The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-10 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY ; OCTOBER 10, 1856.

We have repeatedly celled on the tax-paying
community to adopt speedy and energetic means
to obtain a revision of this national taxation, so as
to levy the amount that :must be provided for the
liquidation of the public liabilities and the sup-
port of the national esta'blishments in the manner
least onerous to the grey t body of the people, and
at the same time most equitable to the contri-
butories in general. Vie have especially directed
attention to the unjust a; nd oppressive apportion-
ment of the income tax, which is so unsound in
principle—so unequal in its operation—that, but
that it has been sanction ed by Parliament, and is
an existing fact, of which the middle classes are so
'frequently and so painful] y reminded, it would seem
to be an act of supererog,te 'don, a mere fighting with
shadows to adduce a six.gle argument against it.
This iniquitous impost is, by a quibble, at which
an Old Bailey practitioner would blush, to be
continued, at the rate of Is. 41. iu the pound, or
61 per cent. until April, 1858. This result is
obtained by a literal interpretation of the Act for
doubling the impost, the clear intent and meaning
whereof was that the ertra charge should termi-
nate at the expiration of the financial year, next
after the termination of the war, but as the words
used are "next after a 2 •atification of a definitive
treaty of peace," the Government are doing that
collectively of which its members individually
would be ashamed, and Ne hich is neither more nor
less than a swindle on the nation. If the Chan-
caller of the Exchequer cannot spare so large a sum,
which would in round_ terms amount to nine
millions sterling, let himbring the question before
Parliament fairly and honourably, and he will find
every
disposition to provide all that he could
reasonably require to meet the many claims on
the Exchequer ; but let him carefully avoid
anything that can by a possibility be looked on
a "breach of faith," or even the taking of an
"
unfair advantage of the people. Better relin-
quish the entire amount than submit to such an
LuPlatation. Good faith, in the widest accepta-
tion of the phrase, has hitherto been the 'charac-
teristic of every British Government, no matter of
what party. It would indeed be decply prejudi-
cial to the nation and to the value of the public
securities, to remove that honourable prestige, and
to exhibit a disposition to take ad vantage of petty
points quite opposed
to the spirit of the enact-
'neut.

Nor is it the amount of the burden alone,
onerous as it must be considered, that is the most
objectionable part of the transaction. In certain
districts an unusual stringency is manifested in
the collection. It was, we believe, the invariable
.
practice when a party was in arrear to d notice
that unless the claim were liquidated by a
certain day a return would be made to the Cm_
inissioners, and measures adopted t 3 enforce pay.
went. This notification almost invariably pro-
duced the money, without the addition of law cods.
Tais ordinary courtesy has, however, been with-
drawn. The first information received is the

1:•1p..f.-r-anco of ,1 arinaki with a warrant, and
attended by a man to be left in possession unless
the amount was liquidated at the first demand ;
and so strictly has this system been acte 1 on that
in one case, when the broker was informed that
the master of the house would be back in half-an-
hour, and that the amount would tl en be paid,
he refused to call again in that short time, but
made the distress, thus adding ss. 6d. costs
to the amount, which was paid within the half-
hour. It has been said by some of the sufferers
that the time is carefully selected at which the
responsible party is absent, in order to obtain the
opportunity of adding the additional costs, and
the same system is also pursued with respeot to
the house tax ; the br ,ker facetiously hinting
while pocketing his Oh Ar4e, that it would be a salu-
tary lesson to teach the parties to pay promptly
without entailing the necessity of an application. We
can scarcely think that such proceedings can be
with the approbation of the Commissioners of
Inland Revenue. If not, they should resume their
former practice, unless they desire that the atten-
tion of Parliament should be directed to the sub-
ject.

We rejoice to see that an association is in course
of formation, for the purpose of obtaining the speedy
reduction of the tax, now that the War has
closed, from 16d. to 7d. in the pound, and also
for obtaining a more equitable apportionment of
the charge on income. A preliminary meeting
vas held at the London Tavern, Ludgate-hill, on
Virednesday evening. With the views there ex-
pressed, which appeared in our impression
of yesterday, we fully and cordially con-
cur. There is indeed a great distinction
between income arising from accumulated and
realised property, and that obtained by physical
or ntellectual labour. The position of a fund-
holdor possessing 10,0001. in the Three per
Cents. very different indeed from that
of a hard-working barrister, clergyman, medi-
cal practitioner, or tradesman, realising pro-
fits to the extent of 3001. per annum, or rather
assessed at that amount. We have frequently
pointed out the vast difference, and yet all
would have to pay the same amount, viz., 201.
a-year. We trust the association will persevere
in their labours. It only requires to have the
full extent of the girievance fully exposed to in-
duce a pressure from without that must be felt
within the walls of Parliament.

