The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-18 00:00:00

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

Commander William Rowlatt (1847), emigration agent,
has received an intimation of his appointment to the com-
mand of the Alecto steam-sloop, to be commissioned at
Woolwich. This officer entered the navy in 1821, passed his
examination in 1830, and was made a ✓lieutenant in 1838.
He subsequently served on the Lakes of Canada, then as
emigration agent, afterwards as additional in the Penelope
steam-frigate on the coast of Africa, and was promoted
shortly after paying off the Waterwitch, 8, for the coast of
Africa, having been her first lieutenant. The other appoint-
ments to the Alecto are the following:—
Master—Edward Yowl!, lately promoted from the flag-
ship of the Mediterranean by Sir William Parker—an excel-
lent and deserving officer. Acting Paymaster—Robert G.
Webber, clerk of 1843. Clerk—lsaac Hearnden (1819).
Master's Assistant—David Moore. Gunner—James Steward.

Met. GRANT'S DISTILLING APPARATUS.—Mr. Grant's dis-
tilling apparatus was tried on board of the Birkenhead
steam-troop-ship on Thursday, and produced about 42 gal-
lons of the most pure water per hour; that is, the apparatus
was in operation five hours, and the result 210 gallons of
water, which, when tested with nitrate of silver (caustic),
retained its brilliancy without the slightest discolouration,
while the spring water we are drinking daily, when sub-
mitted to the like test, exhibited a thick deposit of mud.
What a blessing and a comfort it will be to ships making
tropical voyages.
Banshee steam-packet, Lielt.-Commander Hosken, fitting
at Woolwich for Mediterranean service, is to have a corn•
plement of 63 officers and men.
Bonetta, 3, brigantine, Lieut.-Commander C. Wake, fitting
at Chatham, is ordered to have a complement of 65 officers
and men.

A second-class clerk in the Royal William Victualling
Yard. at Plymouth, named Scott, has absconded.
EXERCISES OF TILE MEDITERRANEAN FLEET.—Our Malta
correspondent gives us the following report of the weekly
exercise of Vice-Admiral Sir W. Parker's fleet. The exer-
cises consisted of bending topsails, shifting topsail yards,
and bending and making sails :
Manceuvre 1. Manceuvre 2. Manoeuvre 3.
Min. Sec. Min. Sec. Min. Sec.
Queen.... ..... 8 20 13 20 ... 4 0
Caledonia ... 7 30 9 45 7 30

28 0 ... 28 0 ..
Albion
signal.
Ganges
superb ..

RaCer ...... ...

0

9 17

5 13

The Caledonia, in the last movement, being compelled to
shake out a reef of her topsail,was delayed by the accident
about 3 min. 30 sec., the time in which her fcretopsail was
double reefed.

PORTS3LOUTIFT, FEB. 17.—8 y letters from China, delivered
here this morning, we learn the death of Commander Ince,
of her Majesty's ship Pilot. She was at Woosung on the
6th of December, when the Commander was dangerously ill.
In the hope that his removal to a warmer climate might
afford a chance of saving his life, he was transferred on the
evening of the above day to the Peninsular and Oriental
Company's steam-vessel the Lady Mary Wood and proceeded
in her next morning to Hong-kong, but he expired the day
before reaching it. His remains were interred in the ceme-
tery in the Wong-nei•chung-valley, with military honours.
The Contest, 12, Commander the Hon. J. W. S. Spencer,
sailed on the 30th of December—arrived from Hong• Kong for
Shanghai—to relieve the Pi!ot, which was left in temporary
command of her First-Lieutenant Anderson; but Rear-Ad-
miral Austen, C. 8., the Commander-in-Chief, has promoted
the First-Lieutenant of the Hastings, Vidor Hicklee, to the
vacant command, and Mr. F. Stupart, mate of the flag-ship,
to the rank of Lieutenant, vice Hickley.

