The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-27 00:00:00

SUSSEX HALL.

Last evening a concert took place here, the oc-
casion serving for the Mitt of Miss E. Jacobs, who
has a magnificent voice. The manner in which she
sang gives evidence that, ultimately, she will be a
valuable addition to the few remaining native artists
that we possess. Mr. G. Lindley's song of " The
Mountain .Daisy," was finely rendered, as also
Donizetti's beautiful song, " Linda Chamouni,"
which was re-demanded. The other artists
consisted of Mr. E. L. Hime (who in the
course of the evening sang several of his own
compositions), Messrs. G. Tedder, G. A. Cooper ;
Misses Woolf, Cooper, Lizzy Stewart, &c. &c. The
instrumental performers were Miss Woolf and Mr. G.
Case, who played some fine selections on the concer-
tina. The hall was crowded to excess, so much so
that in several instances the entrance-money had to
be returned.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.
PORTSMOUTH, NOV. 2G.—A court-martial took
place this morning on board the Victory, in Ports-
mouth Harbour, Rear-Admiral H. Prescott, presi-
dent, to try the assistant-surgeon of the Helena,
recently arrived from the West Indies, for drunken-
ness. The Court rose about a quarter before twelve,
having found the prisoner, Mr. Jobn G. Cambell,
guilty. He was dismissed the service.
CHATHAM, Nov. 25.—The Tartar hulk was put
out of dock yesterday.
The Dispatch, 12-gun brig, was launched this day,
and taken into dock to be coppered, and fitted for
ordinary.
Mr. Jeffery, extra clerk in the storekeeper's office,
is appointed third-class clerk on the establishment,
vice Morgan, discharged on account of ill health.
A loan library is being established in this dockyard,
to which any of the workmen may become members
by the payment of one penny per week. The Ad-
miralty have very generously made a present of about
300 volumes for the benefit of the subscribers.

THE REMOVAL OF MR. RAMSHAY.
LivEaron, Nov. N.—The following letter was
received this morning, by Mr. Hull, the attorney on
behalf of the inquiry at Preston into Mr. Ramsbay's
conduct as Judge of the County Court:—
"Duchy of Lancaster, Waterloo-bridge, Nov. 25.
" Sir,—l am directed to inform you that the Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster has thought fit to remove Mr.
Ramshay from the office of Judge of the County Court
of Lancashire, holden at Liverpool.
"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
" F. DAwEs DANTEES.

"Mr. Frederick S. Hull, solicitor, Liverpool."
The new judge in this court, we are informed by a
correspondent, is Mr. Joseph Pollock, of Manchester,
at present judge of the Salford Hundred Court of
Record. Liverpool is fortunate in this selection of a
successor to Mr. Ramshay, Mr. Pollock, in addition
to high legal attainments, being remarkable for com-
bining with dignity and firmness a courteous de-
meanour.

THE RAILWAY ACCIDENT AT WEEDON.—Tbe
sufferers by this distressing accident are progressing towards
recovery. The poor labourer who was in a state of con-
siderable danger on Tuesday has somewhat rallied, and ac-
counts from Weedon up to five o'clock last evening state
that very little apprehension exists as to the termination of
all the cases remaining in that locality. The hairbreadth
escape of some of the passengers in the train is really
marvellous. Among the most remarkable was that of the
Marchioness of Conyngham, who was returning to town
from a visit to her noble father, Lord Anglesey, at Beau-
desert. The Marchioness occupied a coups of one of the
first-class carriages, and was accompanied by Mr. Blake,
a friend of Lord Anglesey, and by her Ladyship's femme de
chambre. When the collision took place, the Marchioness
and her maid were thrown forward with terrific force. The
head of the Marchioness came in contact with the frame-
work of the carriage, and the concussion was so severe that
for some moments her Ladyship lost all sensibility. Her face
is cut and bruised terribly, and the maid has also suffered
very severely. Mr. Blake escaped with a few contusions.
Captain Iluish is recovering slowly, but has not left his
home since the accident. Captain Bruyeres, whose escape
from death was almost miraculous, his legs having been ac-
tually for a moment among the wheels, is quite recovered
from the shock, and, indeed, has not left his duties since the
occurrence.

