The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-20 00:00:00

ATROCIOUS MURDER.

Early on Thursday night last a dreadful murder was
committed at a farmhouse in the lone district of Hat-
tersley, on the borders of Lancashire and Nortb.
Cheshire. The dwelling in which the murder was per-
petrated is known by the name of Rose Fold, and was
occupied by Mrs. Mary Kinder, an infirm old lady
nearly 80 years of age, her two daughters, both un-
married, and a male and female servant. The particu-
lars of this frightful deed, as far as they have already
been discovered, are as follow:—On the Thursday even-
ing the daughters of Mrs. Kinder and the man-servant
were from home on business. Soon after six o'clock
the maid-servant went into the " shippon," a short dis-
tance from the house, to milk the cows, and shortly
afterwards returned to the house for the dairy key, but
did not then see her mistress. She went back to the
shipper]," strained the milk, and, after being absent
about half an hour, returned to the house. Again not
seeing her mistress, she proceeded to look for her, and
to her great h, rror discovered Mrs. Kinder lying un the
nfirlour floor quite deed and bathed in a pool of blood.
The young woman instantly. gave an alarm, and a
surgeon from Mottram-m-Longdendale (Mr. John side.
bottom), was sent for. On examination he found that
a large wound had been inflicted on the temple—
the skull having been fractured, and a portion of the
same :led the brains :Tattered about. Death must,
therefore, have been instantaneous. An inquest on the
body is to be held this (Monday) morning, when it is to
be hoped that some clue to the discovery of the mur-
derers will be discovered. The Special high constable
of the district (Mr. Little), an active officer, has been
employed in investigating the circumstances of the case,
and will continue to give his earnest attention to it till
the guilty party or parties are brought to justice. Mrs.
Kinder was in a respectable condition of life; and there
is no doubt that the object of the brutal murderers
must have been the robbery and plunder of the hone!).
Probably the activity of the servant woman engaged in
the " shippon" and dairy, and who so quickly returned
to the house, may have alarmed and driven them from
the premises. Most of the drawers and boxes in the
rooms were forced open and ransacked, but a small
bandbox, in which the sum of 141. 10s. was deposited,
escaped their notice, so that their booty was very small.
Hattersley lies in the hilly district near the borough of
Stockport, and ,is situated on the confines of North
Cheshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire. This dreadful
affair has caused great consternation throughout the
neighbourhood.

REPEAL OF THE WINDOW-TAX.
(From the Morning Advertiser.)
The Times of Friday comes oat, with all its
accustomed pomp of circumstance, with the announce-
ment, that the window-tax is doomed, and that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer has graciously con-
descended to resolve that it shall be abolished forth-
with.

The Times makes this announcement with as much
fuss and parade as if it had been communicating to
the country some important piece of intelligence
which would be quite new. The intelligence may,
indeed, be new to the readers of that journal. They
may never have before dreamt of the probability of
such a contingency ; but the Times has no right to
assume that, because its readers are unenlightened on
a particular point, it necessarily follows that the rest
of the public are equally in the dark.
What was news yesterday to the readers of our
contemporary, is no news to the readers of the
Morning Advertiser. It is now more than a month
since we apprised the public, iu the most positive
terms, and in the most prominent part of our
paper, that the window-tax would be repealed in
the coming session. In a fortnight afterwards, we
repeated the announcement; and again, in the
Morning Adrerliser of Saturday last, the 11th
we not only reiterated the assertion, that we knew,
from undoubted sources of information, that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer had made up his mind
to abolish the window duties, but that he had also
determined to substitute another impost in lieu of
the window-tax. That there may be no misconcep-
tion as to what we said eight days ago, and seven
days before the Times had a word on the subject, we
re-produce, from the Morning Advertiser of Satur-
day last, the paragraph to which we allude. It is as
follows

" THE WINDOW-TAX.—We have every reason to be-
lieve that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead of
contemplating the total repeal of the window-tax—
which he did a few weeks ago—means to content himself
with what he calls a modification' of the duties on the
light of heaven. In other words, he contemplates only a
reduction, not the entire remission of the obnoxious im-
post. But while this is the course he wishes to adopt,
another idea has within the last fortnight taken posses-
sion of the Right Hon. Gentleman's brain. It is, that in
the event of his being compelled, by the pressure from
without, nominally to repeal the tax, he will still be
able, in effect, to retain a portion of it, by levying some
new sort of tax on houses, which, from the description
given of it to us, is wholly incomprehensible. But though
it cannot be understood, it will, if imposed, be felt. To
be forewarned is to be forearmed. Will the country,
after being thus early spprised of Sir Charles Wood's
intentions, permit him to carry them out? Assuredly
not. There must be no fiscal legerdemain in the matter.
There must be an entire repeal, without a substitute of
any kind."

