, St. Thomas' ; Emerald,
Quebec.

FOWEY, April 12.—Wind, N. Sailed—Royal Adelaide,
Quebec.

YOUGHAAL.—Arrived—lnner, Mazagan. Sailed—Tot-
tenh-ln, Quebec.
MALAGA, April s.—The Albert Schuringa, for Falmouth,
has put in here leaky, and will probably have to discharge
and repair.
GALATZ, March 31.—The Bideford, from Liverpool, is
on shore ; a steamer will proceed to her assistance.
HOALHOERNE, March 29. —The Forsnoes, Saunesund to
Holland, and thence to England, drifted on the rocks and
filled, but has been assisted off, and will proceed to Ferde-
rikstadt to discharge, having received much damage.

FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT ON THE EAST INDIA DOCK
JUNCTION RAILWAY.—On Tuesday morning, between 8
and 9 o'clock, an accident, attended with very shocking
circumstances, took place on the line of the East India
Dock Junction Railway, whereby a man, named Joseph
Meadows, aged 31 years, a porter in the service of the
company, received such frightful injuries that he is not
expected to recover. It appears that the unfortunate
man had only been placed iu his situation a few hours,
and was engaged in the goods department near the
Poplar station ; and on the morning in question he was
assisting in the removal of several trucks into a siding.
He, however, had not been at work long before a train
approached with a quantity of stores, and before he could
get out of the way he was knocked down on the rails,
when the wheels of the carriages passed over both his
legs, which were found to be most fearfully mutilated
and crushed. The poor fellow was raised up by his
companions, and carried to the Limehouse-station,
where he was promptly seen by a surgeon, who rendered
some temporary assistance, and advised his removal to
the London Hospital, whither he was conveyed in a
hackney carriage with all possible speed. He was im-
mediately seen by the medical officers of the institution,
who found, upon examination of the injured parts, that
both the lower portions of the legs must .be amputated,
which operation was at once performed by Mr. Adams,
one of the senior surgeons, who was assisted by'l‘li
Mautell, the resident surgeon. The unfortunate marn.
bore the operation with great fortitude, and last evening
`but faint hopes were given of his recovery.

THE TAX ON ADVERTISEMENTS.

(From. the Daily News. )