Tile accounts from Rio de Janeiro of the 17th ult.
quote the rate of exchange upon London 23;i. Freights to
London and Liyerpool were at nominal quotations.

THE HIGH PRICE OF BEER.
(From the Chronicle.)
The brewers have at length found their champions.
Bung, Brothers, and Co., have retained their stalwart
men-at-arms, who have vowed to keep the lists against
all corners. It is a combat a l'outrance, and of :course
we have no chance. Every resource, both of the
arena and the rostrum, is desperately arrayed against
us. The sciences which respectively address the rea-
son and the passions are banded together. The closed
fist of logic, the argumentative defence of " A Con-
stant Subscriber and Leader," on the one side,
stretches out on the plain ; and on the other " Sowry
Swipes" buffets us with the open palm of his invin-
cible rhetoric. We give in. The brewers have the
field to themselves, and it is only from the depths of a
prostrate despair that we venture upon a feeble apo-
logy for our ill-starred attack on the Twelve.
Our case—we recall it with humiliation—was,
that the brewers made an exorbitant profit; and
we arraigned them as extortioners of the first mag-
nitude. " Swipes "—euphonious name l—in choice
language, somewhat reeking of the pot-house
perhaps, and slightly redolent of its smokeables—
takes the matter up fairly ; he flies at the very throat
of the accuser, and shows to demonstration that, far
from the brewers making exaggerated profits, they
actually lose upon every barrel of beer they brew.
This is the way to meet a charge—au assault of this
sort combines completeness with audacity. It is the
very poetry of reprisal—the brewers' apology is con-
ceived and executed in the highest spirit of art.
Those whom the world has stigmatised as its tyrants
prove themselves—the case has occurred in history—
mankind's benefactors. London is living under the
renewed dynasty of the Euergetoe—Barclay the
Benevolent reigns ! But what a melancholy reflec-
tion it is for beer-bibbers, that every quart they swal-
low is to them eleemosynary; Truman and Hanbury
put all our patriots and most illustrious philanthro-
pists to the blush. I'Vhat were the occasional sacri-
fices of a sinecuriat Teller of the Exchequer--what
the casual beneficence of a Howard—what the tem-
porary self-denial of those who have given a single
life, or a single fortune, to the public weal—when
contrasted with the perpetual charities of the Twelve
great alms-givers ? Statutes and canonization are
the very least reward that grateful London should be-
stow en its liberal, yet hitherto secret, dispensers of
good deeds. In Continental churches, if we remember
rightly, statutes of another company of twelve are
raised on each pier and arch ; and the Royal Ex-
change ought certainly to erect images of Barclay,
Aleux, and their compeers, in every recess of the
metropolitan hail of commerce. "An actual loss to

the brewer, of is. per barrel" is the brewers' impreg
nabla defence against their calumniators,.
We know not what most to admire in this astound.

ing evidence of public spirit. The secrecy of the
thing—the amiable reluctance on the part of this holy
Guild, these Brethren of Mercy, to let their good
works be known—the quiet, calm, unobtrusive nature
of the sacrifice—its magnitude—its continuance—all