It will be observed, that we not only here inti-
mated the fact, that Sir Charles Wood had determined
on the substitution of another tax for the window
duties, but we even indicated the nature of the im-
post to be substituted. We said that it would be a
house tax, of some sort or other, though we confessed
our inability to comprehend its precise nature. Hear,
now, what the Times says on the subject in its num-
ber of yesterday :
" The numerous difficulties in the way of a mere com-
mutation will lead, wo believe, to the surrender of the
window-tax, and the substitution of a very moderate
house-tax. There is reason to hope that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer will have so considerable a surplus at
the end of the financial year, that he can easily afford
a million or twelve hundred thousand for this long-
desired object. By the substitution of a house-tax, cal-
culated to raise about 600,0001., for the window-tax,
raising about 1,800,0001., the sacrifice of revenue will
not exceed 1,200,0001."

But though the Times thus confirms to the letter
the information which we communicated exclusively
eight days ago, our contemporary does not conde-
scend to enlighten our darkness as to how the new
house•tax is to be imposed, or how it will operate.
The Times may have a good reason for its silence.
Very likely it is in the same predicament as ourselves
—does not exactly comprehend the nature of the con-
templated new tax.

But be the nature of the intended impost, as a sub-
stitute for the window-tax, what it may—were not
we right when, eight days ago, we cautioned the
country against permitting the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to practise any fiscal legerdemain, by
substituting some other impost for that which he is
about to remove ? We must have no other tax in
lieu of the window duties. If the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman supposes that the nation will passively submit
to that he deceives himself. There must be an en-
tire riddance of the burthen. Every trace of the
most obnoxious impost which an oppressively taxed
people ever had to endure must be obliterated. We
want the remembrance of it to perish. Even
the Times, who never saw its enormities before,
now discovers that it is the most iniquitous tax
which human ingenuity ever devised. It would
have been all the better for our contemporary had
this discovery been made shosnewhat sooner. The
Times prophesies after the event. It had no eye to
the odiousness of the window-tax until its doom was
recorded. During the long period that we have,
week after week, and day after day, been denouncing
the window duties, and calling loudly for their re-
mission, the Times never uttered a syllable. It never
whispered a word against them. The readers of the
Times would not have known—not, at least, from its
columns, that there was such a tax in existence. And
yet, so consummate is the effrontery of our contem-
porary, that it would not surprise us were he to came
coolly forward, by and by, and ake all the credit of
hwaevidnigd
iatcpieved the extinctions of the tax. " Alone
the provincial papers, that in
We perceive from * th
the country, as well as in metropolis, meetings are
of circumstances,
which is
being held every. day, tocall for the remission of
the window
more
similardu ties . d
elraVoenosbt
rsae
tri‘ov en, s also,
are
many
It cannot
wob
take place. necessary that we should
()aunt
atlhteerecdoustrastee
the opponents of the tax must be altered also.
no w oth be e
tactics appointedd ogprt atodotf.
Hitherto the demonstrations have been against the
impost abstractedly considered. Now they must take
the form of a determined opposition to any compro-
mise. The cry, from one extremity of the, land to
point With
the other, must be for a total and unconditional
repeal. The impost must be entirely abolished. It
must be swept away. Nothing must be suffered to
be substituted for it, which would keep up the
memory of a tax, which, for more than half a century,
has been so odious and oppressive to the Enghyh
nation, that no one could speak or think of it without
the deepest indignation.
demon-
Marylebone is to meet on Monday. The
stration will, we know, be one of an imposing kind.
It will be worthy the most populous and most wealthy
parish in the world. Let Marylebone set the example
on Monday, to the metropolis, and to the provinces,
of boldly unfurling the banner of " No compromise.'
Let that great and important district proclaim, in a
tone and terms not to be mistaken, th;t the tax must
be entirely abolished, and E 0 substitute for it pro-
posed. The voice of such a pariah as Marylebone
must be heard in Downing-street. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer cannot, if he would, shut his ears
against it. lie must hear, and, what is more, be
must obey.

MIDDLE TEMPLE.—The following members of thi
society have been called to the bar, and were sworn o
Saturday . evening in the hall: - William Lancaster, Esq. .;
Bower, Esq. Robert Anderson, Esq. ; and Wr
Henry Fslthfull, i