To-night Mr. Milner Gibson is to bring under the
notice of Parliament the branch of taxation that bears
peculiarly on the press. On the present occasion he is
to place the subject before the House of Commons in
three divisions—first, the Advertisement Tax, then
Paper Tax, then Stamp Tax. The mere fact of the ex-
istence of this treble taxation on a single product en•
titles the honourable member for Manchester to every
attention and support in his endeavours to correct a
fiscal injustice. The tendency is now towards revision
and to simplicity of taxation. We live in days when
men incline to admit the wisdom of lightening a tax
when it is desired to increase its productiveness ; nor is
the temper of the time one in which a glaringly unjust
amount of charge can be levied on a single product.
It is quite enough to pay one tax on one article,
and when it is seen that a special product has been
selected for the purpose of burthening it with treble
taxation, the sense of common fairness leads men to
cry shame, and to seek the first opportunity of removing
the injustice. If in this country it is thought wise to
raise a portion of needful revenue from a charge upon
that necessary of civilised life—a newspaper—the pro-
ducers, both literary and mechanical, can do little more
than regret the fact, and pay the money ; but when
Parliament does not stop there, but continues to
insist upon a second and third impost on the same
thing, the unfairness and the folly at once justify
and excite a loud claim for reform. It is now clear
that the taxes on the press were originally imposed
rather fcr the purpose of keeping a rein over its
freedom than from hopes of profitable revenue ; hut
even on repressive grounds it is needless to retain the
treble impost ; whilst viewed in the light of productive-
ness to the Exchequer, it has been clearly shown again
and again that these three taxes have a tendency to
damage each other's fruitfulness. The Advertisement
Duty—the first on Mr. Gibson's list—produces little
revenue, but by checking the extension of publicity it
checks business, and thus interferes more or less with a
host of other feeders of the Exchequer. Again, by
limiting the number of announcements, the correspon-
dence that inevitably follows the publication of any ad-
vertisement is lessened, and thereby Post-office produc-
tiveness is interfered with. Then again, every increase
of advertisements must add to the consumption of paper
on which these notifications are printed. Here then we
see the Advertisement Tax in operation againt the
Paper Duty. Yet all the time that every one of these
three imposts is acting against the other the whole three
press in mischievous combination upon the newspaper
which has to bear them. Every Liberal member of
Parliament will surely feel bound to vote on this subject,
and those members who might not be inclined to remove
any restriction which may seem to afford a guarantee
for the press—nay, even those reactionaries who would
if they could prevent or limit the freedom of the press
—that liberty of printed discussion, which is one
of the foundations of our liberties even these,
we say, should assist in removing at least one of the press
taxes, if only on the ground that the other two might be
more profitable to the Exchequer. A deputation who
waited recently on Mr. Gladstone to draw his attention to
the Advertisement Tax put their case very briefly before
him in the form of ten objections, which may be thus sum-
marised. It presses unfairly : newspapers and periodicals
are taxed on each advertisement, whilst all other means
of advertising escape the duty ; it is an unjust tax ; the
rich pay only eighteenpence duty on an advertisement
of an estate, whilst the poor pay the same sum for leave
to advertise for employment; it falls with special weight
on particular kinds of property ; it checks the free ex-
tension of cheap knowledge ; it helps to create a mo-
nopoly, by practically excluding the less wealthy from
the advantages of publicity ; it involves a false principle
of taxation ; it is a tax the repeal or reduction of which
the public would gain the full benefit of; it is a tax
largely evaded: "the blank wall, the advertising van
(dangerously blocking up the public thoroughfares), the
omnibus, the railway carriage, the railway station, the
street pavement, and many other modes of advertising,
reduce the amount paid to Government to a compara-
tively small amount, and leave its pressure exactly where
it is most severely felt, and where many grounds of
public policy condemn it. It is a great impediment to
trade, literature, and labour seeking a market through
publicity—and to the newspaper press for that reason ;
while the small amount of revenue which it yields—
about 160,0001. per annum—renders it altogether un-
worthy of retention, at a cost of a tithe of the hardship
and injustice which it inflicts." To-night not only
Liberals, but men of all politics who advocate fiscal re-
form and fairplay in taxation, may well treat one at least
of the taxes on the press as an " open question," by
giving a vote in favour of reforming the Advertisement
Duty.

KEEPING OF THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS.

(Front the Tines.)

