The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON,

it pressed more exclusively on the rich, be-
cause if he did why had he not imposed
the tax on the people of Ireland? It was a well-
known fact, which Honourable Gentlemen on the
other side would have difficulty in denying, that ever
since the year 1819 poverty had been increasing in the
country most rapidly, that poor rates were consuming
the whole produce of the land, and that farmers could
not continue to occupy, even if they had no rent to pay-
The Hon. Gentleman opposite, the Under-Secretary for
the Colonies, in 1844, was one of the most vehement
opposers of the tax, and had made a most decided speech
against it.—(Hear.) Had he now altered his opinion?
But there was another class to which he wished to call
the attention of the House, and that was the tenant
farmers of England. No class was more oppressed by
this tax than that, and so he told the House years ago,
when the tax was first propounded. Tenant farmers
were assessed upon an unjust and grossly
erroneous basis, and if the tax must be con-
tinued, it would be nothing but right that some change
should be made in this part of it. There were other in-
equalities in the tax which he could point out, but as
they must long ago have becofamiliar tnog so. ThetheHouse
me)
and the country he should abstain
distinction, however, that was made between the land-
holder and the fund-holder was most unjust and impo-
litic, inasmuch as the manner in which the tax was levied
made the former pay almost twice as much as the latter.
The tax, in a word, was grossly unequal and vexatious;
it also held out a premium to commit fraud, and
gave rise to a good deal of deception which
would be well avoided at the expense of the tax.
was the effect of these taxes, and nothing
possiblyac remedy the evil. What, therefore, he
Tcohualtd, in fact,
asked of the House was, that they should take all these
matters into consideration. The principle had been de-
clared years ago, when Lord Stanley made his celebrated
motion respecting the income-tax, and then it was de-
clared in terms, though not in words, that at the
expiration of the usual time the tax would be
remitted. Some attempts had been made to increase the
time, but they had to a certain extent signally failed.
Nevertheless it was exceedingly desirable that the ex-
pectations which the public had conceived should
be gratified, and that the income-tax should be
remitted altogether. Now he was also sure that the re-
mission of the window duty fora house tax was an un-
certainty on which they never could rely. When he had
Previously brought forward this motion the Noble Lord
at the head of the Government had been pleased to say
that he would look into the matter. He did not known
how the change of circumstances could affect the change
of measures. This was no party question, and
he would therefore beg to remind his Lord-
ship that ho had a!ready assented to the
necessity of abandoning the duty upon insurances
He believed that the tax was part of a system the effect
of which would be to undermine the strength and re-
sources of the country, and on that conviction he should
movo that the Bill be read a second time that day six
months.
Mr. MUNTZ seconded the motion. He perfectly
concurred in every remark which had fallen from his
lion. Friend, because he, like him, was placed in a posi-
tion to judge of some of the iniquitous and iejarious
effects of this tax in the neighbourhood. It made men
rob themselves. From the course which the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer was taking, he could
see no reason to expect an end to the
tax, if every little surplus they had was to be frittered
away in bricks and windows, and such paltry items. It
was nonsense to say that three reductions indemnified
tax-pay era for the income-tax. Punch had hit that off
better than any one else, when he painted the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer as chloroforming John Bull while
the Premier robbed, him of the iecome-tax.

►Mr. FRESTIFIELD supported the second reading of
the Bill, in the hope that it would be modified in Com,
mittee.

(LEFT SPEAKING.)

THE BRIBERY AT THE LAST FALKIRK

ELECTION.

On notice being given by Mr. Edward Ellice of his
intention to move for a Royal Commission of inquiry into
the proceedings at the late election for St. A.ban's, Mr.
Cobden gave novice that he would move, as an amend-
ment, that the Commission be also required to investi-
gate the proceedings at the late election for the Falkirk
District of Burghs. It will perhaps be alleged as an
objection to the amendment, that there can be no
necessity to inquire into this case, seeing that the par-
ties who petitioned against the return of Mr. Baird
withdrew the petition without bringing it to trial, from
want of evidence, apparently, to support the charges it
contained. Should some Member of Parliament in his
ignorance make such an objection, Mr. Cobden, wete-
neve, will be able, from preliminary investigations which
are at present being made, to show that there is a great
reason for inquiry, and that the manner in which
the petition was got up and was afterwards withdrawn,
is as strong an argument for his motion as any that can
be derived from the proceedings during the election,
as proving that besides the practices alleged to have
been followed at that time, a transaction afterwards took
place, from which it would appear that there is some
one in the burghs assuming the right to manage their
business as it they were his own domain, and as if
Mr. Baird were an interloper whom ho alone
could have a right to call in question. A London
barrister of great experience in election matters spent
several days in this town last week, and is now, we be-
lieve, in one of the other burghs, making minute inquiry
into the practices on both aides during the canvass. He
is not carrying on his investigations with any view to
unseat Mr. Baird, against whose return a second peti-
tion cannot be received. His solo purpose, we believe,
is to collect for Mr. Cobden and the other Mem-
bers of Parliament by whom he has been deputed,
information which shall show the necessity of giving pro-
tection to the voter against undue influence. It is said
the evidence be has already gathered is of a very de-
cided character, and implicates both parties. What-
ever may be the nature of the protection to the voters
intended to be proposed by Mr. Cobden, he will, at all
events, see from the evidence which will be submitted
to him, that it is in vain to look to universal suffrage.
He will be informed that the night before the nomina-
tion of candidates, three hundred of the =enfranchised
—the men whom Feargus O'Conn.or delights to honour,
who have cheered his democratic sentiments to the
echo, and who, like that disinterested patriot, are pre-
pared to die for their rights—allowed themselves to be
put in a state of brutal intoxication, and bartered their
vaunted integrity for a few gills of whisky. Some
of them, too drunk for the purpose for which they
were intended, were carried from the scene of
dissipation in carts, which were literally emptied of their
centents in the open fields. It has been jocularly said,
that the opening of the publitehouses to these men was
an experiment for the purpose of ascertaining with what
effect the system of treating could be carried on under a
more extended franchise; and it must be acknowledged,
that it fully showed that an extension of the electoral
privilege, without efficient protection to the voter, would
be a moral and social curse bath to the individuals so
admitted to the right of voting and to the community of
which they form a part.—Falkirk Herald.