"Orthodoxy," quoth a worthy divine, "is my
doxy; heterodoxy is any body else's doxy." The
City of London Gas Company adopt the senti-
me*, to all appearance, seriously and to the
fullest extent. They are right, and everybody
else who differs froai them must be wrong. Com-
forting doctrine truly, especially when holding
it coincides with one's material interests. Em-
brace it, and there is no Gordian knot with folds
intricate enough to puzzle you and throw your
energies to waste. Like the sword of ALEXANDER,
it cuts right through. Some men have passed
their lives in bondage because of scruples of con-
science thrust upon them which they lacked
the resolution fairly to dissect, lest the re-
sult should prove antagonistic to their wishes.
Pity they had but taken up the doctrine in ques-,
tion at the outset, and stuck steadily to it. What
a world of mental uneasiness it would have saved
them ! How easily would they have surmounted
difficulties which, for the lack of it, proved wel.
nigh insuperable ; and what towers of strength
would they have been could they have persuaded
their neighbours of the soundness of their belief.
To be sure, as a celebrated political economist once
insinuated to an inveterate " infallible" whom she
encountered in America, the neighbourhood of
such an oracle is likely to be a little dal!, there
inevitably being nothing for the good folk, if it
all reasonable, t) contend about. Fortunately or
unfortunately, however, fur the world, let the
reader determine which, society is perverse, and
prefers to entertain opinions of its own rather
than adopt the opinions of " infallibles," more
especially when the latter, in all likelihood, owe
their origin to personal considerations.
The policemen on the Whitefriars beat, and the
respectable inhabitants who have given evidence in
the inquiry, are all in the wrong. Instead of being
a nuisance prejudicial to health, the City Gas
Works are rather a fountain of health as well as
of wholesome dividends. The Company always
believed this, and they believe so still. That a
nuisance exists in the neighbourhood is not de-
nied, but the Gas Works are not that nuisance.
It will be found elsewhere. Possibly P. C. 344
went on to his beat, as he says, in perfect health,
and immediately lost his appetite, became ill, and
had to be removed from his beat because of the
offensive exhalations he there encountered.
Sergeant KNIGHT, too, notwithstanding his sturdy
constitution, may Lave had to submit to a com-
pulsory evacuation of the stomach from the same
cause. The complaints of other policemen, and
of the respectable inhabitants of the neighbour-
hood may not be without some foundation. Brandy
may be kept in stock at the works for the relief of
sufferers from the same cause. But what alms
all this amount to as against the City Gasworks
Absolutely to nothing at all. The witnesses,
every man of them, unlike SLA.WKENBERGIUS, stand
convicted of being born without noses, or rather
noses of discrimination—noses that can distinguish
between things or odours that differ. The noxious
smells that turn the policial stomach topsy-turvy,
and play "old Harry" with the inhabitants, don't
come from the City Gasworks at all. Their origin
will be found in the Fleet Ditch ! The company
are martyrs to nasal ignorance !
unfortunately the policemen stick up for the
detective qualities of their beaks, and insist on the
City Gas Works being the veritable fons nuilontin,
and not the venerable ditch. The respectable
inhabitants do the same. How is this to be ac-
counted for ? It is not said, but possibly the
police inherit a partiality fur the Fleet, while the
inhabitants of a business locality in the heart of
the great metropolis may be anxious to have it
thought they can " smell their way." Besides; there
is the evidence of Mr. CHILDS, the surgeon of the
police force, who has statistics to show the health
of the men on the beat where the gas works are
situate is not worse than the health of the mon
theon voathgearriebseeaftsa. Unluckily for the company,
are too notorious to serve
certain professiona n d Mr.
class of
CHILDS neither disputes; the veracity of the men,
nor entertains a doubt that the smells they de-
scribe would produce the effects they have deposed
to, Was there ever an affair more
farcical
? The
effluvia from gasworks are none so faint and un-
distinguishable as not to be recognised, even if
the Fleet Sewer be forgetful of the proprieties.
The dullest hound of a nose, if it has any scent
at all, could not be tempted by the latter from
its track. The policemen, we make bold to say,
whatever the configuration of their noses, have
been on the right scoot, and really " nosed him
in the" City Gas Works. What further proof
of this could be desired than the fact of the
resolute detectives being compassionately revived
from exhaustion by the exhibition of brandy by
the servants of the company, and their being dis-
missed without a word being said to them about