Till a few years ago our middle classes alone were
taught the art of arithmetic. Excepting only such
simple elements as were picked up in the nursery or in
the dame school, gentlemen were thought above learn-
ing it, and labourers below. They, however, who
were not to go to the Universities, or India, or the
plough, did go beyond compound division, and in due
time became familiar with certain mysterious terms,
important enough to form the subject of separate chap-
ters in our popular books of arithmetic. " Gross and
net," " tare and tret," are terms that have haunted
through life many a mind brought up in a commercial
academy, among ushers, slates, sponges, globes, rulers,
and compasses. Practised in these expressions, the
middle-class intellect learnt to discriminate between re-
turns and profit ; to sift from the former their thousand
and one necessary deductions, and not to hail the latter
till it had passed through the furnace of a tenfold exami-
nation. Therein is the great difference, in a commercial
point of view, between the gentleman and the tradesman. '
The gentleman, unless he has a fund of common sense, or
a genius that dispenses with a mercantile education, ruins
himself by a too lavish scale of management. As Adam
Smith says, and as he tells us why, the gentleman never
turns tradesman or farmer without sinking all his returns.
in a too splendid and indulgent scale of salaries, ma-
chinery, material, and experiment. He trades or farms
as he would conduct his town establishment or'manage
his garden., In this respect, the farmer who aspires .to
be a gentleman generally falls into the same error as the
gentleman who condescends to be a farmer.
Now, ;,that -is precisely what is asked from a Legis-
lature of gentlemen at this moment, and what the
Chancellor of the. Exchequer is now prepared to concede,
with regard to the management of the great national.
farm. As Mr. Williams said, on introducing his motion
on Tuesday, in spite of continual .remonstrance as much
as six millions of the revenue is wholly unaccounted for.
It disappears in the management. It falls to the ground,
and runs away in ten thousand pockets, just as the pro-
duce of a careless or extravagant farmer is scattered_
and, lost on the way, during the 'many journeys and
restings,it has to make from the time it is reaped till
it is sold in the market. All that sum, and much more,
for anything that we know, is' spent without ever coming
before .the eyes of the Chancellor.of the Exchequer or
within the grasp of Parliament. It is impossible to say
bow much is collected from the public, and what is the
actual amount of the huge burden under which unfortu-
nate John Bull is continually acquiring a more downward
spirit, a more awkward gait, rounder shoulders, and more
wrinkle'? brow. All we know at present is, that we pay
52,000,0001. andsomething more. Let ns know all that we
have to pay. The most liberal man recoils from the bill
of an extortionate lodging-housekeeper, which, after the
stipulated sum, runs out into a long tail of supplementary
items. Night after night the House of Commons, now
for half a century, has been shaving and paring, in order,
if possible, to save something out of our enormous ex-
penditure, and of late years it flatters itself it has saved
something ' • but it is baffled at the most promising part
of the task by discovering that the expenses of collecting
the revenue are not under its control. While it keeps
down the responsible expenditure, the irresponsible
actually increases ; and though the revenue, after im-
mense deductions, is less than it was twenty years ago,
the expenses of collecting it are actually greater. Was
there ever a stronger argument in favour of a responsible
system ? Exempt any portion of the expenditure from
Parliamentary control and we now see how rapidly it
would increase. Indeed, it is evident that the jobbery
and corruption which we drive from the daylight of
Pailiamentary control take refuge, like bats, in those
holes and corners which lie out of its reach.

In this vast unaccounted margin there is the greatest
variety of payments, and when we inquire into them we
are told that some are too fixed to be worth scrutinising ;
and some too unfixed to bear it ; some too old and some
too ephemeral ; some too great and some too little ;
some too personal and some too national ; but it is obvi-
ous that when contrary reasons are assigned they answer
one another. It is difficult to say what there is to de-
mand either secrecy or exemption from Parliamentary
control in such matters as expenses of quarantine, ware-
housing establishments, judicial establishments in Scot-
land, pensions granted in the reigns of Charles 11. and
William 111., inspectors of corn returns, the civil
government of Scotland, the encouragement of Bri-
tish fisheries, the salaries of process-servers, or allow-
ances to the officers of the tax departments in Ire-
land. If these payments are fixed, there can be no
reason to conceal them. If they are discretional,
that is no reason why they should be done on the
sly. Augmentations of pay, promotions, superannua-
tions, assistant-clerks, leave of absence, perquisites,
payments for extra hours, are all matters in which there
may be the grossest extravagance, favouritism, or injus-
tice, and are therefore peculiarly fit to be under Parlia-
mentary control. There is a general impression that
public servants work less for their money than private
servants, and that, after all, they find it a very thankless
service. The best men in Government service invariably
say that they would have done very much better in pri-
vate employment on any business whatever ; and the worst men are sure to ascribe their not getting
on in the I
world to the depressing influence of a Government office.
We believe, ourselves, that it is a service which suits.
none but the indolent and
sick of
nddull, and that even the stupid
candidleontinu al
scrutiny
invariably
is
re eased itfraottnlatnsta.t
oUomnpdleircatthede
of Parliament
leased
is possible that the
public service might bg
iTr ohil u
y is
whinchota
teansdef
natoy j
fatal toostthoeoiNivitteollescctruotfintilsiee
ere rcoerttian ienl
employj as it evidently is to the interests of the State.
expenditure too- closely, or to overlook claims founded
on reason or presumption. There is, however, a very
general suspicion that many places under the Customs,
Stamps, and Excise, are little better than sinecures, and
are kept up for no other purpose than political influence,
as the nation has at last the sense to call it. Be that
suspicion well founded or not. the only way to extin-
guish the imputation or the
abuse is through Parlia-
mentary control, which, if Mr. Gladstone keeps his
wore and continues in office long enough, we may now
reaFionably kope to ;lee applied be this Intikjeoi.