The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-09 00:00:00

lead to a robbery of Peter to pay Paul ; whereas,:if
they will look a little deeper, they will see that even
with regard to private debts it does nothing more
than has already been described, namely, make every
one contribute his fair share of the general taxation
of the country according to his means. Take the
following cases :
Here is one man whose debts exactly balance his
creditsi In his case it is of no earthly importance
whatever what the pounds are. He owes, say 500/.,
and he has 5001. owing to him. INThatevn pounds
he receives the same pounds he pays away, and
having done so he has nothing left. He has no pro-
perty to be taxed, and whether the pounds are equal
to 4 dwts. of gold or 5 dwts of gold is not of the
least importance to him.
Here is another man who owes to various creditors
500/., but he has claims on other people to the amount
of 1,500/. ; he has, therefore, a surplus of 1,000.:'.,
and is a man of property to that extent. To the
extent of .500/. it is of no consequence even to that
man what the value of pounds may be, as he pays
away just such pounds as he receives. But he has
a surplus remaining of 1,000/. To that extent,
then, he is a man of property, and the tax taking
effect upon the exchangeable value of his pounds, he.
cancels his indebtedness to the public creditor in
that way. The real. fact is, that the tax is deducted
from the value of the " pound " itself, instead of a
certain number of pounds being abstracted from the
tax payer, and the laws occasioned by the tax falls
on the ultimate recipients of the pounds ; on those
who, after squaring accounts with everybody, after
paying all the pounds they owe, and receiving all the
pounds owing to them, have a surplus number of
pounds left them on the balance. This surplus con-
stitutes them men of property according to its amount,
and the deduction on each of the pounds which form
the surplus, acts as a most perfect property. tax.
The examination of this most important point has
taken so much space, that I must reserve the expla-
nation of the remaining three points for another
letter, which will not need to be so lengthy as this.
In the meantime, Mr. Editor, I beg the honour to
subscribe myself your very obedient servant,

_
EDWARD CAPPS,
Secretary to the Anti-Gold law League.
East Temple Chambers, Whitefriars-street, Nov. 6.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
WORSHIP-STREET.

A young man of gentlemanly appearance, named
William *Sheridan, was charged, upon suspicion, of
having caused the death of his mother, Mrs. Frances
Sheridan, the widow of a captain in the army, resid-
ing in Mare-street, Hackney, by administering to her
some poisonous drug.
Sergeant Hawkes, of the N division, stated, that in
consequence of information reaching the station-house
that the deceased, who had expired after a short ill-
ness on the preceding Friday, had come to her death
by unfair means, he placed himself in communication
with Mr. Drewett, the registrar of deaths for the dis-
trict, who informed him that the circumstances con-
nected with the occurrence were of so suspicious a
character that he felt himself called upon to refuse a
certificate of burial, for which application had been
made, until all the facts attending it had been laid be-
fore the magistrate or coroner. An unfinished inquiry
had since taken place before the last mentioned func-
tionary, who gave orders for the prisoner's apprehen-
sion, and he therefore repaired that afternoon to the
house of the deceased, in which the prisoner also re-
sided, and took him into custody. On apprising him
of the nature of the charge, he made no answer what-
ever, and quietly surrendered himself; but on the
road to the station stated that it had solely arisen
from a bad feeling one of his sisters entertained to-
wards him ; the latter, however, was the principal
witness in the case, and was unable to attend, from -
injuries she had sustained at the hands of the prisoner
who hail so illused her that she had been ever since
under the medical treatment of Dr. Garrod.
Mary Armstrong, an elderly widow, residing in
the neighbourhood, wlao had been employed to assist
in laying out the body of the deceased, which she
described as being in a horribly filthy condition,
stated, that while performing that and various other
offices about the house, which occupied her three days,
she heard the sister accusing her brother, whom she
called a villian, of poisoning her mother, and that, al-
though the accusation was frequently repeated by
her, the prisoner made no denial of it upon either oc-
casion. The sister afterwards told her that she had
been seriously ill-used by the prisoner in consequence
of her interference.
William Randal, the landlord of the house., spoke
to his having heard constant altercations between
the prisoner and the other members of his family,
and to his having been disturbed by one of these
scenes of unusual violence on the night preceding the
death of the deceased, and while the latter was con-
fined to her bed.
Police-constable Attwood, 94 N, also proved that
in the course of a conversation with the injured sister,
who expressed great indignation against her brother,
and regret that she was too ill to appear against him,
she earnestly declared that the prisoner had poisoned
his mother, to whom three powders had been adminis-
tered, and that a bottle containing ether or some such
liquid had been thrown away that day, for which she
was extremely sorry.
Mr. Edward Hacon, a surgeon in Mare-street, de•
posed to having attended the deceased for the last
four days preceding her death, in succession to seve-
ral other medical men, whose services had been
dispensed with after short intervals of attendance, and
that during that time she had been labouring under
diarrhcea and extreme vomiting. She was progress-
ing favourably, however, under his treatment, until
the day preceding her death, when the ques-
tion was put to him whether she was not in such

