The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT
,OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

Our readers will find in another part of our paper
tables of the produce of the revenue, for the years
and the quarters ending on the sth of January, 1830
and 1831. The comparative result, we are happy
to say, is more satisfactory than had been anticipated,
and presents a fairer prospect of improvement in the
resources of the country than we have had for several

years. It is no doubt true that even in the last
quarter there has been a falling off, but the deficiency
is extremely slight. Out of a revenue of more than
12,500,0001. the decrease is only 29,503/. We
should naturally have looked for a much greater de-
falcation from the repeal of the beer duties, of the
tax upon leather, and other reductions of taxation
which have been effected in the course of the last
year. The Customs have fallen off 82,1811. a cir-
cumstance likewise to be accounted for by the
financial arrangements of last Session, without the
necessity of supposing any deterioration in the state
of trade. On the Stamps, Post-office, Assessed and
Miscellaneous Taxes, an increase has taken place of
90,503/. Comparing the produce of the revenue for
the whole year which has just expired with its
amount for the preceding year, we find a deficiency
of 640,4501.; but it is gratifying to observe, that in
every successive quarter this deficiency has been
liminishing,and has now nearly become an evanescent
quantity. In the quarter ending the sth of April,
it was 245,812/. ; in that of the sth of .July,
177,3241. ; in that ending the 10th of October,
188,8341. ; and in the quarter which has just ex-
pired, only 29,4801.—Tines.
The Revenue Accounts for the quarter, to which
we refer our readers, exhibit a much more favour-

able appearance than we were prepared for. The
Repeal of the Beer Duty alone, to say nothing of
the Duties on Hides, &c., would, it was thought,
produce a considerable defalcation. We are happy,
however, to find that the decrease on the quarter
ended sth January, 1531, as compared with the

quarter ended sth January, 1830, amounts only to
29,4801. The decrease on the year ended sth Jan.
1831, as compared with the year ended sth Jan.

1830, amounts to 640,5491.

In the quarter there

has been a decrease of 82,1911. in the Customs,
and 37,8021. in the Excise. The Stamps hare
increased 27,1101., the Taxes 44,9551., and the
Post Office 9,0051. In the year the Customs
increased 319,7011., the Taxes 116,8391., and the
Excise decreased 853,9461. The flourishing state
of the Revenue proves that high taxes do not
always yield much to the Exchequer, nor re-
peals of taxes create much defalcation. The
repeal enables the people to increase their con-
sumption, so that the Revenue seldom suffers much.
This fact has so often been proved, that Parliament
ought to take courage, and make further attempts in
the way of repeal. The energy of the country is
great, as is abundantly proved by the manner it
continues to bear up under the pressure of such a
load of taxation.—Morning Chronicle.

By the quarterly returns of the produce of the
different branches of the Revenue for the last year
there appears to be upon the whole year, as com-
pared with the preceding one, a deficiency of
610,450/. ; and upon the last quarter, made up to
the sth January, 1831, as compared with the cor-
responding period of the last year, of 29,4801. The
great falling off occurs in the Customs and Excise,
which alone show a loss of 120,0001. i❑ the last
quarter. This is to be accounted for by the beer and
leather duties ceasing. Against this decrease is,
however, to be set off an increase, in other matters,
of 90,503/. for the same quarter—which makes the
net deficiency what we have stated it, 29,480/. The
Post-office exhibits an increase for the last quarter
of 9,0051., but a decrease on the year of 17,989/. ;
Stamps, an increase on the quarter of 27,1101., but a
falling off for the year of 39,344/.; Taxes, of
44,9551. for the quarter, and of 116,839/. for the
year; and miscellaneous, of 9,433/. for the quarter,
but a decrease of 165,711/. for the whole year. The
Customs show an increase upon the year of 319,701/.,
but a decrease upon the quarter of 82,181/.; but
the Excise a decrease upon the whole year of
853,946/., and upon the quarter of 37,802/. Under
the head of " Charge" upon the Consolidated Fund
some savings appear to be made; but the amount of
the naval and military pensions, and the Civil List,
not being yet fixed, the tables are necessarily imper-
fect. In Exchequer Annuities about one-seventh
has been struck off. To the South Sea Company
we pay some 3,000/. or 4,000/. less than last year.
The dividends appear to be 300,000/. less, but they
are transferred to the next item; and pensions are
15,000/. less than lust year. The amount of un-
funded debt, which is to be re-issued, is stated at
4,354,706/. Upon the whole, the results, consider-
ing the duties which have been repealed, and all the
circumstances of the country, must be regarded as
gratifying. The deficiency in the produce of the
beer and leather duties would have been much more
serious, had not increased consumption of these ar-
ticles filled up the void in another way.—Morning
Herald.

