The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-09 00:00:00

TAXATION.

Our Legislators, of all parties, are just now playing
at " fast and loose," " bide and seek," with the
country on the question of reducing taxation, and
cutting down the expenses. First of all, there is
the Tory motion for a repeal of the malt-tax. We
believe this most emphatically to be a " Afaltese
cross" of the highest class with a vengeance. It is a
mere factious battering-ram for knocking down a
Ministry. It means no remission of taxes to the
extent of a half farthing. It promises no diminution
of expenditure to chime in with the lessened revenue
of the empire. Its signification is much more simple.
It only stands for, Exeunt the Whiga and enter the
Country Party, who would immediately find some
excuse for keeping things as they are, or, if they
really did remit the malt-tax, would raise the
income-tax to ten per cent., or intercept all trade
by the increased duties which they would forthwith
lay upon all our imports from foreign countries.
We should thus gain an awful loss in the shape of a
removed tax. The remedy would be worse than
the disease. The patient would escape from his
malady by escaping from his life at the same time.
We sometimes read quack advertisements speaking
of " awful cures." We now comprehend the mean-
ing of the phrase. To be cured of the malt-tax by
an import duty of five per cent. on all goods from
foreign countries, would be, indeed, the most "awful
cure" on record. And yet this is what the Joseph
Ady of Conservatism announces as "the something
for our advantage" which he is anxious to impart
to us.

And then, again, in the matter of cutting down
the national expenses, both sides in Parliament are
pointing to the unhappy judges as the very pigeons
to be plucked, trussed, and roasted to appease the
public appetite for economy. We are marvellously
tickled with this impudent plagiarism from an old
fable. Once upon a time, when a plague broke out
amongst the beasts, they called a meeting to consi-
der whose sins could have called down such a visita•
tion upon the community. The lion confessed to
having devoured a few flocks and herds, and occa-
sionally swallowing a herdsman or shepherd with
them by way of a relish. But this was nothing, it
was even praiseworthy, in a lion. The tiger had the
same confession to make, and received the same
absolution. The wolf escaped in a similar manner.
Nothing was even thought of the forays of the fox
upon the geese and turkeys, ducks and chickens, of
the neighbouring farmers. But at last the poor ox
stood forth and stated, that once, when very hungry,
he bad, in passing the churchyard, nibbled one
mouthful of the parson's grass. The whole meeting
was immediately overwhelmed with pious indigna-
tion. The cause of heaven's anger was at once re-
vealed. " Sacrilege, sacrilege !" was simultaneously
shrieked forth from every quarter, and, before the
unhappy culprit could urge another word, he was
torn to pieces and devoured by his holy hearers, who
then diTersed in the odour of sanctity and a good
work, to devour flocks and herds, herdsmen and
shepherds, ducks, geese, chickens, and turkeys, just
as they had done before.
Now let us give the moral of all this. We
clamour for the abolition of the pensions to the
offipring of Charles the Second's menagerie of
tramps and trollops. But it is in vain. They
have int wined themselves among the lions
and tigers of society. They have been mar-
ried and been given in marriage among
the big ones of the land, and we are told that
they have established a vested right in the plunder
of our flocks and herds. We ask to have no more
generals an admirals than we want. But they also
are connected with the lion and the tiger, or, at all
events, with the wolf and the fox. We tarn to our
colonial blunderheads and our diplomatic " ne'er-
do-wells." But we only get the same answer. Still,
however, the cry for economy goes on, when at last
a bright thought seems to flash upon the leaders of
both parties, and they cry out, " There are the
judges, pitch into the judges, devour
the judges
without mercy or distinction." And is it not very
proper that it should be so ? The judges, like the
poor ox, havo no friends to help them. They are
neither brothers, nor sons, nor cousins to the lions
and tigers, wolves and foxes. They can trace no
descent to Nell Gwynne, or the Duchess of Ports-
mouth, or Lucy Waters. They cannot plead booby-
ism or blockheadism in their behalf like the aristo-
cratic locusts who swarm in the army and navy, the
colonies and diplomacy. They have not the peerage
at their back and beck. They have presumed to
rise by their own diligence and perseverance, by dint
of study, by virtue of their own talents, by the force
of their own merits. They are alone too, unsupported
by a family connexion in both Houses of Parliament.
Oat upon them. They are the very ox for the sacri-
fice. Bind them upon the altars. Offer them up to
the spirit of retrenchment. Tear them to pieces. De-
vour them, and then let the country see what stern
economists we are.

Now, in the face of all this, we have not a single
word to say in behalf of the judges, if they really
are overpaid. But we do not want to see them
victimized as a cloak for other people. Let their
salaries, if they are too high, be cut down, pani passe
with those of the official servants in every branch of
the Government. Let the supernumeraries in the
army and navy be reduced. And, above all, let the
pensions of those people who call themselves the de-
scendants of Charles the Second be brought to an end.
In the case of some of them it is even more than
doubtful whether they are sprung from him at all.
His ladies, it is well known, were very general,
promiscuous, and miscellaneous in their favours. It is
not at all improbable that we have been paying for
all those bad bargains so dearly and so long on " the-
pig-in-the-poke " principle. If we are to believe the
scandalous chronicles of the days when Charles
the Second was the master and centre of so
Many houses of ill-fame, Churchill, afterwards the
famous. Duke of Marlborough, was the father of
more of our pensioners than his Majesty. At all
events it is time "to stop the tap." We have paid
the wages and premium of iniquity too long under
any circumstances.—Liverpool Albion.

HARD WATER UNFIT FOR DO-
' Few subjecti‘siEhaSvTelaCttrPactjteßdenTreEaSt.tention among
sanitary
supply of
water reformers
to h
necessity
dwellers
e s sity of
in
cities. Experience has shown that the obtainingsupply
a copious large
should be at least twenty gallons daily for
each inhabitant, although forty gallons are neces-
sary to carry out to the full extent all the sanitary
improvement's deemed desirable for the well-being of
a population. But in looking to quantity of supply,
quality has been thought of less importance ; there
could not be a. more gross error, or one more fatal to
civic economy and domestic comfort.
The water ?!'ound in springs, brooks, and rivers, has
its primary oi•igin in the rain of the district, unless
there should I iappen to be some accidental infilteration
from the sea, or other great natural reservoirs. This
rair, falling on the upper soil, either runs off in
streams, or, percolating through it and the porous
beds beneath, gushes out in the form of springs, wher-
ever it meets with an impervious bed which refuses
it a passage ; *its sunk down to the latter detect it
there, and tl iese form. the ordinary wells. In its
passage throua h the pertzir m
us rocks, itand character
takes up soluble
impurities, var yingin
with the mann of the geological formations, these
impuritiebrio, ; either mineral, vegetable, or animal
matter. The t lineral ingredients may be chalk, gyp-
sum, common salt, and different other compounds,
but it is the earl by sorts generally which impress pe-
culiar qualities o n the water.
Hard water is of no use as a cleanser, until all the
nlifm.tehnhaansap.
been re: moved by uniting with the oiliy acid
destroy in this
NI, ay thirty ounces of soap before Ty hundred gallons of ThameS water.
be-
coming a deterge: at. But as this is an enormous waste,
the dwellers in towns supplied with hard water,
resort to other In ethods of washing, so as to econo- J