The Herald, 22, Captain Kellet, C. 13., arrived at Hong-
Kong from the Sandwich Islands on the let of December,
and sailed for England, via Borneo and Singapore, on the
22d.

PLYMOUTH, SATURDAY.—Her Majesty's steamer Samp-
son, and her tender, the steam-vessel Bloodhound, will be
paid advance on Tuesday, and sail on Wednesday with Sir
Emerson Tennent, the Governor, for St. Helena.
The Athol troop-ship sailed last evening for Sierra Leone.
The General Screw Steam Navigation Company's packet-
ship Hellespont, Captain Watts, sailed at twelve to-day.
She has one mail for Cape Verd, five for Sierra Leone, and
seventeen for the Cape of Good Hope, and 10,0001. in specie
for the coast of Africa.
The merchant ship Ferozepore, 600 tons, Captain Master-
ton, in 112 days from Canton, was off this port to-day, and
landed her only passengers, Mr. Cleland and family. She
is gone up Channel for London with a full cargo of teas.
The schooner Hunter, Robert Pain master, of Yarmouth,
from Shields for Trieste, was spoken off the port by the fish-
ing sloop Champion.
FEB. 16.—The packet Linnet was yesterday warped to the
sheer-hulk to have her masts taken out; her crew will be
paid off on Tuesday.
The steam block vessel Sanspareil will be launched on the
lath of March next. She will be fitted with engines and
boilers at this port.
On the sth inst., in lat. 43 07 N , long. 13 47 W., the
Maria Grace, of Guernsey, from St. Michael's for London,
spoke the barque Apollo, from Demerara, out 72 days, with
loss of rudder, which was carried away on the Ist of January.
The Cumberland, 70, Captain G. H. Seymour, was taken
out of dock yesterday at Chatham, and will be towed to Gil-
lingham to-morrow, to have her stores put on board. Cap-
tain Johnson, of the compass department, forwarded her in-
struments to-day.

MR. FLEXMORE'S BENEFIT.—This admirable and
popular artist has announced his annual benefit at the
Princess's Theatre for the jubilee night of the pantomime,
Monday, the 24th inst. The entertainments are very at-
tractively selected, the play being The Wife's Secret, in
which Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean and Mrs. Keeley will sus-
tain their original characters • to be followed by the first
part of the ballet of Esmeralda, in which, together with
Flexmore, the celebrated danseuse Madlle. Auriol, to whose
accomplished dancing we have been strangers for the last
three months, will appear in the role which she filled at this
theatre a few seasons since, during a run of nine weeks,
with signal applause. The concluding piece will be the
pantomime of Alonzo the Brave (its fiftieth night of repre-
sentation), the triumphant success of which has been chiefly
owing to the great unrivalled luminary of pantomime him-
self, who, on this occasion of course, surrounded by his bril-
liant satellites, Miss Leclercq, Cormack, H. Wright, and
Paulo, will put forth the full Flexmorean effulgence. We
have no doubt but that a crowded audience will throng to
the support of so desorved a favourite as Flexrnore, whose
great powers are always exerted to the uttermost, without
ever being marred by any affectation or caprice, to ensure
the satisfaction, and promote the delight of his patrons—the
public.

NEW GAS-LIGHT.—An American has appliei for
a patent for a cheap and brilliant gas, produced on a new
principle, which lie states can be obtained at a cost less than
a penny per 1,000 feet. It is said that no wood, coal, or
water is required ; that the material can be obtained any.
where. It is a self-acting and self-creating gas, called into
action by an impulse of nature, from whence may be derive,'
a new motive power of light and heat. An Englishman also
asserts he has a plan by which any one may produce his
own gas by a machine like a table-lamp, not costing more,
and creatiag a superior gas, at one-third the cost of coal
gas, requiring only to be turned on and lighted, but that he
has not the means of protecting his invention from piracy,—
Eapositor.