are evidences of a chaiity of the purest and largest
quality. And when one comes to reckon its ex-
tent—to spread this aggregate of liberality over past
years—to multiply it into interest and compound in-
terest—imagination swoons at the imnsensity of the
gift which, unconsciously to its recipients, has so
long been showered upon us. If brewers, with barley
at twenty-five shillings, actually lose one shilling on
every barrel they produce, what must have been their
incalculable sacrifices in those dreary years when the
raw material was nearly double its present price ?
The mind faints at the total of our obligations to the
brewers' public spirit—the old nails and horse-shoe
sum shrinks into insignificance in comparison with
the aggregate of Messrs. Barclay and Perkins' hidden
alms-deeds. Generation after generation of brewers,
from Thrale to Whitbread, have lived, and have died
embalmed in the odours of their unrevealed virtues—
the memorial of their benevolence perishing with
them, for no " Sowry Swipes " lived to rescue
their boundless munificence from oblivion. Their
charity has been its own exceeding great
reward ; though it is some consolation to re-
flect that estates, titles, rent-rolls, capital--all have
accumulated on those self-denying firms who were
always, for the public good and in mercy to the poor,
trading in such a way that they lost upon every
ounce of malt that they manufactured. Providence
has signally blessed these good men by enabling them
to create capital by constantly employing it at a
ruinous loss. The case is clear—accept but" S wipes' "
statistics, and the brewers are the greatest heroes, as
well as ;the most remarkable commercial paradox,
which the world has yet seen.
To be sure there are other calculations extant. We
extract from a contemporary document an estimate
which tells a different story, and which we leave to
the curious to collate with that furnished by our
witty and forcible correspondent, Mr. S. Swipes :
" The practical monopoly obtained by the London
brewers bas long been a serious and crying evil. A few
months ago, we did hear that the price et beer was to be
reduced to the extent of ss. per barrel; but it is evident
that the design is postponed, if not abandoned alto-
gether. Yet the profits of the brewers are altogether
outrageous, as will be perceived from the following esti-
mate, which is our own. The price of melt, from the
lowest brown, ranges from 445. to 565. per quarter. We

may therefore assume 50s. as the average puce of malt
used in brewing London porter. Seven pounds of hops,
at 9d. per lb., will cost ss. 3d.; the charge for brewing,
as has been allowed by the brewers' brokers, is I ls. per
quarter, though, from the improvements in the s.rrange-
meuts and manipulation, the real cost cannot reach that

---
sum. Allow 6d, per barrel for delivery,—and we Dave the
total cost—from which must be deducted 2s. for grains,
and we have the net cost of a quarter of malt converted
into porter and delivered at the publican's. Now,
London porter varies in strength from 191bs. to 22Ibs.
of saccharine matter per barrel, say 201bs. per barrel;
and a quarter of malt, of medium quality, will produce
from 821bs. to 881bs. of saccharine matter. We have
known it to reach 94Ibs. The account then stands
thus :

Malt...
Hops—.
Expenses ...

Deduct grains

Per quarter... ~.

£2 10 G
0 5 a
0 11 0

3 6 a
0 2 0

3 4 1

Which will produce 41 barrels, at 0 15 1.3
Add cartage 0 0 6.

Cost per barrel ...

0 15 7-41-

Selling price
*Diicount 5 per cent.

1 13 0,
0 1 7i

Cost ...

