The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-26 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

(From the Derbyshire Courier.)

The financial project of Mr. Gladstone is put
forward by himself as one of merely a temporary
character. " Next year" we are led to hope for
something definite.
The statement made by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer is briefly this. The estimated revenue
is £64,340,000 ; the estimated expense £69,207,000 ;
leaving a gross deficiency on the current year of
£4,867,000. Mr. Gladstone does not propose to
resort to a loan for the supply of this deficiency.
A loan must be had for India. The people are to
raise the extra amount as well as they can. The
brewers and maltsters are to be curtailed of their
credit this will supply for the moment some
£780,000. The remaining £4,000,000 is to be
obtained by an additional income-tax of 13d. in the
pound on incomes not above £l5O, and of 4d. in the
pound on incomes above £l5O. Mr. Gladstone,
however, proposes that the whole addition to the
income-tax should " be made applicable to the ser-
vice of the year by being charged on one half-year's
payment." " The effect of this proposition, there-
fore, will be that the autumn or winter payment of
the income-tax will be for all those whose incomes
are above £l5O a year 61d. in the pound (that is
4d. for the new tax, added to 21d. for the old tax),
and 4d. in the pound for those whose incomes are
under £l5O. For the remaining term of 1859-60
the duty will stand exactly as it is now—that is,
at 21 d. on the half-year— for both classes of
payers."
This additional five millions will be expended
principally in increased naval and military defences.
This expenditure the people of England have not
only approved of but demanded, and there is a
general feeling that we are deeply indebted to Sir
John Pakington and to General Peel for the good
judgment and efficiency with which our naval and
military defences have been so promptly augmented.
and strengthened.
With regard to the increase of the Income Tax,
it will be considered by most persons as an unmiti-
gated evil. The tax itself is inquisitorial and
odious, its pressure is partiarand Unequal, and it
has been generally admitted that nothing but an
actual state of war could justify the imposition or
the augmentation of this tax.
There can be no doubt that taxes on articles of
consumption are in every respect the fairest and
most unobjectionable of imposts. Every man then
pays in proportion to his consumption, and as a
general rule a man's consumption is proportionate
to his means.

Mr. Gladstone's proposition, even as a temporary
expedient, may be very convenient to him, but will
be very inconvenient to the country. In fact the
whole system of finance is fast drifting into such a
state that temporary expedients will not avail.
There is but one method by which our increased
and increasing load of taxation can be made co-
existent with the permanent prosperity of the coun-
try, and that is by the adoption of a sound system
of currency. There is not a single argument which
the Peel party have brought against sound
paper money which has not been practically re-
futed by the ability manifested by this country,
from 1797 to 1815, to bear without distress a much
larger amount of taxation than is now required.
We tell Mr. Gladstone that without great care
France will discover and avail herself of the weakest
part of our system, that is of our bad panic-creating
currency laws. Already Frame has hit upon a
method by which the pressure of a system of me-
tallic currency is deprived of much of its evil ten-
dency ; and it is this which, to the astonishment of
all, enables the country to bear the tremendous
drain upon her resources.
If we fail to reform our pernicious money laws,
we must prepare to sink down into a second rate
power.

THE RECORDER OF HULL ON THE PROFLI-
GACY OF " SERVANT-GALL-15.211."

