The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-02 00:00:00

SAD NEWS FROM CHINA.

It is satisfactory to learn from our Consuls in China
that there is a considerable increase in the demand for
almost every kind of cotton and woollen manufacture ;
but it is deplorable, indeed, to learn that white shirting%
do not go up. This is owing to the Mandarins. They are
the only class who are likely to purchase the white kinds
of shirtings, and not being addicted to changing
their linen more than once during the winter,
or once within three weeks during the summer,
the consumption is necessarily limited. Mr.
Sinclair, our Consul at Foochoofow, strongly nom.
ments on the mischief resulting from the competition
among British tea merchants, and observes that the native
dealers will be tempted to badly pack and prepare their
teas for the sake of hurrying them off their hands, so long
as they observe the eagerness of the foreign buyer. The
result is that we get an immense quantity of "lie tea"—

stuff that has never had the remotest connection with the
genuine shrub.

THE MORMONS.

The American Government is likely to find Brigham
Young a tough customer. It is needless to observe that
polygamy is the great source of dispute between these
parties. In 1862 a law was passed against polygamy;
but Brigham has taken wives since then, and so have his
subjects. According to the correspondent of the Daily
News, the prophet is believed to be worth four
or five millions sterling, invested in foreign
securities, and is one of the most independent
men living. lie set the United States at defiance
in 1858, and twenty-five hundred men were sent out on a
long and toilsome march over the plains to reduce him
to subjection ; but when they got to Utah they found no
one to oppose them ; and after spending the winter there,
bought their subsistence of the Mormons at enormous
rates. They marched back again, leaving the enemy con-
siderably richer than before. The Americans, however,
are getting exasperated on the subject of Mormonism, and
it must not be forgotten that there is a railway to Utah
now, which makes all the difference betwernl 1858 and
1869.

INCOME-TAX IN NEW YORK.

(From the Anglo-Amcrican Times.)

The New York Tribune has been analysing the
list of income-tax payers of New York City and
Brooklyn. After picking out all the very wealthy,
it turned its attention to the very poor, and those
who had been overlooked altogether in their poverty.
This sort of espionage, which would ❑ot be endured
in England, is very effective in bringing noses to
the grindstone. As the Tribune says, it not only fur-
nishes food for the curious but it disabuses the public
mind of errors on the income of functionaries in and
about the City Hall, the popular belief being that
the poorest of Aldermen made at least $50,000 per
annum through street contracts, held by relatives,
and other little jobs. One effect of the publication

is to explode this idea, and to vindicate-the purity
of the city administration. Coroners, although
eking out their scanty incomes by the questionable
proceeding of No. 1, after sitting on a body found
in the river, sending it to No. 2, and so on through
the whole lot, yet, nevertheless, make so little out
of each case, that not one of them appears in the
list. Having published the names of 48,000 inha-
bitants of New York and its vicinity, who each re-
turned a taxable income for 1868, the Tribune thinks
it but fair to turn to the poor fellows who had no in-
come at all for that year. First among these is one
who, singularly enough, dwells in a splendid Fifth-
avenue mansion, for which he pays nearly £l,OOO a
yearrent. Many such years must finish him off, if the
figures he furnishes be correct. Although his estate
is worth $1,250,000, and the most of it landed pro-
perty, it is sadly deficient in rents, as $9,000 was
all he got, while he paid in taxes $7,000, which,
with $5,000 interest on mortgage, left him minus
$3,000 to meet his expenses of living, amounting
to $30,000, which, of course, comes out of capi-
tal. Further up town is an Alderman, who, in
1862, when first elected was only worth $6,000.
The Register's Office shows that his real estate in
New York city now amounts to $BOO,OOO, but he
bas never yet been able to return an income of more
_ _ _

than $6OO. An ex-Mayor follows, with property
over one million of dollars in real estate, some leased
to the city at very remunerative prices, still he has
never had a single dollar of taxable income. The
next is a canny Scot, who has been engaged in run-
ning the Tammany Hall machine with the offices of
Senator, Supervisor, Deputy Street Commissioner,
and other lucrative posts. In 1860 he was very
poor, as indeed he must be to this day ; neverthe-
less, the public ignorantly suppose him to be a mil-
lionaire, as he purchased over $BOO,OOO worth of
real estate during a year that retuned him no tax-
able income. Heading the list of poor men who have
no income is Fernando Wood. But the Tribune
is not infallible, as it discovered on the day follow-
ing the publication of the list of poor men. W. C.
Bryant figured on that list among editors as pay-
ing a tax on an income of $l9O, the poet being sand-
wiched, so as to make the statement the more re-
markable between Robert Bonner with an income
of $183,841, and Alice Cary, a poetess, who, modest
as her income is, got eight times as much as the
well-known author. Next day it appeared that it
was not William Cullen Bryant at all, but an editor
named -W. C. Bryant, the poet's income being in-
cluded in the Brooklyn list, where it stands for
$57,063. At the same time we must do the Tribune
the justice to say that the only errors as yet dis-
covered in these enormous lists consist in a few
men omitted, and two or three mistakes in names
exactly alike, the initials also being the same.
The richest man in New York is A. T. Stew-
art, who is put down at $3,019,218. Next to
him comes William B. Astor, with an income of
$1,079,212. The third on the list is Elias T. Hig-
gins, whose income is $431,128, and James 11.
Bendict returns $311,589. Miss Clara Louisa
Kellogg paid on $5,039. Many judges are not on the
list,and Thos. W. Clarke is the highest among them,
returning $13,583. Some of the lawyers appear to

