The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-11 00:00:00

DOCKS.

Dividend ' Amount
Name of Company, per , of Paid. Price.
Annum. Share.
1 Z a. d. '£ e. d.
Commercial .•....... 31. per cent. I Stock.
jaet and West India ..; e%/. pr cent. Stock. 142
East Country
Landon ••••••• • . • • • • 4%1. pr cent. Stock. 116%
St. Katharine .. .... 5 per cent. Stock. 109%
Southampton •• ..

WATER.-WORKS.

Dividend Amount
N I
?Tame of Company. 1
! AnPneurm. Rbeare. raid.

East London..• • . • • •

Grand Junction . .

Price.

SHERIFFS' COURT.-(THIS DAY.)
(Before Mr. Under-Sheriff BUItCHELT..)
ROUDHLOFF JOHANNING
The parties to this action arc both Frenchmen. The plain-
tiffs, Messrs. Roundhloff, are makers of guitars, residing in
Charlotte-street, Fitzroy-square; and the defendant, Mr.
Johanning, is a music-seller, who lately resided in Great
Portland-street. The action was brought to recover 51. Bs. 9d.
for three guitars, which the plaintiffs had supplied to the
defendant at various times.
Mr. QUALES stated the;case for the plaintiffs. His clients
had been in the habit of doing business with the defendant
for several years in the sale of guitars. The practice was
to supply guitars upon sale, or return. Several were supplied
between 1838 and 1840, and of those supplied and sold dur-
ing this period, there were three guitars that were not paid
for. The first of these was delivered in the early part of
1838, worth 2/. 155.; and two others were supplied on the 9th
of November and the 9th of December, in 1840, worth 21.
10s. each ; making 71. 15s. in all. Towards this amount Mr.
Johanning had paid several small sums, and delivered some
goods to the plaintiffs, which - reduced the debt to
Si. Bs. 9d., for which the present action was brought.
Unfortunately for his clients they were not able to
read or write English, and at the various times
at which :the defendant (Mr. Johanning) had paid sums of
money, the latter, who could write English, had been in the
practice of drawing up receipts in that language, and getting
his clients, or one of them, to sign, upon the mere faith of
Mr. Johanning's honesty. Notwithstanding this, he had no
doubt that he could easily prove the debts. After various un-
successful attempts to get a settlement, the present proceed-
ings were entered into, and he (Mr. Quales) would have to
put himself in the witness-box, and there would be able to
show that Mr. Johanning had acted in a most disgraceful
manner throughout the whole of these transactions.
A foreigner, a professor ;of music, and Mr. Quales himself,
then gave evidence to the effect, that the goods bad been
delivered to the defendant, and that the latter had admitted
that he owed money to the plaintiff, though notwithstand
ing repeated endeavours to get a settlement, the defendant
refused all satisfaction. The evidence was not very clear
or satisfach ry, and was very much damage 4 by the cross-
er amination to which it was subjected.
Mr. BAGLEY for the defence, maintained that the whole
case was got up by the pla'ntitrb' attorney for the sake of
costs, who in this instance had appeared in the character of
advocate;attorney, and witness ; and that Mr. Johanning did
not owe. a farthing of the debt claimed. Receipts were
then put in of payments made on March 13th, 1838, Nov.
20th, 1840, and Dec. 21st, 1840, respectively, corresponding
exactly with the amounts sought in the action. Respecting
the receipts having been written in English, this was un-
true, as many of the receipts which the defendant had given
from time to time, were written in French, the native lan-
guage of the plaintiffs. To this it was rejoined that the re-
ceipts produced were for other guitars sold and delivered,
and that the dates did not correspond with those for whicl:
payment wassought in the present action.
The UNDER-SHERIFF briefly summed up, and
The jury, after having retired for a short time, returned a
verdict of 21. 18s. 9d. for the plaintiff.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE EVENING PAFERS OF THIS DAT.