a state of danger as to require the immediate prepa-
ration of her will ; to which he replied with some
surprise in the negative, as she was decidedly better ;
but upon visiting her in the evening he found her
alarmingly worse, and labouring under symptoms
which could not have been produced by anything he
had prescribed for her. This was about ten o'clock
at night, and at four the next morning she was dead.
The witness had since, in company with Dr. Letheby,
chemical lecturer to the London hospital, performed
a post mortem examination of the body, and from a
careful analysis of the contents of the stomach, and
the extraordinary appearances presented by the liver,
they had had no hesitation in coming to the conclu-
sive conviction that the death of the deceased had been
produced by arsenic, of which they had discovered
sufficient in thci body to destroy the lives of several
persons; and they were also decidedly of opinion,
from the manner in which the poison had been ab-
sorbed, that some portion of it must have been admi-
nistered at least a week, and perhaps a fortnight,
antecedent to death, and that a considerable quantity
must likewise have been received into the stomach
within 48 hours before she expired.
On being called upon for his defence the prisoner
repeated the statement he had previously made to the
officer, that the charge had solely emanated from the
malicious feeling of his sister, who was actuated by a
groundless fear that he, as the eldest son, would take
possession of the whole of the property ; and stated
that he had been in the habit for some time past of
allowing his mother 701. per annum out of his income
for her sole use, but that she had been accustomed to
allow his two sisters and a niece to participate in it,
one of the former of whom, though married, was of
such drunken, dissolute habits, that he had been in-
cessantly obliged to remonstrate against her being
permitted to come to the house to disturb his mother,
whom he was anxious to secure from annoyance, but
that she persisted in doing so, and that that had
given occasion to the violent contentions deposed to,
in one of which he admitted he had ill• used his other
sister, as had been described.

Sergeant llawkes informed the magistrate that:but
a short time before the death of the deceased applica-
tion had been made to the rector of South Hackney
by some one on the part of the deceased, for his signature
to a certificate of her exigence, to facilitate the receipt
of a pension of 401. per year, to which she was entitled as
a captain's widow, and that, precaution having been
taken to ascertain that she was really alive, the certi-
ficate was ultimately granted by the clergyman. tie
(the sergeant) would be provided at the next exami-
nation with additional evidence of a conclusive nature
against the accused, and asked for time to be afforded
him for its production.
Mr. llammud, assented, and the prisoner, who
displayed great self-possession throughout, was or-
dered to be brought up next week, when his sister,
it was stated, would probably be well enough to
attend.

MM.
IRISH
MINES.--MEETING OF IRISH MEHDERS.—
We observe, in the report of the proceedings of the
meeting of Irish Members yesterday, that one of the
propositions brought forward related to the necessity for
developing the great mineral resources of Ireland. We
think it necessary to remark, in order to prevent misap-
prehension on this important subject, that nothing what-
ever in the shape of pecuniary aid is required by the
Irish mining companies. What they require, and what
is imperatively necessary, to facilitate employment in a
great extension of mining operations in this country, is
such a change in the law as would empower trustees and
guardians of minors and lunatics, and holders of eccle-
siastical property, to take a lower rate than one.tenth as
royalty, to what they are now most absurdly restricted
by law, and also to enable them to make leases of suffi-
cient length to induce capitalists to embark their prc-
perty. A simple change in the law to this effect is all
that is wished for, and, indeed, all that is necessary, to
ensure employment to many thousands of people, in ad-
dition to those already employed in mines. We are
confident that it is only necessary to call the attention of
the Government to the subject, in order to ensure a
prompt remedy for this crying evil, which none but the
Government can supply.—DuNin Evening Post.
A decree of the Prussian Government. forbids all
workmen, of whatever trade they may be, to proceed to
Switzerland, under pain of tine and imprisonment.
SHIELDS, Nov. 6.—The Royal Adelaide (barque),
from Quebec, which struck on Tynemouth rocks, has
eleven feet of miter in her hold, clud s discharging. 1