make nearly as much as all the Bench put together;
David Dudley Field, for instance, paying on $70,284.
Henry Ward Beecher receives $21,715. Among the
editors, Horace Greeley reports his incomes2o,Boo ;
Moses S. Beach (formerly of the Sun), $17,500; Wil-
liam Whitney, of the Sunday Mercury, $8,920; S.
B. Chittenden, of the Independent, $96,431; 11. B.
Claflin, $350,000; A. A. Low, $223,581. We were
under the impression that Jay Gould did a good
business in Erie Railroad stock last year, but we sup-
pose he carried that to capital account, as his income
reached only $150,000, while Cornelius Vander-
bilt, notwithstanding that he is a railway king,
confesses but to $69,230. The Secretary of State,
Hamilton Fish, pays on $31,520, and his Excellency
John Jay, Minister to Vienna, on $24,039. As a
class the bankers are the wealthiest, few falling below
$lOO,OOO. and Harvey Fisk paying on $286,129.
The actors and managers are a poor set, all except
Edwin Booth, who has an income of $83,736.
Hotel proprietors are, on the whole, rich men,
Stevens figuring at $244,335, L. Delrnonico $125,931.
Among the physicians in Brooklyn is Dr. Benjami❑
Andrews, who returns $71,276, but we regret that
he is a solitary exception, as the general run have
❑ot a tenth of his income. These lists would, no
doubt, gratify the curious who know New Yorkers
well, and in some cases would astonish them.
Among those noticed by the Tribune as not appear-
ing on the list is John Morrissey, Member of Con-
gress. The names of the Aldermen are worth giv-
ing, and some other high civic functionaries :
Richard B. Connelly, Controller; Michael Connelly,
Register, $639; Charles Devlin, ex-Street Commis-
sioner; Jas. Cunningham, Assist.-Alderman ; John
Moore, Alderman ; Thomas Coman, Alderman ;
Edward Cuddy, Alderman ; Hugh O'Brien, Alder-
man ; Anthony Miller, Alderman ; Thos. Connor,
Alderman; Frederick Repper, Alderman ; James E.
Coulter, Alderman; Geo. M'Grath, Alderman; John
M'Quade, Alderman ; Geo. W. MiLean, Street Com-
missioner ; Richard O'Gorman, Corporation Coun-
sel ; Thomas Dunlap, Collector of City Revenue ;
Alex. Ward, Superintendent of Lands and Places.
Another Alderman returns his income at about £B5
a year ! Poor man, how can he even permit his im-
agination to dwell on turtle soup. Frank Leslie is also
on the list. One gentleman the Tribune thus de-
scribes :—" Andrew J. Rogers (commonly called
Jack Rogers, for short), Public Administrator and
ex-M.C., Carpet-bagger from N.J." If men were
generally afflicted with conscience to the extent
popularly suppased, dollars would begin to pour
into the United States Exchequer from those whose
minds were uneasy, for it is evident that many of
the incomes of New York have escaped the tax al-
together; indeed we can safely assert that, as a
rule, it is a false guide to real wealth, for, while some
may actually exaggerate their incomes with an ulte-
rior object, others, and they the great mass, will
calculate and return so as to evade taxation. The
letters called forth by the list, as well as the com-
ments of the Tribune, are amusing. One writer as-
serts that among his acquaintance, numbering 200
to 300 persons only, he looked in vain for the names
of 70 or 80 fat, saucy, but not ragged, and declares
many to be the evasions. Another says that his next
neighbour lives in a handsome house, and keeps a
carriage and pair on an income of $BOO ! He tell:
of an individual who though always boasting of the
prospersity of his wholesale business and about tobuild
a house, has no income at all. A third asks, where
are the rich widows ? He had heard of Miss This,
Mrs. That, and Madame So-and-So, but of all these
enticing stories to fortune-hunters but one name
came out in the list, and she is 70 yea's old, if a day.
Finally, a prophet appears on the scene, and pre-
dicts that the Tribune will be brought to grief, as
the poor men will hasten to enter their incomes,
and iu a short rime the Democratic papers through-
out the country will be screeching their denials and
denouncing the false lists manufactured by scurril-
ous Radical sheets, to bring political opponents into
disrepute.