The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-13 00:00:00

FEBRUARY ;3:— aB5O

Starling, stationer, r,f Iliver•street, Islington; and also
with assaulting Police-constable Joseph Bates, 414 N
diva ion. with intent t, murder him.
Imm,di;tely the prisoner was placed in the dock he
was recpgrliz:d by Mr. Mould, the clerk, as an old and
convicted thief and most desperate character.
Inspector Gray, of the G division, said that a more
daring fellow had not been prowling about London and
committing depredations of an extensive description for
many years past. On the 24th of August in lust year
ho with another man named Blackwell broke into the
premises of Mr. Raheire, furrier, of 322, Oxford-street,
at midnight, and being disturbed by the police the
accused jumped from a second-fl 'or window and in-
jured his leg, which led to his capture, while
his wretched companion, who dropped from the
roof of the building in the hope of escape, was
killed on the spot. The prisoner on that occasion was
removed to Middlesex hospital, and placed under the
surveillance of a police-officer; but he mana'zed to escape
from that institution a few weeks aftsrwards, and wtri
recaptured in September following in Spitaffields, by
him (Inspector Gray), with assistance, after a severe
encount r with hint and several bull- logs; and he waft
f 'WI with conveyed before Mr. llardwiek, at Marlt-to
rough-street, who, in conievenec of the fatal catastrophe
which had befallen his companion, found a difficulty in
the case, notwithstanding a burglary was proved to
have been committed at Mr. Raheiro's, and a summary
conviction of three months, with hard labour, was the
result.

Sergeant Dyer, of the E division, inf ,rmed the worthy
magistrate that eighteen months ago the prisoner was
sentenced to two months' imprisonment in the lionse
Correction f.-om that court, ho having he .n founi c 'ri
ce:lied at the hour of twelve o'clock in the house of Mr,
Davis, the Swan public-house, in Little Ormond-street.
Ile appealed from that conviction, and absconded from
his bail, whose recognisances were estreatel.
The following evidence was then given in respect of
the present serions charges :
The police-officer Bare., being sworn, stated—At
half-past 3 o'clock this morning, I met the prisoner in
Seabrook-mews, at the back of the Pied Bull public-
house. I asked him what business he had there, when
he instantly drew back without making a reply, and
struck me under the left tar with a hammer. I stag-
gered against a wall, when rallying a lit to I sprung my
rattle, and in a very few minutes saw the prisoner in
the custody of George Lock, 196 N. (The witness ap-
peared very ill, and had on a plast'r.)
Lock deposed to the capture of the prisoner, and to
finding upon him 66 pencil-cases of gold and silver, and
121. in cash.

The prosecutor identified the property produced
which had been stolen from his dwelling between the
hours of half-past twelve and four on that morning.
Hs retired to rest the last in his family at half-
past twelve, leaving every door and window fastened,
and was called up by the last witness after the apprehen-
sion of the prisoner, when he discovered that the thieves
had passed from the mews over some sheds t the leads
at the back of his house, and had then forced open a
barred door, leading to his shop, back parlour, and
kitchen, from which place the property mentioned was
removed.

This being the CM against the prisoner,
Mr. CoMBE asked him if he wished to make any
statement in respect to the charges ? The prisoner
said he should reserve his defence.

The witnesses having each been bound over in the
sum of 80/. to prosecute the prisoner, he was conveyed
to Newg,ite.

REPEAL of the DUTY on PAPER,

- - - ---
A deputation of gentlemen, representing paper-makers,
publishers, stud printers, in England and Scotland, had
an interview with Lord John Russell yesterday, at three
o'clock, in Downing-street.
Amongst those present were Mr. Charles Cowan, M.P.,
Mr. T. B. Crompton, of Farnworth, Lancashire; Mr.
Baldwin, of Sherbourne Mill, Birmingham; Mr. Thomas
Wrigley, of Bury, Lancashire; Mr. James Durham and
Mr. Henry Bruce, Edinburghshire; Mr. Hobert Cham-
bers of Edinburgh; Mr. Charles Knight, and Mr. W.
S. drr, of London.

