The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-18 00:00:00

is compelled to abandon the idea of publishing his
design, and is thereby inflicting an injury upon the
public, that might otherwise have benefited from his
powers of constructiveness ; or (through the same
lamentable and sometimes insurmountable difficulty)
the unfortunate inventor is induced to reveal the na-
ture of his design without previously securing to
himself a sort of copyright possession in it, and is
thereby doomed to witness the proceeds :of his own
skill enriching others without bringing to himself
anything more substantial than a barren celebrity.
The alternative is to the last degree deplorable, and is
unfortunately but of too frequent occurrence.
Some adequate conjecture may be formed of the
exorbitant charges levied upon all those ingenious
men who are for protecting under letters patent their
chemical or mechanical inventions-some conjecture,
we say, may be formed of these exorbitant and un-
conscionable charges from the graphic picture just
given in the miscellany of the distinguished writer
before mentioned. The paper from which we are
about to extract an epitomized quotation is entitled,
simply but suggestively enough, "A Poor Man's
Tale of a Patent," and recounts in the following manner
the fees and stamp taxes, which gradually swell into
a sum such as many find, when too late, to be alto-
gether ruinous. "After a deal of trouble," says the
poor mechanic who gives a history of his misfortunes,
" I found out a Master in Southampton-buildings,
Chancery-lane, nigh Temple-bar, where I made the
declaration, and paid 18d. I was told to take the de-
claration and petition to the Home-office, in White-
hall, where I left it to be signed by the Home Se-
cretary, and where I paid 2/. 2s. 6d. In six days he
signed it, and I was told to take it to the Attorney-
General's chambers, and leave it there for a report.
I did so, and paid 4/. 4s. The Attorney-General
made what they called a report of course, and
I was sent back with it to the Home-
office. They made a copy of it, which was
called a warrant. For this warrant I paid 71. 13s. 63.
It was sent to the QUEEN to sign. The QUEEN sent
it back signed. The Home Secretary signed it again.
The gentleman throwed it at me when I called, and
said, Now take it to the Patent-office, in Lincoln's
Inn.' At the Patent-office, in Lincoln's Inn, they
made a draught of the QUEEN'S bill" of my inven-
tion, and a docket of the bill.' I paid Si. 103. 6d.
for this. They engrossed two copies of the bill,
one for the Signet-office and one for the Privy Seal-
office.' I paid 11. 7s. 6d. for this. Stamp duty over
and above, 3/. The engrossing clerk of the same
office engrossed the QUEENS bill for signature. I
paid him 1/. ls. Stamp duty again, 1/. 103. I was
next to take the QUEEN'S bill to the Attorney-Gene-
ral again, and get it signed again. I took it, and paid
51. more. I fetched it away, and took it to the Home
Secretary again. He sent it to the QUEEN again. She
signed it again. I paid 7/. 13s. 6d. more for this.
But I hadn't nigh done yet. The QUEEN'S bill was
to be took to the Signet-office in Somerset-house,
Strand, where the stamp shop is. The Clerk of the
Signet made a Signet Bill for the Lord Keeper of the
Privy Seal.' I paid him 41. 7s. The Clerk of the
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal made a Privy Seal
bill for the Lord Chancellor.' I paid him 41. 2s. The
Privy Seal bill was handed over to the Clerk of the
Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid. I paid him
51. f7s. Bd.; at the same time I paid stamp duty for
the patent, in one lump, 301. I next paid him for
boxes for the patent,' 9s. 63. I next paid fees to
the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor's Purse-bearer,' 21.
2s. I next paid, fees to the clerk of the Hanaper,
71. 13s. I next paid fees to the Deputy Clerk of
the Hanaper,' 103. I next paid to the Lord Chancellor
again 1/. 1 ls. 6d. Last of all I paid fees to the
Deputy Sealer and Deputy Chaff Wax,' 105. 63."
Thus, says he, in conclusion, "the unopposed patent
for my invention, for England only, had cost me
961. 7s. Bd. If I had taken it out for the United
Kingdom, it would have cost me more than 3001."
From this homely catalogue of the expenses in-
curred by the more speculative class of discoverers, it
will be seen how gross and extortionate in its cha-
racter is the existing plan of arrangement. Nor can
a syllable be uttered in its defence on the plea that the
majority of these charges go to swell the amount of
the national revenue. For this they do not. In-
stead of benefiting the Exchequer, they only drop
into the pockets of the different underlings. They
are the sops to the Cerberi of the law. They are
bribes of the most transparent kind, or rather fees and
bonuses equivalent to the " one thousand thanks" of the
advertiser. Against them the indignant fiat of the