1 11 4i-
-0 15 7.1

per barrelacomp any
Profit,
act that ••• £0 15 9"
And it is a f
is already established,
which upon its own estimate—not the above--gua-
rantees a profit on its capital of 70 per cent., which
would fairly justify our tes ima e of the profits which
brewers make at 100 per cent. To speak seriously,
however, on a serious matter—we are fully content
to allow the question to stand in its present position.
The only detence which the associated brewers offer
is one which proves that they are now manufacturing
at a dead loss—a loss of ls. per barrel on every one
of the 2i million of barrels which
they annually pro-
duce—a loss which consequently must have been
about doubled when barley was twice its present
price. Whether this defence does not go a little too
far—just a trifle:more than what the exigency of the
case, to say nothing of common sense, required—we
leave the public to settle.
But, besides this champion, we have to meet an op-
ponent of a different class. Fresh, apparently, from
the most Scottish school of the most Scottish of
sciences, " A Constant Subscriber, &c.," admits our
charge, and the force of the public complaint—allows
that the prices of brewers are exorbitant—but
urges that so it ought to be. Meeting us with
our own favourite weapons from the arsenal of
polical economy—and familiar as ourselves with the
truths of Free Trade—he boldly propounds the doc-
trine that tradesmen are justified in charging what-
ever they can get. The blame, we are assured, is with
the consumer, who submits to be pillaged—not with
the producer, who, on principle, claims the indefea-
sible right to rob. And theoretically we admit this.
Our wonder is, that, with s• patient a public, the
brewers do not double their present charges. Our
argument only incidentally touches their profits, for
our aim has been to stimulate competition. It is just
a case in which we wish to dispel the pleasure of
being cheated—the pleasure of cheating is another
affair, and one of private morals, not of social eco-
nomy. We want the public only to realize the loss
they suffer; for the remedy, we are perfectly aware,
is de jure in our own hands—though what it is de
facto is another matter. At any rate, this correspon-
dent is rather at issue with his contem-
porary, " Sowry Swipes." The one admits
the extravagant gains of the brewer—the
other urges that they manufacture at a dead
loss. Both apologies cannot be true. It will not be
argumentatively endured that, of two classes of our
opponents, the one should admit the fact and
justify it upon principle, while the other surrenders
the principle by denying the fact. The brewers
must take their choice, and inform us whether they
consent to the doctrine that they are commercially
justified in charging what they please, or whether
they wish it to be understood that they are brewing
at a loss—or, if at a profit, at what profit ?
And let it be distinctly understood that this is
not a question between the public and the pub-
licans, i. e., the retailers of beer, Far from it.
We believe that, as a class, they are especially op-
pressed by the existence, and the consequent prac-
tical monopoly, of brewers' houses, as well as by
the vices of the licensing system, and that they
are equally interested with the consumer in
the establishment of a free trade in beer.
The high price charged to the retailers is our

EVEN"

Who could have thought that under the inoffen-
sive title of " An Act to amend the Acts relating to
the vend and delivery of coals in London and
Westminster, and in certain parts of the adjacent
counties, and to allow a drawback on coals
conveyed beyond certain limits," there could lurk the
capture of four important towns and the conquest of
a territory probably quite as large as the city of
London itself ? Yet it is even so ; and what in-
creases the marvel is, that any one might read the
Act through from cover to cover without discovering
that it has any effect in enlarging that unfortunate
district of country which it has pleased Parliament,
for inscrutable reasons, to tax at the rate of one shil-
ling and threepence a ton on its coals, for the benefit
of the wealthiest metropolis in the world. The sting
is not in the enacting clauses of the 14th and 15th
Victoria, chap. 146, for they are peculiarly modest
and inoffensive. Indeed, the only mention of taxation
is in the second clause, which repeals the second sec-
tion of the Sth and 9th Vic., cap. 101, except that part
which imposes till 1862 duties on coal, culm, and cin-
ders contained in any ship or vessel arriving at her moor-
ings within any part of the port of London, or brought
near London by railways or by the Thames, or to any
place within the distance of twenty miles from the
General Post-office, by any railway constructed or
hereafter to be constructed, or by inland navigation,
or by any other mode of conveyance. So far from
imposing a new tax, this Act simply seems to leave
in force the clause under which the old tax was le-
vied, and the rest of the measure is taken up with
the regulation of duties, customs, and drawbacks in-
cidental to the establishment of that most astonishing
octroi which the city has organized at the distance of
twenty miles from the General Post-office. It is only
when we come to the fiftieth, or interpretation clause,
which probably would be read by few, that we find
the words which are destined so materially to add to
the civic dominions. Hitherto the distance of twenty
miles from the General Post-office has been measured
along the road, railway, or canal, but now it is de-
clared that the expression "London district" shall
mean so much of the several counties of Middlesex,
Surrey, Kent, Essex, Herts, Bucks, and Berks as
shall be situate within the distance of twenty miles
in a direct line from the General Post-office.
These four fatal words, in a direct line, have " taken
in" not merely Parliament, but four towns, one of
which, St. Albans, is not easily to be outdone in the
arts of furtive dexterity. While Parliament thought
it was merely assisting the Corporation in the not
very easy task of explaining its own meaning, it was
really imposing a galling and unjust tax on many
thousands of hsr Majesty's subjects who had hitherto
been exempt from it, and subjecting the inhabitants
of a large district of country to the same degrading
tribute which has already been levied on the districts
nearer the metropolis. The Corporation exults in its
shame, and assures the victims of its most unprin-
cipled Parliamentary tactics that the augmentation of
the London district was no afterthought, but a deli-
berate and intentional trap, into which Parliament has
fallen.

