The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-20 00:00:00

Church Patronage.

Some remarkable opinions have been publicly ex-
pressed on the subject of Church patronage. It is
considered by some that the system of having to
purchase the presentation to a living or per-
petual curacy secures for the parishioners
a man who has means of his own, and
who therefore will be enabled to devote

much of the rent-charge income to the sick and
poor. There are other men, however, who think
that the poor clergyman, who obtains preferment
without fee or reward, feels that his parish has
claims upon him, which he must with all his might
repay, by ministering to tne poor and by consoling
the afflicted. The friends of the purchase system
contend that parsons with smallincomes cannot
fulfil their duties, inasmuch as they have no money
to keep even a vehicle to wheel them round their
parishes. Those who argue in the opposite direction,
however, instancing the vicar of Hogglestock, say
that the most laborious and the most sincere of the
clergy are those who, like the flock over whom they
are chiefly watching, have a struggle for their
daily bread. It is hard to say which party is
right. It is a sacrifice to men elected in either way.
By the poor but educated vicar a more ambitious and
mote recompensary calling will probably be sur-
rendered, while the rich one is content to retire from
worldly pleasures, and to seek an office in which he
takes upon himself serious and very trying responsi-
bilities.

Local Taxation.
The " extra-parliamentary utterance " of such a
statistical authority as Professor Thorold Rogers on
the incidence of local taxation, can hardly fail to help
forward that ventilation of the matter which the C4o-

vernment as well as the taxpayer have equally in view.
In a paper read before the Statistical Society on the
subject, the Professor controverted the conclusion of
Sir G. C. Lewis, Mr. Dudley Baxter, and others,
that the greater part of the rates fall
on the owner. He contended that taxes
levied on rents and paid by the landowner
cannot be transferred to the occupier, but
that taxes on occupiers, when not part of the cost of
carrying out any industry, remain a burden
on the occupier. 'As regards houses, he
argued that the rates are no burden on
the landlord, but are on industry, and that the
owner is enabled by the increasing competition, and
through his power of inflicting loss by determining
the occupation, to enforce the payment of
increased rates by the occupier. If a uniform
rate of local taxation, he said, were in-
stituted over the country with the same
amount iii the pound on all occupiers, local taxation
of houses would be found to- conform in in all par-
ticulars of incidence to imperial taxation. As re-
gards agricultural land, he desired the transference of
the rates from the occupier to the owner.

Medical Education,
When distributing the prizes to the medical
students at the University College on Wednesday,
Professor Huxley was met with a storm of hisses
when he spoke of " every fair maiden
in these days being a fully qualified practitioner."
The Professor, however, came prepared to make
a speech on the blemishes in the present system of
medical education, and although his observations
with reference to lady students were not listened to,
serious attention was paid to the other views
and arguments of the speaker. Dr. Huxley
most complained of the quality of phy-
siology taught in the 14v1141011 SCIIOOIS. He found
that while anatomy was properly taught as a science,
physiology was taught as if it were a mere matter of
books and hearsay. To remedy this evil he would
suggest the centralization of the teaching of the theo-
retical branches of the profession (which he would
cut down to a considerable extent) in not more than
three central institutions. He would, moreover, have
the elements of physical science taught in the
primary schools—physics, chemistry, botany, and
the like. Comparative anatomy ought to be
absolutely abolished. He would also abolish
Materia Medics. He could not under-
stand why gentlemen who had to practice medicine
should be obliged to learn all about drugs, and'where
they came from ; they might just as well be required
to learn all about cutlery because they used knives.
If his views were adopted there would be left for the
four years' study the following nine subjects:—
Physics applied to Physiology, Chemistry applied to
Physiology, Physiology, Anatomy, Surgery, Medi-
cine, Obstetrics, Hygiene, and Medical Jurispru-
dence, which would be quite enough for one man's
pursuit.