The deputation was accompanied by Mr. Hume, M.P.,
and by Mr. Scholofield and Mr. Blair, the Members re-
spoctirely for Birmingham and Bolton.
Mr. COWAN introduced the deputation, and made a
few general observations.
__ _

Mr. CROMPTON said—My Lord, I can assure you
with great sincerity, that I have come hither with
much reluctance. I have been impelled by what I
feel to be the necessity of the case. I have been
upwards of forty years an extensive manufacturer of
paper, and during all that period I have never
known the branch of industry in question so unre-
munerative as it is now. I will endeavour as concisely
as I can, to explain to your Lordship some of the more
palpable causes and reasons for this state of things, and
I will point out the gross inconsistencies which exist,
and of which we are obliged to complain. First. Is it
reasonable that a raw material of the most worthless
character—l mean the very refuse which is crested from
maim and linen, in the process of manufacturing these
substances into cloth—should bear the impost of a duty
amounting to 600 per cent. upon its cost price, when
made into paper, whilst the cotton msnufacturere have
succeeded in removing a tax of only five-sixteenths of
one penny per lb. upon cotton imported into this
country, the Government having been satisfied that
that very small proportion—certainly not more than
five per cent upon its value—was prejudicial to the
interests of the country ? I ask again. How can
it be justified that the very refuse of the same
articles should be burdened with a tax of six hun-
dred per cent. upon their value? Now, my L-rd, I
will endeavour to bring under your notice some cf the
riamerous•hardships to which paper malufry2turors have
been obliged to submit in consequence of the arbitrary
and inconsistent operation of the Excise. Here are spe-
cimens of numerous articles brought into tie market as
substitutes f )r. paper, and, in appearance, so identically
the same with that article, that even I, my Lord, with-
out markinz them, could not distinguish between the
real commodity and its imitation, aid I will defy any
other man to :elect the one from the other. (Here Mr.
Crompton produce] a number of specimens of what ap-
peared to be paper of various qualities.) Now, at the
mere caprice of the officers of Excise, the real or the
fictitious production is pronounced to be paper. Oue
hundred per cent. is accordingly levied upon the cost
value of the one, while the other goes free, and it may
be interesting to your Lordship, and to the public at
large, to know why. The bare assertion of the fact,
indeed, would scarcely be credible without the corrobo-
ration of detail. By a decision of the Board of Excise,
in order t 3 constitute paper, the material must have been
pulverised and worked in water. It occurred to a manu-
facturer to take advantage of this official definition. He
erected premises and constructel machinery for the pur-
pose of fshricating the very same Material in a dry state.
lie succeeded, and chall.mgecl the Board of Excise to
seize the goods, which, according to their authoritative
description, could not bo paper. A seizure was made;
but a compromise took place. The manuf icture was al-
lowed to proceed for a given time, on the distinct under-
standing that, after its expiration, he should discontinue
his process or subject his product to the same duty
i with that paid upon paper manufactured n the usual
way. I believe it was discontinued accordingly; but it
was subsequently revived, and is at this moment carried
on—the goods being sold under the name of felt, exten-
sively substitu'o I for paper, and distinguishable from
that manufacture by no perceptible difference except
by being slightly darker in colour. Of another
extreme hardship I have personally experienced the
severe pressure. Ab gut two years ago a general order
was issued from the Board of Excise to the effect that
paper to be made into papier mich6 should be exempted
from duty provided the paper wore manufactured on the
premises on which the papier tract 6 manufacture wee
carried on, but not otherwise. Now, observe the opera-
tion of this. I was under the necessity of either allow-
ing the papier mile 6 manufacturer to come to my pre-
mises, or of erecting paper-tusking machinery on his, or,
finally, c f allowing myself to be superseded in his supply.
Finding myself thus situated, I memorialised the Board
of Excise, as well as the Lords Commissioners of the
Privy Council for the Board of Trade, as did
also my customer (one of the moat respectable
and extensive manufacturers of papier mach6 in
the kingdom) ; but neither of us could succeed
in obtaining permission for me to send out
paper under permit, giving notice to the officer of Ex-
cise to that effect, so as to be allowed a drawback. This
is but one of a thousand df the vexatious and unjust
impositions inevitably resulting from the existence of
the duty and the consequent Excise regulations. As
there are several other gentlemen desirous of addressing
your Lordship, I must conclude by observing that the
immoral tendency of this tax is such that I f:ar it is en-
couraging the most iniquitous practice', and rapidly
breaking down the probity of the manufacturer in this
trade. For we see daily in the market paper sold at
prices at which no honest trader can produce it, tram-
melled as he is by this most oppressive end obnoxious
law.