No less than six fires occurred io the metropolis
yesterday. One, which took place on the premises No. 1,
Oudley-buildicgs, St. Giles, belonging to Mr. W. Dowle, it
is feared, will be attended with a lost of life. The fire com-
menced in the basement, at which time a boy, six years of
age, was therein. The engines attended, and the flames
were subdued, but not until the child was frightfully
burned. lie was taken to the hospital, but 110 hopes CAR be
eentertained of ./09nery.,

THE PRECIOUS BUDGET.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
(From the Times.)
We may as well satisfy at once the curiosity of our readers
as to the contents of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's
Budget for the year ending April 5, 1852. Sir Charles, find-
ing that he may expect a surplus of about 1,892,000/. for
that year, proposes the following measures :—The repeal of
the window-tax, and the substitution of a moderate house-
tax on the better class of houses ; a reduction of the duty on
foreign timber; a repeal of that on foreign agricultural seed;
a reduction and equalization of the duties on foreign and
colonial coffee, as well as chicory; a removal of the cost of
pauper lunatics, as well as of the approaching census, from
the local rates to the Consolidated Fund; another lease of
the income-tax for three years, without any modification;
and the application of about 1,000,000/. of next year's, surplus
towards the reduction of the National Debt.
As there still remain seven weeks of the financial year, it
is only possible as yet to give an approximate statement of
its income and expenditure. The former promises to be
considerably greater, the latter considerably less, than Sir
Charles ventured to anticipate in his financial speech of the
15th of March last. Hence the surplus, which he then esti-
mated at a million and a half, and which he partly disposed
of, will, nevertheless, probably be found next April 5 to be
about 2,521,000/. His estimate of the income for the year
ending April 5, 1852, is necessarily founded on the latest
returns of the revenue, taking into account the recent re-
ductions, and various other modifying circumstances. It is
as follows:
Customs ... 20,400,000
Excise ... 14,000,000
Stamps 6,310,000
Taxes
4,348,000
Property•tax 5,380,000
Post-office •-• 830,000
Crown Lands ... ... 160,000
Mircellancous . . 262,000
Old stores, &c. 450,000

£52,140,000
The estimated expenditure for the same ',earls as follows :
Charge for the Funded Debt, including
annuities £27,688,000
Interest of Exchequer-bills ... 404,000
Civil List and other charges ... 2,600,000
Army, including Commissarit... ... 6,593,945
Navy .. ... 6,537,055
Ordnance ... 2,424,174
Miscellaneous, including census ... 4,000,000