GLOBE.—The Bill for removing the municipal and corpo-
rate disabilities, under which members of the' Jewish faith
were left by the Municipal Reform Act, was read a second
time last evening in the House of Peers. The unanimity
and harmony of the Lords spiritual and temporal, on the pre-
sent occasion, presents a striking contrast to the alarm which
in 1841 rufflecithe lawn of the Episcopal Bench, and commu-
nicated pious fears for the national Christianity among the lay
Peers, and induced them to reject the self- same bill by a lasts.
majority. We abate not one jot or tittle of the satisfaction
which we fed at the removal from the statute-book o'
another of the few remaining relics of intolerance by which
it is still disfigured. For the repeal of these remnants of a
dark, and therefore suspicious, age, we have invariably con
tended with such powers as we possess. The admission of
Jews to all corporate offices, in common with every other class
of the community, is no less politic than just. By omitting, ii:
the case of persons of the Jewish faith, the words "upon tb
true faith of a Christian," from the declaration required b
be taken upon the admission to corporate offices, this objet
will be effected. Thus, one of those anomalous, absurd, anti
positively injurious distinctions against which our efforts hay(
been directed, will be abolished. The removal of this repraacl.
—the most strenuous advocates for its retention, as essentia!
no less to the safety of Christianity in this country than ts
the Established Church, as part and parcel of the Constitu
tion, now converted into advocates for the change, of whirl
they, so recently, exhibited an alarm approaching to
horror this is gratifying. Still the change itself, anti
in quarters where we look for consistency, is not the least
strange because it is gratifyidg. We have been wont to con-
nect with high office in the Church a calm investigation o:
principles previously to their being adopted, and especially
before they arc deliberately and openly avowed. Yet in th(
present instance we see nearly the whole of the Episcopal
Bench, in less thin four years, relieved from thoss
painful apprehensions for the safety of our ." national
Christianity," which would be endangered from the
.admission of the Jews to corporate offices, and per-
mitting a Bill to pass for that purpose without. :
word of disapproval, or an effort to impede its progress !
The lay lords who in 1841, under Episcopal leadership, fought
so determinedly against the anti-Christian measure, were
equally complacent. We reproach them • not for ac-
cepting what they so recently rejected. We do not
doubt of their having yielded their formerly strongly
expressed objections to the force of reason and th(
power of truth. The Bishops now feel as strong an obligation '
to defend the "national Christianity," of which they are con
stituted the guardians and the guides, as they did in 1841
when they assembled in the House of Lords to vote the •re-
jection of a Bill, precisely the same as that which they now
allow to be passed -with as little apprehension of its contain-
ing anything dangerous 'to Christianity or the Establishe(
Church, as if it were a railway Bill. But we canno.
help thinking that the Archbishop of Canterbury, wh(
then moved the rejection of the Bill, on the ground that
" if such a measure as the present was allowed to become
the law of the land, the character of the country
would be altered, and it would no longer be an exclusively
Christian country," should have explained the cause of thi
change of mind. His Grace, we say, should have assignee
the reasons which had effected a change of views so coin
plete, and a relief from fears so painful. The Bishop 0-
Londotesspeech against the Bill of 1841 was distinguished by
those powers of eloquence which his Lordship is known t.
poesess, and which are never wielded with more effect that
when they are directed against any measure which, in hi:
view, tends to endanger the Church, by removing restric-
tions upon those who dissent from its communion. Yet tin
Bishop of London last night contented himself with ob-
serving, " Ile wished to explain that he was no party b
the measure, but that he did not oppose it, because In
did not desire to raise a discussion and stir up angry feel-
ings." What has produced this " love of peace" at th•
expense of principle, and at the cost of those imminen:
dangers to the Church which the Right Reverend Prelate
so powerfully enlarged upon in 1841 ? Other Prelates oi.
that occasion were equally eloquent in their denunciations of
the anti-Christian character of the Bill. Where were they
last night ? Echo answers "Where ? " Not one was found.
"faithful among the faithless," to lift up his voice to protest
against the Bill, or to reprove the Government for lending
its powerful aid to subvert the "national Christianity." That
they would have done so, and that by " thoughts whist
breathe in words which burn," had they not seen cans.
to change their opinions, there car: be no doubt. But their
explanations would have been more edifying and satisfactory'
than their mysterious silence. As to Lords Winchilsea, Ro-
den, and the temporal lords who distinguished themselves by
their resistance to the Bill of 1841, they doubtless waited for
the signal of distress from the Episcopal Bench, or the sound