4. rit 4 -
r

the Levi, Sewer? Then was the time to dis-
abuse their minds on the subject, if they were
abused, and not after an inquiry was instituted.
Depend upon it the sewer would not have escaped
detection a moment longer than could be pre-
vented on the receipt of such information, pro-
vided the policial nose testified to its being
reliable. Setting, however, this particular case
aside, we are decidedly of opinion the existence
of gas works in crowded neighbourhoods is in-
compatible with the public health, and that on
inquiry it will be found the weight of authority
is on the side of those who think with us.

Shall our Farmers have railways ? We mean,
shall purely agricultural districts have them ? The
question was suggested to us by the report of a
railway meeting at Lynn, or rather a meeting to
promote a railway between Lynn and Hunstan-
ton, in Norfolk. The loyal borough of King
JOHN is well enough known to our readers ; and,
if Toryism be loyalty the old town has preserved
its loyalty to this day, although the high and dry
of that class certainly caught a Tartar in electing
Lord STANLEY for their member, while his Lord-
ship was studying Democracy and Voluntaryism
in the United States. Perhaps half England has
known the name of Lynn better since it chose a
member who speaks at public meetings, on Agri-
culture and Church Rates, on Law Reform and
Reformatory Schools, on Education and the Maine
Liquor Law, on anything, apparently, where
social action is the chief requisite. To how many
places has not Lord STANLEY carried with him
the name of Kings' Lynn, when the committee's
advertisement and placards have given the full
style and title of their Lion for the occasion. But
Hunstanton—who ever heard of it ? Every one
knows far more of half the villages on the
Danube, or in the Crimea. And no wonder. It
lies, by road, some seventeen or eighteen miles
to the North side of Lynn, and the Royal town
itself is the end of that attenuation of a railway
called the East Anglian ; at any rate, having got
thither you must back out again, and may then
start off crab-wise to Norwich, one way, or to
Wisbeach the other. But Hunstanton—eighteen
miles off the fag-end of a most quiet railway,
who should know where it is ?
Yet is this said Hunstanton a very pleasant
little place on a summer's day ; a kind of Brigh-
ton, to its Metropolitan at the mouth of the
Ouse. It is well known to the sailor, for on its
cliff stands a lighthouse, the first shore light as
he enters the Wash. It is known too to the
geologist, for its said cliffs are the most beautiful
on the east side of England ; black and yellow
sandstone below, and overhanging crags of red and
white chalk above ; huge slabs of the latter form-
ing a romantic debris at the bottom. Indeed
one might imagine that an earthquake had caused
the wild confusion ; it ifs the work, however, of
winter's wet and frost alone. The antiquary
also knows the place, and we of the fourth estate
ought to know it too, for its old Hall was the
family seat of the L'ESTRANGE4, who are said
to have come over with the Conqueror ; and Sir
ROGER I:ESTRANGE, an author of several works,
was appointed, af,er the restoration, Censor of
the Press, and brought out himself, so early as
1665, a newspaper, called The Public Intelligeneer,
a circumstance duly commemorated in one of the
family pictures. Hunstanton, humble as its
inhabitants may be,. is not, therefore, to be de-
spised, and we can testify from personal know-
ledge to its pleasantness as a place of escape from
our smoke and noise ; the former is not to be seen
there ; and of the latter, all you hear is the roar
of the waves, and the scream of the sea gull. At
present it furnishes the charms of solitude—one
excel/cut hotel, a mile from even a cOttage, being
the only accommodation for visitors ; a railway
might change all that. If the place were known
to those excursionists who like a hundred miles
run, it might become a very attractive spot to
many of the daily toilers within the sound of
Bow bells.
We should not have thought, just now, how-
ever, of Hun stanton and the L'ESTEANGES, but
for the report we have referred to. We lately
travelled in the district, and when we saw in a
local paper the heading Lynn and Hunstanton
Railway we certainly did open our ev.s. Re-
freshing our memory by a good map of Norfolk,
we found but six or seven small villages between
the two places ; the largest of them numbering,
perhaps, a thousand inhabitants, the rest not more
than a few hundreds ; on one side of the present
road, the sea only separated by two or thr©e miles
of fields or pletures; on the other, again, but few
villages, and those small and mostly distant I If
the Lynn and Hunstanton Railway be to succeed,
then it will be a fair test of how far agriculture
cr.n support the rail, and we confess that on that
ground alone we should like to see it tried. The
1033, if loss it should turn out, will not be ruin-
ous j responsible parties have offdred to construct
the railway, and hand it over complete for
80,0001., but a trifle over 5,0001. par mile !
Siould this be done, it will, if we remember
aright, be cheaper than any railway yet completed
in England. We should not think the district
remarkably favourable for railway engineering !
It would scarcely be wise to keep to the
level low lands, near the beach, and
leave all the villages too much on one
side ; and if it went inland the line must go
through the undulating, though not high, chalk
hills of the uplands ; there would be many cut-
tings, though no tunnellings.
We have not seen the details of the calculations,
but Mr. SIMPSON, of the East Anglian, is fully
satisfied with the prospective result, and we must
leave that to him and the good burgesses of
Lynn, It would seem that the promoters of the
railway have subscribed mare than half the
required a.vuount among themselves—a fair guaran-
. tee for the earnestness of their convictions. On the
grand point; however, which interests us—agri-
cultural railway.'--we have a remark or two to
make. Let it be understood of what kind the
district is, agriculti:rally. Eseept a strip of good
marshes adjacent to the Wash, it is a highly cul-
tivated light land a rable district. Much of it
within living memory:. was open sheep walk ; and
all now enclosed,
heaths, to which Ha xipstead-heath is but a heath-
plot, yet remain. It.; nearly
let on long leases, and avail tilled by an intelligent
in England. Lovers' of the best London porter
tenantry ; and it is o ne of the best barley districts
OW3 not a little to i;. Every kind of crop is,
however, diligently ci titivated, for the land being
nd the -number of sheep and oxen
manure, a'
naturally pow relies upon green crops and artifi-
cialarazed is very cimisid
Lynn and carriage back of
produce at the po, "t -
r arable. The delivery of this
oilcake and other
\rtficial manures must be, we
suppose, the chief reliance of the projectors,
though they may fai Ely include in their calcula-
tions the pleasure t rlps from a town of 20,000
inhabitants, and the ncreascd visits of the rural
Population to the to sn.
Nor should we be sur-
prised
should beco day, the little village at the
prised at all if, some
the metropolis as me as much of a resort from
xracruth or Lawestoft. Its
sea coast is far more bi3autiful than either. The
only Peculiarity is the t vast distance to which th©