Estimated surplus

X 50,247,171
... 1,892,829

This surplus, in round numbers 1,890,0001, Sir Charles
Wood wishes to make the most of. Ho is also very excu-
sably desirous to diepese of it in his own way, and without
a too servile compliance with the demands of his numer-
ous persecutors. His ideas of good financial hus-
bandry. have not permitted him to spend it in re-
mitting a third of the income-tax, which is almost as
far as it would have gone in that direction. After con-
sidering the income-tax in every possible light, and
turning over all sorts of propositions for its more
equitable adjustment, the only conclusion he has comp to is
that it is so harmoniously unjust, and so symmetrically
wrong, that any attempt to make it fair would only render
it more flagrantly unjust. For our own part, it seems the
simplest thing in the world to levy a different rate on the dif-
ferent schedules. As it is necessary to divide income into
classes for the purposes of taxation, and as these classes re-
present the greatest actual differences—differences which
everybody feels—we do not see why the Chancellor of the
Exchequer should not recognize a classification made to his
hand. The pablic feels the difference, and Sir Charles
Wood may depend on it that the receipts of the tax are very
largely affected by that feeling, perhaps almost as much as
if the difference were recognized. Professional men and
tradesmen, and all who live by spinning the contents of their
brains, are satisfied that there is a deep injustice in taxing those
brains, which to-morrow may be dust or desolation, as if
they were broad acres that have drunk in the sunshine
and the rain ever since the creation, and will to the " crack
o' doom." The result of this general feeling is that people
will capitalize their incomes, after rules of their own, to get
off the tax altogether. Now, if Sir Charles Wood, who is
open to discussion on the mode of assessment under Schedule
B, would also take it into consideration whether 4d. or sd. in
the pound would not harmonize better with the actual value
of the incomes under Schedule D, we think he might, not
improbably allay a deep sense of injustice without much sa-
crifice of revenue. We really believe that many men would
readily pay a tax adjusted to their case who now feel no he-
sitation in avoiding a tax which they think wholly above it.
That the income-tax, however, is full of injustice, is confessed
by the present ridiculous—not to say cowardly practice—of
voting it triennially, notwithstanding the increasing deter-
mination of our free-trade financiers to keep on the blister as
long as the patient will bear it. A discussion would neces-
sarily bring out the anomalies and hardships of the tax, so a
discussion is to be avoided by a continual adjournment to
this day three years; though if we are to wait till we have a
surplus large enough to dispense with the tax altogether,
that day, it is clear, will never come.
To a mind so keenly susceptible of arithmetical beauty, it
must have been a very sore trial not to set the surplus
against the window.tax, and save all further trouble about
the budget. We will venture to say, that had Sir Charles
done so, it would have been thought as grand an idea as the
Crystal Palace or any other wonder of the age. The esti-
mated surplus is about 1,890,000/., and the produce of the
window-tax is stated to be 1,856,000/. What an opportunity
of doing the thing neatly! Sir Charles, however, is proof
against the temptation. He proposes, indeed, the entire re-
peal of the window-tax, so that no tax shall hereafter attach
to any house in relation to its windows. As it is his view,
however, that the objection lies rather against the mode of
assessment than against the principle of a tax upon resi-
dences, and as he wants to do a little execution in some other
departments of the revenue, he proposes to lay on a house-
tax, but of a very different amount to that which existed
prior to 1833. The house-tax then was after the rate of
ls. 6d. in the pound on a rental of 101. and under 20/., 2s. 3d.
on 201. and under 40/., and 2s. 10d. on 401. per annum and
upwards; and produced in the last year of its existence
1,491,4721. From that impost house property was altoge-
ther relieved, and it has since been further exempted
from the glass-duty, brick-duty, and partially from
that on timber. It is now proposed that houses
shall be charged as follows —All now paying window-tax,
but not of the annual value of 201., to be entirely exempt.
All not now paying window-tax, but of the annual value of
20/. or upwards, to pay two-thirds of the lowest window-tax,
viz., 12s. All of the annual value of eOl. and upwards, now
paying window-tax, to pay two-thirds of the amount now
paid for window-tax. New houses to pay at the rate of Is.
in the pound on their annual value, but if they be occupied
as shops, public houses, or farm-houses, 9d. in the pound
only. Notwithstanding the elaborate symmetry of this plan,
it is far from meeting all the difficulties of the case, and still
further from satisfying the ardent gentlemen who have lately
devoted themselves to the emancipation of light. But as the
discussion threatens to be rather minute we gladly leave it
to its own proper time.
As it is calculated that 120,000 houses will on
the above scheme pay neither window nor house
tax, and as the remainder will on the average pay
only two-thirds of the present impost, Sir Charles expects to
lose only 700,000/. by the scheme, and to raise 1,155,000/. by
his future house-tax. This will, therefore, leave 1,189,000/.
of the next year's estimated surplus at liberty for other re-
ductions. It is sufficient in this place to state very briefly
the reductions which have found favour in Sir Charles's dis.
criminating eyes. With a splendid equality of justice, he
proposes to reduce the duty on foreign and colonial coffee, as
also on chicory—which Sir Charles does not grow—and on
every other root used or mixed with coffee, to a uniform level
of 3a. a pound. This reduction of duty will cost 176,000/.
It is then proposed to reduce the duty on foreign timber to
half its present amount - viz., that upon sawn timber from
20s. to 108., and that upon hewn timber from 15s. to 7s. 6d.
This will cost 286,0001. Next comes a duty on clover,
grass, and other agricultural seeds, which has been
already reduced, with very great benefit to farmers,
but which still remains to an amount very incompatible
with the principle of letting raw materials in free. It is to
be reduced to a nominal amount at the trifling cost of 30,000/.
A portion of the expenses of pauper lunatics throughout the
United Kingdom will be charged on the Consolidated Fund
to tne amount of 150,000/. The reductions thus to come
info effect during the next year will be—
On sugar £330,000
Oa windows 700,000
On coffee ... 176,000
On timber 286,000
On seeds ... 30,000