of the tocsin to summon them to the field. Neither ob-
serving the one, nor hearing the other, they remained at
home. Still, in the absence of any explanation of the-cause,
of a change complete, and universal, there will not be want-
ing persons who Hill ascribe the change of views to the
changed position of parties. Had the Whigs continued it.
office, there would probably have been as strong objections is
Prelates and in Peers to admitting Jews to corporate offices
as there were in 1841. Principles are immutable; but Hi
tical power is affected by circumstances. Bishops, as well as
Barons, are influenced by hope.
STANDARD.—In our imperfect state it is impossible to
reconcile all the orders and institutions of society to nature'
equity; yet so deeply implanted is the love of justice is
every breast that, though we can scarcely move a step, or
indeed, scarcely contemplate the undeserved mercies that
the very humblest of us enjoy, without feeling that jus-
tice is universally violated through our whole complicated
social system ; still, strictjustice is the criterion by which we
would try everything, and to which we would have every-
thing conform, except our own conduct. It is pleasant, no
doubt, to contemplate a golden age—
" Qum vindice nullo
Sponte mil sine lege fidem rectumque colebat,
Pmna metusque aberant, nee verba minacia fixo
Are legebaet ur, nec supplex turba timebant:
Judicis era sui, sed erant sine vindice tuti."
That was a happy state of society (if it ever existed) which
felt no want of constables, police-officers, judges, armies, line-
of-battle ships, war steamers, or their unavoidable and most
disagreeable attendants, customs and excise offices, stamp
and tax departments, &c., &c. This happy age, however,
was not, even in the imagination of the poet, of very long
duration. Constables, police-officers, judges, &c., become
necessary, until at length—
" Ultima ccelestum terras Astrea reliquit."
The divine virgin abandoned the whole earth absolutely with-
out pausing to establish her shrine either in a custom -house,
or excise or stamp and tax-office. Hence it followed, if we
may carry or. the allegory, that nearly every tax
is not merely "an evil," as Sir Robert Peel ad-
mitted, but also " an injustice," and the furthest that
the wisdom of legislation can go is to select the
least degree of injustice. If gentlemen had kept this
consideration in view last night many passionate and moving
appeals might have been spared by the opponents of direct
taxation. It strikes us, indeed, that these appeals were not
met as they ought to have been, by a set-off of the far
greater evils and far more flagrant injustice of indirect taxes.
There is, no doubt, a manifest inequality in directly charging
a man's earnings as highly as the interest of the earnings of
another man or of that other man's ancestors (for such interest
fairly enough represents i ['cornett:om fixed property), but what
is this compared to the inju;tice of indirectly taxing the
earnings of the father of half-a dozen children, with six or
seven times as heavy a burden as the unmarried man, who
may be ten or one hundred times as rich; ray, taxing the
father of a family directly also in a much higher ra-
tio than his richer neighbour—for the man who
has a family must have a house or a lodging of some
size ; whereas the single man may live in a single
closet, and dine at a club, as a great many do, not a
little to their discredit ? " Oh, where is your justice then," in
indirect taxation : In speaking of the rich man who escapes
indirect taxation, we have not altogether drawn from fancy.
Some years ago we knew a Member of Parliament whose
income was itot less than ten or twelve thousand
a-year, and who boasted that in a long life he
had never paid a shilling in taxes : lie lived in an
untaxed cottage about two miles from town, rode an un-
taxed pony, was-as abstemious as Father Mathew could de-
sire—and before-he enjoyed the privilege of franking himself,
used to receive all his post letters under cover to an official
friend. As his estates were in Ireland, he bad escaped the
income and rroperty taxes. The man was a miser, but as
he had disguised his miserly disposition under a political
pretence, he was bound to go through with it ; and, in fact,
to the day of his death, never paid a shilling tax. The
public, however, bad its revenge in probate duties upon some
hundreds of thousands cf pounds at his death. Now such
extreme cases are, no doubt, • rare ; but thousands of
eases there are morn or mesa nearly approaching to
this which we have described ; and is it not men-
Arens that the wealthy should be left even the
choicet of evading taxes, when the poor must pay
rarely Hobert Inglis- goul isr :undoubtedlyemthe
emHo
es tn r3earestnonhaebrl efe;r bt
huet
shirel?_ Of all the propositions suggested last night, that of
University of Oxford, w must take leave to differ from him
here. An income of 1501. a yweaerreis,
noth asdeed, a email income
to be taxed, and if the tax
system which must richly reimburse all njiceesmsaer?' alrstolo. f a
year who need compassion, we should say, give up the • milliona-
which Sir Robert Inglis would wish abandoned. One
hun-
dred and fifty pounds a year is, as we have said, a small
income; brit even deducting the income-tax, it is a sufficient