Mr. Samuel Warren, Recorder of Hull, in a
charge to the grand jury delivered a day or two
ago, after a few words of comment upon the vice of
intemperance, said—Gentlemen, let me turn from.
this topic for a moment to another of great impor-
tance, forced on my attention by a case corning
before you and me at these sessions, and pain fully
reviving in my mind the recollection of several cases
at the last and immediately preceding sessions. I
mean cases of young female servants robbing their
masters and mistresses, and that almost invariably
of articles of dress. Gentlemen, I cannot bear to
make a harsh or uncharitable observation con-
cerning either an individual or a class ; but I
must in sober sadness ask you, as men of the
world, of social standing and experience—as heads
of families—whether you can possibly regard as
satisfactory the condition of female domestic ser-
vants of the present day ? For my own part, I
know what is said cat the subject by masters and
mistresses, in London and elsewhere, of all ranks of
society, that it is almost impossible, speaking in a
general way, to get or retain a respectable, modest,
and trustworthy female servant. Why ? Some,
nay very many, will tell you bitterly, and with too
much truth, that young women in that class Of
life are monstrously over-educated for their sta-
tions and callings; that is to say, that passing
away from, or 'neglecting homely and useful
acquirements, their minds are distempered and
inflated by a smattering of knowledge and
accomplishments totally unfitted for thew;
disturbing all their notions of dutiful, re-
spectful, and happy subordination, and giving
them a disgust for the plain paths of duty. In-
stances of this have from time to time been brought
under my notice that would be amusing were the,'
not so painful and even alarming, as indicative of
general and increasing tendencies. Dean Swift,
gentlemen, wrote a tract " On the mis-education of
our gentry ;" but a Dean Swift of our day might
at least as fittingly write a tract " On the mis-
education of our female servants." I shall no more
particularly allude to cases which have recently
come before us here of young women who have
stood weeping before me bitterly at that bar, and
afterwards in gaol ' • but I know what they have
said, what they have owned as to their having,
felt " above their places," and " been too folld
of dress, which," they said, " had brought
them where they were," Gentlemen, I atk
you whether any observant person can walk
the streets of our cities and towns on Sundays,
when shoals of servant girls are abroad, without
feelings of pity and disgust ? Slipping out of
front doors and sneaking out of areas may be seen
kitchen and scullery maids, aping the absurdities
of their superiors in station, with lace or make-
believe lace petticoats, crinoline, kid gloves, parasols,
and preposterous headdresses. What must be pass-
ing through their minds as they strut along thus
dismally bedizened, inviting imputations on their
character ? Whence come the funds to supply this
flg paltryate finery
ey r They
themselves
emeasilyel
vfeas from
ar prey
to
resistingth ptrhoe-
opportunity of robbing their mistresses and mas-
ters. Gentlemen, you know, and if you do not,
I do, that I am here touching an evil of
lisab le
a serious and rapidly-increasing magnitude
—one sapping the foundation of virtue and cha-
racter in a great and indispensable class of society-
But you will say, what is the remedy for it. Why'
I will tell you. First of all, let their betters cease
to set them an example of a preposterous and
paltry love of finery, which they themselves are
often as little able to afford as their inferiors, at all
events without shamefully and cruelly -wasting the
means of husbands and fathers. Let mistresses
steadily and resolutely set their faces against finely'
dressed servants. A general combination, with this
view, in even a month or two, would be of incalcut
able importance. Do not let quickly-east-°u
fashionable clothing be given to servants, but be
otherwise and charitably disposed of. Let lords
and ladies—let gentle and simple—in their re-
spective spheres of influence, inaugurate a mere
rational and wholesome state of things, with re-
ference to education, and then we may have e"
chance of again seeing that charming feature of all
English domestic establishment—a worthy, trust"
worthy female servant. Gentlemen, it is from the
class of silly, light-headed, misled, mis-educated
young women of whom I have been speaking,
the ranks of vice are incessantly and largely ri
cruited, of which, from my judicial experiences
could give you heart-rending instances and illustra-
tions ; but I forbear to do so. But this topic bringe
me to ono contained in the report of the chaplain tt
my brother magistrates and myself at the presen
sessions, and to which I must really call the grayt,
attention of the town authorities. I fully aPPre;
elate the great difficulty and delicacy of the subject'
but but some attempt ought to be made to deal with s
Our excellent chaplain respectfully calls our sern
attention, as well he may, to the large increase 1:
houses of infamy in this town during the last fe4s,
years. In 1851, their number was 234; in 181,
it
326 ; while the number of unhappy women brengs,
before the magistrates in the former year was °
and in the latter 169 of
Again, in 1851, 315 out $
62& were under 25 years of age; in 1858, 332 om
of 563—showing an increase in seven years, of inn !
than five per cent, of young female profligaritt
And he adds, " I have also reason to believe tPs
some of the very parties who, at former sessieo
were prosecuted for keeping houses of ill-faine, and
sentenced to long periods of imprisonment, ha,
since their liberation been again engaged in t'-`t.s
at
infamous course of living.'