Mr. JAMES, BALDWIN, from Birmingham, said—My
Lord, I had the honour, about a year and a half ago, of
addressing a letter to your Lordship on these
unjust Excise laws, and the answer I got
from your Lordship was that you would take the
matter into your serious consideration. I now come
with this deputation to offer a few additional reasons
for their abolition. Iperceive that your Lordship's Go-
vernment is aware that the Excise laws are becoming
exceedingly obnoxious, for I perceive you now call all the
Excise offices " inland revenue offices." This convinces
me that your Lordship is aware of the fee!ing of the
country on this matter. Now, my Lord, a few of the
additional reasons aro these, that I find that Birmingham,
the town I come from, according to its population, uses
more paper in wrapping and re-wrapping its manu-
factured goods than almost any other in the kingdom;
and to show how this Act operates, before I left home I
called on a few of the merchants and manufacturers, such,
f instance, as Messrs. Scholefield, Messrs. Vanwart and
Co., llarrolds, Mr. It. W. Winfiel,l, J. Palmer, and
others. In ono of these houses I fund that nearly 20
tons of wrapping paper, paying 151. per ton, had been
used in a year. The manuf4cturers of thtso goods
having used 30 tons previously in making the same
goods ; the merchant dealing with them used
30 tons additional for the same goods; so that,
reckoning the 30 per cent, put on in America,
this paper duty alone made a difference of nearly
1 ,0001. por annum in the dealings of one house. Under
such airoumilance., how was it possible the English
merchant and manufacturer could compete with the
foreign merchant and manufJcturer, who did not PaY
duty on the paper in which their goods were packed ?
(Mr. Baldwin here showel to his Lordship some scraps
of button boards, out of which blanks for the insides of
Florentine buttons had been cut, and in which there is
great waste male, though duty is paid on all.) Thus,
in the case of the very low-priced small buttons, the
duty alone rai•es the price of the buttons nearly 10 per
cent.? on which, when they are sent to America another
30 per cent. is put. I ask your Lurkabip how it is pos-

>ibie for us to compete with the fureig►uer? And then
again I would ask your Lordship to lo- lt at its eff.cts on
education. My Lord, Idu hop', as y,,u cannot say now
yeti cannot spare the money, that you will ridiese the
country of this unjust and improper tax. Bs fire I sit
down, allow me just to say that, in exporting the corn.
moner kind of paper, the trouble and expense we are
put to in packing for exports amounts to from 12 to 15
per cent., while to send the same paper to Australia the
carriage does not amount to more than about 5 per cent.
Mr. Dna}um adverted to the circumstance that the
Excise duties proved a bar to the applications of science
in this branch of manufacture, ant illustrated this by
observing that beautiful papers of certain descriptions,
such as paper-hangings, Sze., have been made in France
from straw (several samples of straw paper Navin;
been laid on the table by Mr. Cowan), and the wonder
of course is, how such an article manufactured in France,
(Anna be also done in England, where the-e is so much
skill, enterprise, and capital. He said the Excise duty
must be held chargeable with this marvellous sta*e of
things. The Fre ich maker has no duty or Excise re-
gatticatie to inter ere with his experiments; the English
meketi,ll4; end the matter works thus—suppose a maker
doterintritil to experiment on 50 tons of straw at 40s. per
tott,d. e., 1001.; now the risk, in this case, of failure in
ptoillicing a good article is to the extent of 100/., besides
workmanship. Nowouppose a loss of 20,30,er 40 per ce at.,
as the ease may he, on an article sold in the market
h hi to be inferior or imperfect (as all experiments and
discoveries are of course very imperfect and uncertain a'
first), this is of course a loss, but not to such an extent
as to be serious, but such as might be contemplated by
any manufset firer in making experiments with the ho; e
of ultimate benefit; but on the other hand, it is quite
manifest that if, in addition to the price of the raw ma-
terial ef the 50 tons, there be also the duty of 151. per
tote or 750/. on that quantity, tie risk theu is no longer
on 100/. and workmanship, but on 8504 and workman-
ship, in the case supposed—a very different matter in-
duel, and such as might involve ruinous risk and loss.
Such a fearfully increased risk prevents any prudent
man attempting experiments, or following up &score-
ri, s, and, in fact, one party who did erect a mill in
England, to make paper from straw, after sacrificing a
large capital in the attempt, has ceased to work, and re-
tired from the trade alt Tether; and there is no likeli-
hood of any other party making such attempts whilst
the enormous load of the Excise duties exist.
Mr. CHAMBERS said the pressure of the paper duty
upon the business of publishing is chiefly felt in the most
popular class of publications. Those addressed to the
great holy of the people. On a newspaper of large cir-
culation it is very heavy. I know a provincial journal
which shows great enterprise, and upon it the paper
duty is about 6001. per annum, which would be a profit
failing all other. On cheap literary journals. I can
speak more definitely. There was one called a " Miscel-
lany of Tracts," ,which nay brother and I published. It
met a large sale, and, I believe, was in the way of doing
some good amongst tho humbler classes. It returned,
however, so slight a profit that we gave it up, while
selling to the extent of 80,000 capiee. On the whole
amount of this work printed, the duty was 6,220/.
Now, this would have been a very ample profit
in itself, though a mere shade upon each copy.
The amount of duty paid for our publications per annum
is, at an average, close upon 3,0001, which must
be considered as a great burden on what ie, to all intents
and purposes, a branch of the educational means of the
country. In a cheap publication, the value of paper
may be set down at nearly one-fourth of the selling
price, and considerably above one-third of the price to
the retailer. This is the case of the publisher who acts
with all possible advantages in his favour, such as pay-
ing ready money for every article, and acting as his own
printer and binder. From these data the teverity of the
burden on popular publications may be estimated. Were
the paper duty removed, the existing publications might,
in some cases, be reduced i❑ price ; in others the public
would derive a benefit from a superior paper being used,
and a better literature presented. In all subsequent
works the price would, of course, bo struck at the
lowered rate. I fully believe that, with paper at a re-
duced price, we could bring out many new works of im-
portance to the public, which we could not now with any
prudence attempt.
Mr. Ciliks. KNIGHT would not detain his Lordship by
adding anything to the general argument which had been
urged by Mr. Chambere, as to the discouragement of
popular literature by the existence of the duty on paper.
He would confine his observations to one point. The
paper tax operated injuriously against all literature, but
more especially so in the case of cheap publications f
which high priced skilled authorship was paid. He hal
been able to show that the duty had been a positi►e bur-
den upon the " Peuny Cyclopaalia" to the extent of
16,5001. That work was undertaken under the auspices
of his Lordship himself,amongst other eminent persons;
but the cost had been borne by Mr. Kuight. It had
never been remunerative, for the cost was larply in•
creased by the natural operation of the tax upon the
price of paper. This was an example of the peculiar
burden of the tax upon the higher kind of lite-
rary labour compelled to compete with low priced
authorship in the race of cheapness. Mr. Knight be-
lieved that the great mass of publications were tending
to cheapness—the good as well as the ba-I. He believed
that books for the few were fast going out of demand,
and, further, that the many would ultimately pay the
proper rewards ( f good writers as well, if ta, t better,
than under the present system of a limited demand.
But, with the paper duty the profits of a publisher em-
ploying the best authors to produce cheap books were
so curtail4d by the burden of the tax upon the large
amount of paper used for such books that the higher
class of literature was deprived of its proper encou-
ragement.