We have great satisfaction in laying before our
readers tho official tables of the net receipt of the
Revenue for the year and quarter which ended yes-
terday, with a comparative statement of the Na-
tional Income for the year and quarter which ter-
minated on the sth of January, 1830. From these
document% it is manifest that the diminution of the
National Income in the quarter just ended, when
compared with the corresponding quarter of the last
year, is no more than 29,4801. notwithstanding the
very considerable reduction of taxes which was
effected in the last session of Parliament, and which
has during the last three months been in full opera-
tion. Without entering into any detailed computation
of the loss which the Revenue must have sustained
by the reduction of taxes, bad not this relief given
au impulse to the consumption of the country, and
in the same degree of course promoted the general
welfare of the community, it may suffice to say that
the repeal of the beer duty alone would have oc-
casioned a diminution of income in the quarter just
ended to the amount of not less than 750,000/.
The actual diminution is, as we have already stated,
29,4801., or something less than a twenty-fifth part
of that which the repeal of the beer duty, had it not
been attended by a positive increase of the national
consumption, and of the comforts and enjoyments of
the people, would alone have produced. This re-
sult of diminished taxation affords a most gratifying
proof that the resources of the country are unim-
paired, and that no very considerable portion of the
community, even under the former unmitigated load
of taxes, were suffering that extremity of distress,
in the exaggerated description of which so many
persons take a factious or a misanthropical de•
light. If the labouring classes generally had been
able to procure only an inadequate supply of
the mere necessaries of life before the repeal of the
beer duty, the relief afforded them by that measure
would have enabled them, no doubt, to obtain more
abundantly than before articles of prime and indis-
pensable necessity ; but as such articles are for the
most part not subject to taxation, the revenue would
have suffered to an extent nearly equal to the whole
amount of the duty taken off. That such was not
generally the condition of the labouring classes of
our countrymen is sufficiently proved by the facts
which the official statements now before us supply,
that a greater consumption of other taxed articles—
of articles of comfort or luxury, has taken place since
the repeal of the beer duty, and that the increase of
revenue from these sources has been nearly sufficient
to make good the deficiency occasioned by this repeal.
We take pleasure in regarding the subject in this,
which we believe to be the correct, point of view.
It presents to a philanthropic Statesman the
strongest conceivable inducement to reduce the
public expellees to the narrowest limits which are
really consistent with the credit, the dignity, and
the security of the State. But it dissipates alto-
gether the melancholy delusion which some persons
exert themselves to propagate, and many are prone
to indulge, that abatement of taxes had become ne-
cessary in order to preserve the permanent resources
of the country from dilapidation and decay,

