The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-27 00:00:00

THE THEA'T'RES, &c.

HAYmARKET—At Seven. No Song No Supper. Barwise's Book.
And My Husband's Ghost.
PIZINCE Cr WALEs's—At 7.30, Quite bi Accident M.P. Dearest
Mamma.
LYCEUM—At 7.30, Sampson's Wedding. Little Faust.
ADELPML—At Seven, Too Much of a Good Thing. The Promp
ter s Box. My Prec ous Betsy.
OLYMPIC—At Seven, Frou Frou The 'Varsity Boat Race, My
Turn Next.
GAIETY—At Seven, The Happy V llage. Lucky Friday. The
Princess of rebizonde.
QUEEN S—At Seven, My Wife's Dentist. 'Twixt Axe and Crown.
TRAND—At Seven, Widow's Weeds. Sir George and a Dragon.
A Fish Out of Water
VAUDEVILLE—For Love or Money. Don Carlos. Cupboard Love
ST. JAMES'S—At Seven, Frou Fron. La Belle Sauvage.
GLOBE—At Seven, Milky White. Robert fils.caire. Vandyke
Brown.

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dilly, every Evening (except Satinday) at 8; Saturday Moin-
in,s at 3. Admission, Is, 2s, 3s.
CHRISTY MINSTRELS. St. James's Hall, Every Night, at 8; Wed-
nesdays and -aturdays, at 3 and 8 all the year round.
MADAXE TVSSAIM'S ExHIBITION, Baker-street, from 11 a.m. till 5.30
p.m., and from 7 till 10 p.m. Admission, ls. ; extra rooms, Gd.
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, Regerv's-yank Open dally(except Sundays)
Admission. ls.• on Mondays, 6d. Children under twelve. 64

$l,
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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 1870.

MR. LowE's " moral engine," the gun-tax, does
not seem to be'very popular. The Chancellor hoped
that it would be the means of checking the increasing
resort to the carrying of fire-arms, a. practice which
surely marks a tendency to rowdyism. lie had, too,
some thought for the small birds which at present
fall victims to the prowess of London cockneys
on Sundays, and of country bumpkins on every
day of the week. But the arrangement
does not please any of these worthies—rowdies,
cockneys, or bumpkins. We doubt if the measure
would have been any the better had it pleased them.
The indiscriminate bearing of.fireems is a dangerous
nuisance, And as form all buds, we coldegowym

are weak enough to prefer to hear them bingLig in
tree and chirping in hedgerow than to see them
stiff and bloody on the road. Independently of
sentiment, small birds have a work and office
to fulfil in the economy of nature which agricultu-
rists, at all events, should no: forget. At

present a youthful chawbacon is sent out
by the farmer to shoot birds in order that they may
not steal corn ; the farmer forgetting all the while
that the corn which they take is but fair wages
which they earn for destroying the farmer's real
enemies, the grub and the worm and other voracious
spoilers. The French farmer, who was a more ruth-
less :IN-icicle even than the English, has at last found

out how great a mistake he made, has discovered
that he was really murdering his best ally, and has
been compelled to import new birds to take the place
of those he has slaughtered.
We freely admit, however, that there is at first
sight one fault in Mr. Lowe's proposal. There was
no need when imposing a gun-tax to repeal the game
licence. The gentleman who goes out pheasant-
shooting does not belong to the class which thinks of
a pound or two, more or less. To abolish this tax
was to remove a burden so light that it was not felt.
It was all of a piece with the abolition of the duty on
hair-powder. The silly people who liked to
shake the flour-box over the heads of their flunkies,
never objected to paying for their folly. In fact the
pleasure of it consisted in their having to pay. None
but wealthy persons could afford to fool away their
money in such a freak, and the man who indulged in
it thereby showed that he was wealthy. There was,
therefore, no gratitude on the part of those whom
Mr. Lowe relieved. They were vexed rather,
knowing well that thenceforth the tradesman living
in a suburban villa would be able to powder
the head of the green-grocer the next time his
valuable services were required in waiting upon the
tradesman's guests. Perhaps that was the very
reason why Mr. Lowe repealed the duty. In spite
of his opposition to the Reform Bili, he is a Radical
of the Radicals, and rejoices at every opportunity of
inflicting a blow upon aristocratic exclusiveness and
folly. Perhaps, too, some such motive prompted
him to abolish the game licence. In fact we strongly
suspect that it did. Let us see if we can divine
what that motive was.