'The remarks of the deputation were foll,wed up by a
short but lucid and fJrciblo addreis from Mr. Hume, on
tie sec al, moral, and commercial questions involved
in the subject; &cur which the gentlemen, who had been
recrived with the greatest courtesy by his Lordship,
withdrew.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

BETTING AT MANCIIESTER.-TUESDAT

. LIVERPOOL STEEPLECHASE.— 10 to I agst Chandler
t), 12 to 1 agst Rattrap (t), 12 to 1 agst Sir John,
.6 to 1 sgst Knight of Grrynne, 18 to 1 agst Sir Arthur
20 to 1 agst Little Fanny (t), 20 to 1 agst Vain
hope, 25 to 1 sgst Shinrone (1), 25 to 1 sgst
R!-scue (t), 30 to 1 ag,t Maria Day (t).
THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE STAKES.-10 to 1 at,,,q
Osterley (t), 11 to 1 agst flarriot', 12 to 1 agtt Velox,
20 to 1 agst Priestess (t), 20 to 1 agst Fernhill.
METROPOLITAN STAKES.-5 to 1 ngst Cheerful (t),
15 to 1 agq Snowstorm (0, 16 to 1 apt Dough, 20 to
1 agst Testator (t).
CHESTER CIIP.-14 to 1 agst Glauca, 18 to 1 apt
Miss Anne, 22 to 1 agst Peep-o'-Dty Boy (t), 23 to 1
sgst Roland, 25 to 1 agst agst Cossack, 25 to 1 agst
Ell-rdale (offers to take), 25 to 1 agst Whim colt
(offers to take), 25 to 1 agst Fugle man (offers to take),
40 to 1 sgst Woodlark, 40 to 1 agst
DERRY.-15 t) 1 agst Voltigeur (offers to tete).
Nothing else named.