and that this necessity was so urgent and ab-
solute as even to have justified Government in sa-
crificing or endangering something of national se-
curity or honour for the sake of economy and re-
trenchment. Such economy and retrenchment
would in any circumstances be real extravagance
and prodigality. We must rejoice, nevertheless, on
every new proof that there is nothing in the circum-
stances of the country which can afford the least
shadow of excuse for a grovelling, ignoble, and
short-sighted parsimony, or the least inducement to
snatch any momentary saving at the hazard of
future and permanent evil.—Morning, Post.
It is to be hoped that, in the new arrangement of
the Civil List, the present Ministers will carry into
effect the principle which they advocated when in
opposition—that of separating the King's House-
hold expenses from all other items of expenditure
with which they have no necessary connection, and
settling upon his Majesty the sum required to defray
those expenses, exclusive of all salaries to Judges,
or other public officers, pensions, &c.—that so the
public may know exactly what sum it is which the
Royal establishment costs the country. On this
subject most erroneous notions are entertained by
people in general ; and well they may, for the plan
hitherto pursued with regard to the Civil List was
what might not inaptly be called an " arrangement
of confusion ;" for, though the Civil List was under-
stood to be the special provision made by Parlia-
ment for the personal expenses of the King and his
immediate household, yet matters were mixed up
with it which were of a distinct nature, and which
would not have continued to be so mixed up if it
were not for the purpose of political mystification.
Under the feudal system, which prevailed in this
country in all its vigour from the time of William
the Norman until the reign of Charles 1., the Crown
having great landed possessions, the King, partly
out of the revenues of its demesne lands, and partly
out of subsidies and taxes, defrayed all the great
expenses of the State—such as the charges of
the army and navy, the salaries of Judges, and
other officers, whose remuneration was derived, not
from fees of office, but from fixed stipends. The era
of the Commonwealth brought about a new order of
things, but the Restoration brought about—as re-
storations always do—the revival of the old system,
which made a new revolution necessary ; and that
revolution having been accomplished, the Parlia-
ment took into its own hands the annual support of
both the army and navy, and settled on King Wil-
liam and Queen Mary a Civil List revenue, which,
together with what are called the " hereditary du-
ties," amounted only to 700,0001. per annum.—
This continued the same during the reign of Queen
Anne and George the First, as we stated when ex-
plaining the nature of this financial arrangement
when the Civil List was under discussion. In the
reign of George the Second this sum was aug-
mented to 800,0001. that is, if the hereditary re-
venues did not amount, at any time, to 800,0001.
Parliament was bound to make good the deficiency.
A new arrangement was introduced when George
the Third signified to Parliament his consent that
his hereditary revenues should be placed at their
disposal, to manage them as they might think best
for the advantage of the public. It was then, for
the first time, that a sum of 800,000/. altogether in-
dependent of the hereditary revenues, was settled,
by way of Civil List, on the Crown, which was in-
creased some years afterwards to 900,000/.. then to
1,000,000/., but amounted, with other sources of re-
venue, such as the Duchy of Lancaster and Cornwall,
droits of the Admiralty, &c. to upwards of 1,200,000/.
Under this arrangement the hereditary revenues
which the King placed at the dispoSal of Parliament
were, by the Act of the Ist George 111., cap. 1, car-
ried into, and made a part of, the aggregate fund ;
and the aggregate fund was charged with the payment
of the whole annuity of 800,000/., as originally fixed
to the Crown. All this yearly sum, with the sub-
sequent additions which have been made to it, is
supposed by the public in general to be expended by
the King upon his own establishment; but this is
very far from being the case, inasmuch as out of the
Civil List are defrayed, besides the expences of the
Royal Household, the salaries allotted to the Judges
previously to the year 1758, salaries to officers of
State, the appointments to Foreign Ambassadors,
the maintenance of the Queen and members of the
Royal Family until they receive separate establish-
ments of their own, secret service money, pensions,
and various bounties. At the era of the Revolution
all these expellees, as well as those of the army and
navy, ought to have been separated from the Civil
List, and then the public would not have been led
into the error that the King's establishment cost
the nation a vast deal more than it really did. The
Ministers of the Crown, however, found it conve-
nient to preserve an arrangement which allowed
diem to " job" in secret for the benefit of their
relations, dependents, and parasites, while all the
popular odium of the extravagant and corrupt mis-
application of public money fell on the King. The
late Ministry wished to preserve this deltion, and
even to render the Civil List more perplexed and
mystified than ever. The present Government have
here an opportunity of financial reform ;—we trust
they will not neglect it.—Morning Herald.
If the repeal of the Union were a question, or
were ever to become so, between the English and
Irish nations,--that is to say, if the greater number
of men of education and property in Ireland were to
countenance the proceedings of Mr. O'Connell, his
partisans, and their mob,—it would not be enough
to say that the Union ought in such case to be re-
pealed, and that the British people and their Go-
vernment ought to regard the compact of 1800 as
no longer binding on the Irish, because it is evident
that against the deliberate and general sense of one
of the contracting parties, no treaty of the intimate
and domestic nature of that alluded to could be
considered as physically tenable, much less as ca-
pable, by its continuance, of producing benefit to
either country. What we have contended for is,
that the only advocates for the repeal of the Union
do not represent the intelligence, the property, or
nationality of Ireland,—that they are confined to
Mr. O'Connell himself, and to a faction whose organs
are, and have been for many years, a limited set of
noisy individuals, with no profession but that of
agitators, and no motive but the mean one of
pushing thenßselves up in the world through
the notoriety of their indefatigable turbulence. if
die nobility, gentry, merchants, men of professions,
with any portion worth mentioning of Irish Pro-
testants, were indeed desirous of a repeal of the
Union, we should have petitions pouring in to Par-
liament on the subject, of a different statnp and
character from those which have yet found access
to that body. The cause of emancipation was sup-
ported by the rank and property of Ireland, and by
the all but unanimous intelligence both of Ireland
and Great Britain. The most numerous and

