The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-30 00:00:00

dirt, darkness, and defective ventilation, was incurring a
heavy responsibility; he was in fact making himself the
accountable agent, in the case of some thousands of- the
population, for health and sickness, life and death.
Mr. N. B. WARD repeated the evidence he hal given on a
former occasion to the Health of Towns Commissioners on
the physical influences of • light both upon plants and
animals, and exhibited spec'mens of plants (presenting a
shrivelled and: withered appearance) which had been
grown without light, under circumstances otherwise favour-
able. With regard to the effect of a want of light on the
human constitution, he had frequently traced some of the
most lamentable instances of disease that he had ever met
with in his profession as a surgeon to the living in dark-
ened rooms; that is to say, in rooms of which one or more
of the windows had been closed to avoid the duties.
This was especially the case in the neighbourhood of
Houndsditcb, Rosemary-lane,_ and generally in the Jewish
quarters of the metropolis. The temptation of saving the
tax had been found irresistible, and of the poorer classes
among them it might truly be said, in the words of Scripture,
that there was no light in their dwellings." A tax upon
light could only have originated in the most profound igno-
rance of physical laws. Experiments had shown that tl,ie
tadpole, if kept in the dark, would live and die a tadpole,:iir-
stead of becoming a frog, light being essential to this chailAe
in its Organization ; and the effects of want of light upon
children were analogous. However well supplied with food,
if brought up in rooms shut out from the direct rays of the
sun, they became pale and sickly, and their growth was
stunted. Upon this head some striking facts had been pub-
lished by physicians employed in the hospitals of St. Peters-
burgh.
Colonel SYKES was desirous of expressing his strong con-
viction that the evil now in operation was so serious that it
was hardly possible to exaggerate its baneful influences;
but he felt convinced that the facts already stated must have
weight with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that the
system would be abandoned. I t was not a merely finan-
:ial question, it was both a sanitary and a moral question ;
and the arguments in favour of a change were of the gravest
importance.
Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR. observed that all men were
now so fully agreed upon the magnitude of the present evil
that he must really put it to the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer as a great public scandal that the resistance of the Go-
vernment to a simple measure of sanitary precaution should
have been prolonged up to the present moment. It must be
obvious to every one that the window duties could not be
defended upon financial grounds. If the money were re-
quired, it could be raises by a moderate and equitable home-
tax, which he (Lord R. Grosvenor) should be quite willing to
support, as a direct tax, preferable in many respects to other
fiscal burdens affecting trade and industry. Were it not for
the fact that, in the midst of all our boasted civilisation, we
were taxing light and air, the existence of window duties
might be taken as evidence of a state of barbarism greater
than had prevailed in the middle ages, or at any period of
the world's history. The advent of Lord John Russell to
power had been hailed by many persons in the belief that
all objects connected with the moral and physical improve-
ment of the population would be actively promoted, end it
was to them a source of grief and disappointment that the
Government, instead of taking the lead upon these questions,
should have unnecessarily thrust itself into a false position.
Public opinion was turning against Ministers, and the report
of the window duties, it was now not improbable, might Le
forced upon them by a hostile vote of the House of Com-
mons. He (Lord R. Grosvenor) should take a part in such
a vote with the greatest pain, and he implored the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer to put himself right with his friends
and right with the country, in gracefully and generously con.
ceding the measure of relief now solicited.
Mr. C. Foowna, for himself and his brethren of the archi-

tectural profession, would testify to the grand fact that the
window duties were objectionable, not only on sanitary
grounds, but also as occasioning much structural deformity,
and as imposing an insuperable barrier to the progress of do-
mestic architecture. He felt anxious that there should be no
attenvdt made to modify the present system, in order merely
to palliate the evil, but that it should be wholly abolished.
The great point to contend for was perfect liberty in works of
construction in the direction of improvement. It was pre-
posterous to make the taxgatherer a censor of architectural
designs, and to allow him to blot out ad libitum the features
of a building most essential to its health and cheerfulness as
a human habitation. Taxes should have reference solely to
the value of the property taxed, and he, both as a private
individual and as a member of the vestry of St. Pancras, was
quite willing to agree to a moderate house tax as a substitute
for the window duties; and be thought that such a proposi-
tion would be generally received by the public with favour.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that the depu-
tation would not of course expect him to reply then specifi-
cally to the different points on which he had been addressed.
It had been his duty to listen to their representations, and it
would also be his duty to receive several other deputations
that had written to request an interview upon the same sub-
ject. The question of the window duties would receive the
fullest consideration of her Majesty's Government.
The deputation then withdrew.