MURDER -NEAR TRURO.
(From tae Devonport Independent )
It has happily been some time since the frightful crime
of murder bee been perpetrated in Cornwall; but we are
sorry that we have again to add to the catalogue of
heinous guilt, a murder committed in this county on
Saturday last. The locality where the deed was per-
petrated is called Siivervvelle near the Chiverton Arms,
on the road between Truro and St. Agnes, and about five
miles from the former place. The murdered man,
William Kendall, occupied a small farm, and lived in
the house with his wife alone. This was his second
wife, to whom he had been niarriid about four years.
Her former name was Teague, and she had a son by her
first husband, called Elijah Teague, and now about
17 years of age. This son lived with his mother and
Mr. Kendall until January last, when he went to lodge
at a neighbouring house with Henry Grose; but he still
occasionally worked on the farm for his father-in-law,
who was about 72 years of age. His father-in-law
had on Saturday last ridden to Chacewater; and
the young man was on that day working on the
farm, employed in threshing and boiling turnips. His
father-in-law was never more seen alive; but was disco-
vered on Sunday morning dead in his own house, sitting
on a chair in the parlour. There was a large wound
over the centre of his forehead, of an irregular oval
figure, two inchss and a half in length and two inches
in width. The mortal blows appeared to have
been given with dreadful force; the bones were
broken in, and the surgeon who was called, inserted
his finger on the right side to the depth of nearly an
inch. Sixty-one pieces of bone were extracted, and
the fissures were driven an inch and a quarter below the
surface of the skull. A hammer was found on the garden
hedge, and this hammer fitted into the wound in the
man's forehead. A white hair was found attached to
the end of the hammer, and the surgeon, on a micros-
copical examination, believes it to be a human hair, and
that in all probability it was torn from the deceased's
eyebrow. An inquest has been held on the body, before
hla John Carlyon, county coroner. The inquiry core-
menced on Monday at eleven o'clock, was continued on
Tuesday, and did not terminate until late on Tuesday
aerht The result was,
unthat a verdict of 1° wilful mur-
hio beenw a was
committed " was
warralt, ange'le has'
ea returned against the deceased's son-in-law,
apprehended
to
tuhned eerotoheety gaol a
coroner's
h
Bodmin, to taketrial at the next assizes.
The evidence on which the jury grounded their ver-
s tan ti al. The seta-lan-air character, and wholly circum-
as well as other witnessaews was examined at the inquest,
who had returned.fr He states that he found de-
ceased,yards from his own house, m Chacewater, about eighty
ble, with a large wound in ng on the ground insensi-
his horse; that he then lifted usl;aused by a kick from
his own house, his heels dragging onit. and carried him into
the ground. There do
not appear, however to be any marks of the body having
been thus dragged over the ground. Deceased'a
was absent at this time, having gone to Henry
Gross's
(Elijah Teague's lodgings). On her returning and ask-
ingses for her husband, Teague said he was in the par_
llow her togo in,
lour, but he would not a
saying the
and it would horse had " thrown' to him,. hurry her.
She did not go ,
in but went went back
to Grose's who called one or two nighbours,
and with them and his wife preceeded to
deceased's dwelling When they got there they found de-
ceased's wife wanking up and down before the house, she
having left Grose's house in the interim, and gone there.
The neighbours foetid the door locked, and could not find
the key where it was usually placed when no one was at
home. As thecould deceased's wife
y not get in,proposed
that the door should be lifted from its hinges, bat this
the
not, " done, and etrange to say, no entry was made into
eniCia until the next morning, when the old man Was
found d
ead in the parlour as before described. The sur-
geon, Mr. Moyle, does not conceive
the wound in deceesed's
forehead could have beau eausad.by the kick of a horse,

as stated by Elijah Teague, but that the injury was in-
flicted by two or more blows from some heavy instru-
ment. Another circumstance was the fact of Elijah
Teague having been about three hours absent from home
to call a surgeon (according to his own statement), and
an explanation of which he was called on to give in his
evidence. He also pointed out five spots of blood at the
place where he says he found deceased's body before he
took it into the house; but the surgeon gives his opinion
that the spots are not blood that had flowed from a re-
cent wound.

The prisoner's own statement of the circumstance having
been beard, and the evidence of the surgeon, Mr. Moyle,
as well us that of Mary Grose, Henry Grose, and Ed-
ward Mitchell, of Tregavethan, the jury, at the adjourned
inquest held on Tuesday, returned a verdict of " Wilful
Murder against Elijah Teague," who was committed to
the next assize for trial. There does not appear in the
evidence anything to show a motive for the committal of
the act, but it is stated in the neighbourhood that there
were frequent disagreements between the deceased and
his son-in-law.