illustrious proportion of the Irish
_Peerage which
has ever arrayed itself on any question, published
memorable declaration in defence of that great
measure; but not more clearly indicative of the
favour in which religious liberty was held by those
who signed it, than the recent Leinster declaration
ought to he considered, of the resolute hostility en-
tertained by the mass of educated Irishmen against
hat civil and spiritual slavery, which, under the
name of a " Repeal of the Union," or as its in-
evitable and almost immediate consequence, would en-
thral themselves and their 7,000,000 of countrymen,
so long as a Popish hierarchy should exist in Ireland
to re-establish a similar sway over the counsels of
weak and violent, though uncrowned, politicians, as
that of which the course was cut short by the manly
wisdom of our Protestant ancestors in 1688, and
the supremacy of which has been overturned by the
contemptuous impatience of the French people, who
saw in the brethren of Jesus and St. Dominic the
everlasting foes of all that man in civilized society
ought to hold most dear. It is not, therefore, be-
cause the independence and enlightened part of the
.
Irish nation, whether Catholic or Protestant, or
mixed, would acquire the power of self-government
by a repeal of the Union, that we deprecate the
prospect of such a revolution as most dreadful, both
fur Ireland and for our own country of Cheat Britain.

We hold in abhorrence the whole scheme, on the
contrary, because it would deprive the better mind
of Ireland of every chance of free agency, or
of the exercise of political power ;—because we
see, from the complexion of Irish politics, that
the rabble, the frantic rabble, goaded on by
its chiefs, would make all government degenerate
into a persecution of the upper classes, and of the
reformed religion. Property, no matter whose, and
Protestantism,—the two great elements of personal
independence,—would, it is so confessed in the re-
ported speeches of the revolutionists, become early
sacrifices to the revived glories of " College-green."
It is not the Catholic gentlemen we fear—they are
like other educated gentlemen ; nor the Catholic
tradesmen—they are, like Protestants of their own
degree, well-informed, and peaceable, industrious,
and honest : no, it is the incendiaries of faction,—
the domineering spirit of demagogue ambition,—
having for its instruments a barbarian multitude,
and having, in the words of a contemporary Jour-
nal, its own " wires pulled," though pulled in secret,
by a far more refined and systematic power. When
we see, for instance, a Jesuit Bishop obtruding
himself upon the field of temporal politics, and ve-
hemently writing up the repeal of the Union,—when
we see a Dominican friar brought forward as an
orator at a public meeting, to mingle with an inflam-
matory address upon the Union, a laboured panegyric
upon the brethren of St. Dominic—that order of
the church of Rome in whose hands have been
placed, and in whose diabolical spirit have been
administered, the revolting powers of the Inquisi-
tion,—when such actors come forth and speak the
prologue, we may guess what a tragedy is to follow.
Again, let us declare most emphatically, that the
Catholic aristocracy, and the bulk of the industrious
and respectable lay Catholics, are as much our
friends, and the friends of civil liberty, as our own
Protestant fellow-subjects, and have as much to
dread from a repeal of the Union; for they do really
fear as much as we do, the double-handed encroach-
ments of the Popish priesthood and of the savage
mob. It is the shocking degradation of the whole
community which would become the rational subject
of alarm. Let a Popish theocracy once get footing
in Ireland, and under the pretence of national inde-
pendence throw off the restraint of a Protestant le-
gislature and of the Royal Government, the country
will not for many generations have the same power
of self-redemption from bondage as was exhibited by
Great Britain and Ireland in 1688, and by France in
1830. The lower orders of Irish are little if any thing
more advanced beyond the gcasp of superstition than
they were in the 17th century; and they would, in
the case supposed, have now five times the
physical force that they possessed at the former
period to assist them in rivetting their own chains.
They are not like the working classes of Frenchmen,
quicksighted to the ridicule as well as hatefulness of
priestly rule; they would more resemble the Portu-
guese arid Spanish peasantry in blind submission to
the mandates of their church, though sensible of
their own power over the finances of the parochial
clergy. In fine, for every description of Catholic
and Protestant in the empire, except the agitating
faction of Dublin, and the Popish hierarchy with its
immediate dupes, the formal repeal of the Union is
irrevocable ruin. Whether, at the same time, a
great deal may not still be necessary to render the
Union real, which it has never been from 1800 to
this hour—whether enormous hardships and griev-
ances are not still to be redressed—whether, if they
be not zealously, promptly, effectually attended to
by the Imperial Parliament, they may not gain con-
verts to the " Repeal of the Union," even amongst
those who are now its conscientious enemies—must
be regarded as very important questions ; and such
as we shall feel it a duty, even towards Mr. O'Con-
nell, to touch upon at an early opportunity.—Times.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HOUSE.