: .

,For J
~~M X-a

low tides leave the shore. Even this, however
to those who spend the day there, is no objection,
while the firmness of the uncovered sands renders
them perfectly agreeable to walk on, and the
amusement is ample to amateurs in the con
struction of marine aquariums. We must wish
the little project success, though we cannot pre-
tend to be judges of the probability of it. Were
the business in the hands of parties able and
willing to make the country terminus as alluring
to us jaded Londoners as it easily might be, we
should not doubt that it would even pay well, if
constructed at the proposed cost.

We may just remark that agricultural railways
must depend for success on agriculture having
assumed its best form in any district. Manufac-
turing neighbourhoods can always support a line
through them, not only on account of the number
of persons travelling, but from the goods traffic
also, which is becoming increasingly remunera-
tive. In proportion as agriculture becomes more
of a food manufacture, and is carried on with
mechanical and scientific appliances—inproportion
as it approaches to what is doing at Tiptree Hall,
or even to what is attained in the Lothians and
in the well-tilled parts of Norfolk—will be its
capacity to support railways. When the cultiva-
tion of England shall have reached its highest
perfection,
and have approximated to horticul-
ture, and when the towns and the country shall
have arranged to apply our sewerage to its proper
use, it will then pay to carry—single lines
at least—to every district ; and landlords may
even find that small branch lines to each im-
portant farm will pay good interest in the shape
of increased rent.