Gain to the public ... ... £1,522,000
But as Sir Charles anticipates that the lots by the
first of these items will be compensated by the ge-
neral improvement of the revenue, and as the reduction
in coffee and timber will to some extent be
made up, it is hoped that the revenue will not really
lose more than 1,130,000 f. by these reduc-
tions, which, after the charge for pauper lunatics has been
further added, will leave a surplus for future years of 612,0001.
As half-a-year's window-tax will come into next year's ac-
count, this surplus in April 5, 1852, will be 962,0001.
Need we ask what is to be done with this? As honest
men, in the midst of all these reductions, we are bound to re-
member that we are in debt, and Sir Charles, we are glad to
say, does remember it. After having increased our debt
27,000,0007. sinceithe year 1835, we cannot with decency eat
up the whole of our surplus ourselves, and give no thought
for posterity. We must be just before we are generous, and
still more before we are selfish. There are those, we know,
who think it lost labour to attempt any impression on the
mountain of our national debt ; but at least let us escape the
stigma of often adding, and never subtracting from it.
_ _

(From the Chronicle.) -
The same reasons which induced the House of Commons
to postpone the debates on the Budget will serve as our jus-
tification for declining at present to discuss it in detail. It
may, however, be convenient to give some general account
of Sir Charles Wood's statement, and of the financial ar-
rangements which he proposes to Parliament. He calcu-
lates that the surplus, which, for the year ending in January
last, amounted to nearly 2,800,0001., will be reduced to
2,521,0001. at the close of the. financial year in April next.
Deducting the portion of this sum which seemed in the first
quarter of the year from duties afterwards repealed, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer reckons the disposable surplus
for the ensuing year at I,B92,oool.—being the difference be-
tween an estimated receipt of fifty. two millions and an esti-
mated expenditure of somewhat more than fifty millions.
The sums granted by the House of Commons for the
service of the current year, amounting to 50,776,0001.,
will, he anticipates, be found to have exceeded the ac-
tual expenditure (which he calculates at 50,134,9001.)
by no less a sum than 640,000/. It is not proposed
that any further reduction should be made at present;
and although the purchases on account of the Sinking Fund
have amounted in the last twelve months to 2,330,0001., to
which an equal diminution of the debt will be added during
the ensuing year, an increase has taken place in the Ter-
minable Annuities, which leaves the annual charge as high
as before, although representing a smaller principal sum.
In opening his propositions fur the disposal of the estimated
surplus, the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared his opinion
that the revenue ought habitually to exceed the expenditure
by a million sterling. The debt had, be complained, in-
creased by twenty-seven millions during twenty-seven years
of uninterrupted peace. It was necessary, for the credit of
the country, to make a commencement of the difficult task of
reducing the amount. To this purpose, therefore, he
proposes to apply about one-half of his surplus,
distributing the remainder for the relief of tax-
payers, and of certain special branches of trade.
The chief financial concession, as was previously
known, is the remission or commutation of the window-tax.
It is. however, to be effected by a somewhat complicated
and artificial arrangement, which appeared to puzzle the
House to a considerable extent as the Minister communi-
cated various fragments of his plan in slow succession. His
general statement of his intention was received in the first
instance with peals of laughter, provoked by the declaration
that the repeal of the window-tax would be a benefit more
peculiarly to the agricultural classes—a representation ex-
actly analogous to Lord John Russell's appeal to the Roman
Catholic laity 43 the personel to be principally protected by