Nothing can be more agreeable to the Corporation
than such a state of things, in which they combine the
useful with the sweet, the pleasure of outwitting Par-
liament with the solid profit of overreaching their
country neighbours. Such amusements, however, are
at the present time a little dangerous to the health of this
apoplectic body politic. People have allowed the Corpo-
ration of London, under the pretence of the conservancy
of the river, and as remuneration for trouble which they
never took to usurp a duty of the Government and
levy a tax on seaborne coal. They have been per-
mitted, on the truest Protectionist principles, to levy
the same tax on coal brought by canal, because, as
expressed in the preamble of the 231 George 111.,
chap. 80, sec. 19, it was apprehended that the convey-
ing of coal from the collieries of Warwickshire,
Staffordshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire, might
be detrimental to the coasting trade, by diminishing
the consumption of coals brought by coasting vessels.
They have been permitted by a corrupt use of Par-
liamentary influence in days when the same excuse
would not be tolerated to impose a light tax on coals
brought by every railway in the metropolis, and to
erect a chain of custom-houses in the heart of this
free-trading country to enforce their exactions. Not
content with this, they seek to enlarge the number of
their tributaries by smuggling words into a local and
personal Act, which extend its provisions under pre-
tence of explaining them. Possibly Parliament may
think that it has been long enough the instrument of
such practices, and may deem it necessary not merely
to undo this last trick, but to inquire into the right
of one part of her Majesty's subjects to tax another
for purposes in which the taxpayers have no interest.

CABS AT SIXPENCE A MILE.-MT. William
Thompson, of 16, Southampton-row, Russell-square, has
written to the editor of the 2'imes :—Sir,— Seeing your lead-
ing article of this day, in reference to my advertisement on
the 3d instant, I beg to say that yesterday, the 25th, I
brought out my cabs at sixpence per mile, which I trust will
be satisfactory to the public."

In the early part of October, her Majesty's ship
Hogue, lying at anchor in the Tagus, a cry was raised of a
" man overboard." Mr. Crowdy, a midshipman of the ship,
was sitting in the gun-room, and on hearing it immediately
jumped out of one of the ports to save him. It being some
time before a boat could be lowered to pick up those strug-
gling in the water, both Mr. Crowdy and the seaman were
nearly exhausted, when Lieutenant Cave, and Mr. Robinson,
midshipman, also jumped overboard, and were fortunate
enough to rescue them from a watery grave.

NO VEMB

subject of complaint. When the duty of 103. a
barrel was remitted, porter was reduced id. a quart.
Since that time, the price has been stereotyped, and
beer is sold at 2s. Bd. per gallon, which might be, and
probably is, brewed at little more than is. We are,
in fact, paying war prices for a necessary of life. Tile
agricultural interest suffers by the restricted con-
sumption of barley ; and the poor suffer by the exor-
bitant price of a commodity on which, as we have
shown, they spend one-eighth of their earnings.
That a company has been established to sell beer at
a reasonable profit is at least a hopeful evidence that
the public ere becoming alive to the existence and
extent of this monstrous social evil. On sonic future
occasion we may illustrate that stage of the argument
which is concerned with the difficulty of coping with
what practically—we do not say theoretically—is a
huge monopoly, viz., the existence of brewers' houses.