Legislature should be pronounced. For, while they
ruin, or at the least grievously embarrass, the in-
ventor, while thy perpetuate a rotten and pernicious
system of things, a system directly opposed to all
ideas of justice, and injurious to the cause of public
morality, so far from securing any advantage to the
revenue, they affect it only in the way of its diminu-
tion . Upon this head we are satisfied. We are
satisfied as surely as we are upon the propriety and
policy of diminishing the charge of postage,
and of decreasing the amounts of impost
levied on our importations and exportations. Of the
advantage of this moderating scheme of expense the
tariff of Sir RoisuittT PEEL and the penny postage of
Mr. ROWLAND HILL are brilliant illustrations. As
we have witnessed in reference to those two glorious
innovations, so we are convinced it would be were a
similar plan adopted in regard to the patenting of
scientific inventions. Diminish the scale of charges
and the revenue derived from this source
would be very soon conspicuously swelled
by the increase of applicants for such kind of
intellectual protection. Let the sums requisite for
the purchase of letters patent be restricted simply to
the discharge of a moderate stamp tax, and to the
payment of the costs of a specification (abolishing en
masse the whole of those iniquitous fees), and the
beneficial result of the change would be speedily per-
ceptible. The revenues of the country would be in-
creased instead of being diminished; the public would
be benefited by the speedier acquisition of new in-
ventions in matters affecting their comfort or conve-
nience, while the inventors themselves, in lieu of
paying, as heretofore, a sort of penalty for their in-
genuity, would receive some portion at least of
the rewards to which they are most indisputably
entitled.

When a few years since the amended Irish Poor-
law was carried through Parliament by large and
overwhelming majorities, it was reasonably antici-
pated that the nation would thenceforward be spared
the heartrending intelligence of human beings
perishing by the way-side of actual starvation. It
was said that the poverty of the country was at
length a charge upon its property, and that the
necessities of all should be provided for before any
thing was allocated to luxury or even comfort. It
might possibly occur, in extraordinary cases,
that persons unwilling to enrol themselves among
the pauper herd might linger on until
their constitution had become so greatly enfeebled
from inanition, that they could scarcely recover their
former health and strength, or that they might even
have died before they claimed or obtained the assist-
ance to which every destitute person is entitled in the
British isles. Such things have happened in this
more favoured land, where a poor-law has been in
practical operaiion for three centuries, and would bey
of course, still more probable in Ireland, where the
humane enactment had only been in force for three
years. But it could not be supposed that
when once a person had been admitted into
a workhouse, when his claims to support and mainte-
nance were recognised, that he could, under any
possible combination of circumstances, be suffered to
die from want of the commonest necessaries of ex-
istence, a sufficient supply of the coarsest and cheapest
food. That such is the fact has, however, been
proved beyond the possibility of doubt by the evi-
dence taken before the coroner of the county of Clare
and a jury empannelled to inquire into the circum-
stances attending the death of an unfortunate child,
named DENIS KEA.aziv, which the verdict declared to
have been occasioned "by exhaustion from want offood
and exposure to cold, and from the neglect of the
officers connected with the present house and auxiliary
house at Miltown, together with the neglect of the Bally-
voughan guardians."
Such a decision is sufficiently startling to o.emand
the closest and most stringent inquiry, not merely into
the particular circumstances of that melancholy case,
but into the practical administration of the law which
had led to such untoward results. The verdict above
alluded to would, on this side of St. George's
Channel, be considered equivalent to one