A deputation called yesterday upon the LORD
MAYOR, and stated that they waited upon his Lord-
ship for the purpose of requesting his signAturc to a
petition to his Majesty to spare the lives of the un-
fortunate men who were sentenced to die for ma-
chine breaking at Winchester. The petition was as
follows

" We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, inha-
bitant householders, and others, of the metropolis and its
environs, most humbly and earnestly solicit your Majesty's
merciful attention to the prayer of this our petition.
" Sincerely deploring, as we do, the general distress
which pervades the country, and which has in part occa-
sioned the proceedings we deprecate, but knowing thatyour
Majesty has on various occasions shown a greater disposi-

_ .
Lion to mercy than to severity in judgment, we there-
fore, with the most profound respect, approach your Royal
person, and implore mercy on those poor deluded and un-
fortunate men who are now lying under the awful sentence
of death at Winchester.

" Your petitioners unfeignedly regret that under the ex-
isting circumstances of the case no mercy, save that of the
Crown, can be extended towards those unhappy objects
who have thus offended ; we therefore most fervently en-
treat some commutation of their sentence. We would not
presume to advise your Majesty what should be their pu-
nishment, but we do most earnestly implore your Majesty
to spare their lives.
" Your petitioners look with the confidence of children
to your Majesty as their father, and humbly cry fur mercy
on their guilty yet misguided fellow-subjects.
" And your Majesty's petitioners, &c."
The LORD MAYOR was, as it seemed, about to
sign this petition ; but he afterwards begged that it
should be left for !inn to reflect upon.

A young chimney-sweeper named James Haynes
was brought before the LORD MAYOR, charged with
having conspired, with several other chimney-
sweepers, to annoy the masters in the trade.
A master-sweeper stated that several of the boys
called at his house in the dusk of the evening, when on
account of their" complexion," it was very difficult
to see them, and began to knock about the furniture
and do all the mischief they could think of. The
prisoner was one of the most active of the rioters,
and was caught just as he was running to that outlet
which would have proved a haven of security to
him—the chimney. It was then found he had under
his " cassock" a brass candlestick, the property of
the complainant; so that the affair was not quite
such a joke as some would have it appear.
One of the Society of Chimney-sweepers told
the Lord Mayor that many of the boys had become
quite ungovernable in consequence of the bad con-
duct of others. A spirit of insubOrdination bad
begun to show itself, and under the pretence of
" larking" the greatest annoyance and inconvenience
had been produced. He (the witness) had been
threatened by a dozen or more of them.
Another master-sweeper said that a crowd of boys,
some out of work, and others in employment, had
gone to "lark" in his house when he was out, and
did not decamp until they broke the windows.
It was here stated, that it was not very probable
that the sweeping machinery had given offence, as
the apparatus had been in use several years, and the
master-sweepers present had many apprentices.
Besides, the machinery was not likely to affect any
but small children, who would not be very likely to
combine against the fraternity of master-sweepers.
The LORD MAYOR said, that the boys alluded to
in this complaint, were qualified more perhaps than
any others, from the very nature of their occupa-
tion, to give annoyance to people. His Lordship
observed, that the master-sweepers were perfectly
right in proceeding to check such a mode of joking,
and he should commit as many of the offenders as
should be brought before him.
A gentleman here assured the Loid Mayor that
the young chimney-sweepers acted together in
bands of 20 or 30. On the first night of the pan-
tomimes, about 40 of the juniors of the trade got
into the gallery of the Adelphi, and annoyed the
respectable part of the audience very much ; and
upon being hooted at, they threatened to beat those
who found fault with them as black as themselves.
The LORD MAYOR ordered that the defendant
should be remanded.
BONY-STREET.

On Tuesday evening, police constable, No. 138,
!otter F division, brought before Mr. MINSHULL,
the sitting Magistrate, four women, one of whom