It will be remembered that when making this pro-
posal Mr. Lowe urged as one argument in its favour
that the shooting of small birds was the training for
poaching, and thereupon the squires who had at first
uttered " Oh, oh !" gave tongue in the shape of a
hearty cheer. It never struck them that Mr. Lowe
legislating in the interests of game preservers was an
idea altogether too deliciously grotesque to be possible.
In fact, Saul among the prophets was nothing to it.
What the Chancellor was really doing was hid from
their eyes at the time. We believe they are be-
ginning to find it out now. The effect of his proposal
is to abolish, not the poacher, but poaching. At
present a poacher is tried not for killing game but
for shooting without a licence. But how if licences
are abolished ? All men will be equal then, squire,
gamekeeper, and poacher. True the law of tresspass
will still be in force, and the poacher must take care
that ho is not found inside the squire's preserves lest
the gamekeeper should lay hands upon him. But he
must be a very dull fellow indeed if he cannot do a
little killing without trespassing, or, at all events,
without being found trespassing. Who is to say,
when he has a fine brace of pheasants in his
capacious pockets, that he did not "tumble " them as
he was coming across the wheat field by the public
path ? Who is to say that the hare, which he carries
dangling by its hind-legs, was not shot in the road-
way itself ? And if he did these things,
how will he, who has paid his twenty
shillings gun tax, be answerable to the law ?
Of course ho has paid the tax, and equally of course
he will recoup himself in a single day's achievements
with his fowling piece. Is it possible that so shrewd
a man as Mr. Lowe could have overlooked this ? Is
it possible he failud to see that his fiscal change,
trivial as it seems, calculated as it appears at first
sis;ht to put clown the offence unpardonable by
squires, will really deal a fatal blow at the game
laws ? lire trove not.

_ IF "he who giveth to the rich shall surely come
to want," the Right Honourable Robert Lowe must
be in considerable danger. It now turns out that
the alteration of the postage—which was supposed
to be a national boon—is mainly adapted to further
only the objects of the proprietors of the most
• wealthy newspapers ; and that as it respects other
publications, it offers a very meagre advantage. When
we were told that newspapers weighing six ounces
would be sent -for a halfpenny, no one, not behind
the scenes, would have imagined that it was intended
to limit the privilege to one sheet. There is but one
daily paper in the kingdom which weighs over four
ounces, and it seems that the Post-office regulation
weight is to be set aside for the exclusive benefit of
this newspaper. If smaller publications attempt to
take advantage of the larger weight they are
to be stopped on the plea that only one
paper must be sent for a half-penny. We
thus have a revival of the old, injurious, and
exploded notion of carrying by size instead of by
weight, and the Post Office officials instead of bring-
ing everything to the infallible test of scales, will
have to pry into the packets to see whether they
contain more than one newspaper. While the Times
with its broad sheets of fortune paying advertise-
ments, is to be carried at the rate of six ounces for
a halfpenny, the British Workman, the
Echo, and other publications, which are chiefly, or
wholly, news or intelligence, are to be limited to two
ounces. If six ounces can be carried for a halfpenny,
the advantage ought to be extended to literary
matter rather than to trade announcements. If the
proposed charge involves a loss to the Post-office it
is intolerable that such a loss should be borne for
the advantage of one concern, which is enormously
wealthy, and which derives its large revenue
not so much from the distribution of
news as from the unusual number of advertise-
ments which it publishes, and for the distribution
of which a suitable rate of postage should be paid.
The charge of one halfpenny for the carriage of two
ounces of printed matter will leave this country far
behind other nations in the postal rate for the distri-
bution of literatnre. In the United States newspapers
are delivered free of cost within the county in
which they are published, and although this
course is not one that would be recommended for
adoption here, it has undoubtedly contributed much
to the development of that universal intelligence for
which the Americans are so distinguished. In Canada
certain kinds of literature are forwarded by post free
of cost, and the postage of a newspaper which has to
travel over several hundreds of miles through
Canada and the United States, across the At-
lantic, and then to any part of the United
Kingdom, costs only one halfpenny. English
printers have for some time past been compelled to
employ establishments in Belgium, in order that the cir-
culars posted there may be delivered here for one half-
penny. In France, the postage of a newspaper is one
fifth of a penny, and in Belgium the charge of one-
tenth of a penny has just been established. The rate
which should have been adopts 1 in this country
is undoubtedly a farthing for two ou ices and a
halfpenny for six. Unfortnnately the big newspapers
look with jealous eyes upon any facilities which are
afforded for the distribution of cheap literature, and
Mr. Lowe's connection with the Times seems to have
induced him to listen too attentively to their view
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