THE COAL TAX.
(From the Times.)
History has no stronger revelation, and philo-
sophy no more startling paradox, than the fact teat
periods of internal weakness and disorder have often
been marked by the most brilliant triumphs end most
extensive conquests abroad. While torn in 'fleece by
the dissensions of the triumvirs, Rome found means
to conquer Gaul and to menace Britain. The Pope
was never more formidable to foreign sovereigns than
when he could not walk the streets of Rome without
being insulted, and was scarcely safe within his forti
fied palace from the conspiracies of his turbulent no.
hility, and Republican France overran Europe, while
no man in the capita] was sure of his life or property
for a single day. Instructed, probably, and moved
by a minute acquaintance with these examples, ancient,
mediaeval, and modern, the Corporation of London
has selected the present moment for the increase of
its territorial dominion, and the imposition of
its yoke on necks hitherto unaccustomed to
bear it. To the eye of a superficial observer
no time could appear more improper than
the present for such ambitious designs. It is not
treason to say that this august body is gradually fall-
ing into something very nearly approaching to con-
tempt. Dissensions, hitherto unheard of, become
more and more frequent among the civic dignities.
The Lord Mayor snubs the Aldermen, the Aldermen
growl at the Lord Mayor, and something like a con-
sciousness is evinced that the recent appearances of the
Corporation as hosts of her Majesty and as guests of
the Prefect of the Seine have by no means tended to
the exaltation of civic dignity in the eyes of the pro-
fane and uninitiated. Under these circumstances, it
required no ordinary courage to select the present
time for snatching an increase of jurisdiction, and
the future historian of the Corporation will record
this hardy and successful enterprise with the same
admiration with which Livy tells how Rome, with
Hannibal at her gates, sent forth her legions to
the conquest of Spain. It was no trifling exploit
to have " taken in," as our ancient writers would say,
at a single stroke St. Albans, Hertford, Watford,
and Hatfield, together with a goodly strip of country
which, if the city of London be considered as the
planet Saturn, would make a very respectable ring ;
but ii; is a double triumph to have done this at a time
when it was supposed that the Corporation had enough
to do to hold its own, and to have accomplished it by
means so secret that the first we heard of it was its
complete success. Smithfield has been torn from the
reluctant grasp of its civic patrons and admirers, but
the same session of Parliament which witnessed this
severe loss saw also the adroit reprisal which by the
insertion of four words in a seemingly harmless Act
of Parliament has placed within the pomcerium of the
city of London a large, fertile, and distant district of
whose subjugation the most ambitious alderman had
never before dreamt.

SUSSEX MAYORS, 1851-2.—The following gentle-
men have been elected chief magistrates of the boroughs and
cinque ports in Sussex, for the ensuing civic year, viz. :
Arundel—Richard Holmes, Esq. Chichester—Mr. Alder-
man Gruggen. Hastings—Mr. Alderman llickes. Pozen-
soy— J. W. Breton, Esq. Rye—Mr. E. S. Banks. Seaford—
Mr. Henry Simmons.—Sussex Papers.

EXTRAMURAL INTERMENTS.—At a meeting of the
vestry of St. Pancras, yesterday (Mr. Churchwarden Baker
in the chair), it was announced that the proposed measure
for extramural interments had been abandoned by the Go-
vernment. Mr. Bretting,hana said that he was glad the
Government had abandoned the idea of becoming general
undertakers. This was a most opportune occasion tor the
vestry to take the matter into their own hands, for, looking
at the crowded state of some of our churcnyards, it was
most urgent that something should be speedily done. As he
considered this question one of vast importance to the ex-
tensive and populous parish of St. Pancras, he would at once
move that the vestry should memorialise the Government for
power to take ground for the purpose of extramural int er.
meat. The resolution Yeas tuutilimowly Agee" to