PARLIAMENTARY OATHS.
A I ery interesting report has been published by the
Select Committee appointed to make inquiries into the
oaths cf Members upon being admitted to take their
seats in the House of Commons. In a report cf twenty-
seven pages of the ordinary Parliamentary size will be
found the entire history of the swearing in of Members
down to our own time, and counting from the Act cf
Elizsbeth, which directs that Members shall take the
oath of Supremacy "corporally upon the Evangelists."
Previous to this date it does not appear that any trace
exists of the exaction of an oath from Members on tak-
ing their seats. Early in the reign of Jame I. we find
an oath directed against the Popish recusants, which ap-
pears to be nearly similar to the present oaths of alle-
giance and abjuration. During the Protectorate the
form of swearing becomes modified to the following
effect :—" I, A. 13., do, in the presence and by the
name of God Almighty, promise aid swear that to
the uttermost of my power, in my pTase, I will up-
hold and maintain the true reformed Protestant Christian
religion in the purity thereof, as it is contained in the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, &c."
The earliest enactments of Charles 11. are directed
against the Quakers, his latest against the Papists—then
it is we meet with the declaration against Transubstan-
tiation, &c. It is in the Act of Ist William and Mary,
commonly called the Toleration Act., that we find the
first trace of the resolution to exclude all persons not
professing the Christian religion from the walls of Par-
liament. It is therein recited that there are certain
persons, dissenters from the Church of England, who
scruple at the taking of any oath, and as a measure of
relief to them it is enacted that they may avoid taking
the oaths exacted at the time from other Members of
Parliament, upon their subscribing a declaration against
the Pope's supremacy as also the following profession
of faith:—" I, A. 8., do profess faith in God the
Father, and in Jesus Christ his eternal Son, the true
God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God and blessed for
evermore, and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of
the Old and New Testament to be given by divine in-
spiration." Such was the state of things in the days of
William and Mary. A wicket of admission was opened
for Christian Dissenters. Papists, and all persons not
Christian., were still jealously excluded from en active
share in the legislation and government of the country.
In the eighth year of the reign of William 111. it was
decided that by law a Quaker was admitted to make his
or her solemn affirmation, in place of as oath, in all
courts of justice and other places where by law an oath
was required.
Under these circumstances John Archdale, a Quaker,
was elected for Chipping Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire,
in the year 1698. Ho refused to take the oaths but de-
manded that his declaration of fidelity, &c., should be ac-
cepted as it would in other cases where an oath was re-
quired. The House, however, refused to listen to his
demand, and he was rejected. We unit pass over the
Abjuration oath, ending, as it does, with the words,
" upon the true faith of a Christian"—as also that of
Anne—that we may arrive at the permission granted by
the statutes of George I. to the Quakers to subscribe
declaration of fidelity, instead of the oaths in question.
in all courts of justice and elsewhere, &c. %Ye next
come to the Jews. As we are now upon the very ground
o. er vt Yeti there has been so much skirmishing, we
must here be a little more exact. By the lOds George 1.,
cap. 24,—it is enacted, " that whenever any of his
Majesty's subjects professing the Jewish religion shall
present himself to take the Oath of A
thebjion in
pursuance cf, &c., the words, upon true
faith of a Christian,' shall be omitted out of
the said oath in administering the same to such person;
and the taking the said oath by such person professing
the Jewish religion without the words aforesaid * *
shall be deemed to be a sufficient taking of the Abjura-
tion Oath." This statute was followed up three years
afterwards by another one to the same effect. Other
Acts there are set out in the report of the Select Com-
mittee bearing upon the forms of oath taken by Members
prior to Mr. Pease's case; but for these we must refer
our readers to the report itself.
has been ssiaonygoaafdhgt
meitaanhiintastatoznldeedn
i n
That case is too fresh in the public recollection, and
not here
l
Pease
upon
oa
nsteomwa
making
tatsnoefort
ae discussed,tfarfaukirinmleytdsouthieiosup aascrenot
aidnetshu la :rah, t
.ai
ot
nw,
se
Suffice
Mr
declaration, in
the
House
t 0
the effect of the oaths directed to be taken at the table
of the House. Mr. Pease himself was called as a wit-
ness before the Select Committee, and stated most clearly
and expressly, that in the declaration made by hire, the
words " upon the true faith of a Christian" were omitted.
Quakers, Moraviane, Separatists have been now expressly
relieved by statute. The Queen's subjects who proasis
the Jewish religion are, therefore, alone excluded from a
seat in Parliament in consequence of the prelisuinary
ceremonials.
At the commencement of the report the members of
the Select Committee favour us with a short synopsis of
the position of the Jews in England. They were ba-
nishe I from the realm in the 18th year of the reign
of King Edward 111, and did not return to thisi country
until the days of Oliver Cromwell. DurEnegg de
Protectorate some Dutch Jews came overett o
themhan
and prayed the Protector that he would 1
bli h d hise Shor t
their synagogues and the free exercise of their religion.ave
Upon this occasion it was that Bynne pu
,pateernEurrngelrantod.thel Jews'
seamsews' lotnhga
that
no
oconctoinn
considerable
barredderable Re
mitter
late numbere it tr eoi
them came over to England until the Restoration. From
that date to the present they have been allowed to live
amongst us in peace—discharging faithfully the obliga-
tions of good citizens and good subjects of the Crown.
One by one the restrictions have fallen away which
prevented their admission into offices of public trust, &o.
One only impediment exists to their complete emanci-
pation in the concluding words of a declaration, which
thereforehavebee dispensedwnithout cease
impropriety
with inthecase of others, and may
to be required from
Jews, who may henceforward be returned to serve as
Igcmbars of Parliament.-7 inter.

Authorship is, according to the spirit in which it
is pursued, an infamy, a pastime, a handicraft, an art, a
science, a virtue.—Eliza Cook's Journal.
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