The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-29 00:00:00

THE Sinsi, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 29, 1844.

former villainy, brings about the denouement by rei-
storing St. Halle and _Blanche to each- other, and
setting at rest the causeless jealousy of the Count.
There is a comic underplot admirably supported by
Miss Noel as Justine, Blanche's servant, and
Oxberry as Pierre, Franval's servant. These
two, baying made a match of it, set up an inn,
and Pierre, as a rigid Bonapartist, determines, in the
evil days of 1815, that if he cannot fight for his Em-
peror, he will at least charge for him, which he does
by making every Royalist pay double for the miser-
able fare that he sets before them. Madame Pros-
per was called for at the fall of the curtain, and was
received with shouts of applause and showers of
bouquets, and the piece was announced for repetition
every evening not devoted to opera. This piece
well deserves the triumphant success it has met with.
It is one of the most interesting dramas that has been
produced for a long time, and will, no doubt, run for
the remainder of the season. The house was well
and fashionably attended.

PROPERTY TAX.

A Return, showing the Net Amount of Duty collected under each separate Schedule of the Property and Income Tax Act,
for the Year ended the sth day of April, 1843.

Schedule Schedule Schedule Schedule Schedule Total.
A. B. C. D. E.
X. a. d. X. s. d. X. s. d. X. a. d. s. d. s. d.
On Assessments made by the
Commissioners for General
Purposes
On Assessments made by the
Commissioners for Special •
Purposei on Profits of
Trade •••
••• ... 231,837 13 0 231,837 13 0
•••
On Dividends of Public An-
nuities and other Pay-
ments into the Bank of
England, and on Interest
on Exchequer Bills, and on
Dividends payable out of
the Revenue of any Foreign .
State
••• •• •
On Offices and Pensions as-
sessed by Commissioners
of Departments
... 221,946 11 221,946 11 3
••• ••• ••• •••
ENGLAND AND WALES... 2,150,412 10 9 298,763 0 0 812,982 13 1 1,466,985 9 8 260,657 11 ,989,801 4 9
SCOTLAND *394,324 10 3
••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• •••

COURSE OF EXCHAI
Amsterdam CF. 12 6
Ditto, at sight l2 4
Rotterdam 2U. 12 6i
Antwerp 25 90
Hamburgh M.B. 13 14
Altona l3 14i
Paris, 3 days' sight, 25 65
Ditto, 3 months 25 85
Marseilles
Bourdeaux 25 90
Frankfort on Maine 122

GE.—(YESTERDAY.)
Gibraltar
Leghorn 3O 45
Genoa 25 90
Milan
Venice 47
Naples ~. 39
Palermo, per cm ll7
Lisbon 54
Oporto 534
Rio Janeiro 23
Bahia 2s
Buenos Ayres
NewYork,2ldys sight t
Philadelphia
PRICES OF BULLION, ?ER oz.
Foreign Gold, bars. .f. 3 17 9
Portugal Gold Coin 0 0 0
New Doubloons 0 0 0
New Dollars 0 4 9i
Silver in Bars 0 4 1111

15,384,125 15 0
This Account is made up on the Amount of Duty collected to the sth day of April, 1844, in respect of the year, 1842, ended
April, 1843.
• The Amount collected in Scotland cannot at present be distinguished in Schedules.
Accountant and Comptroller-General's Office,
Stamps and Taxes, 21st May, 1844.

Total Collection

THOS. LIGHTFOOT.

A Return, showing the Number of Claims of Exemption under the Property Tax Act received at the Tax-office up to the
20th of May, 1844 ; the Number on which the Duty has been repaid • the Amount of Duty repaid ; the Number of
Claims in which Orders have been issued by the Board of Taxes for discharging the Property of the Claimants from
Assessment ; and the Number of Claims now remaining in the Tax-office for Examination and Inquiry.
Number of Claims received
Number of Claims on which Duty has been repaid 75,500
Amount of Duty repaid
Number on which Orders have been issued for discharging the Property of the Claimants
from Assessment ...... .. ......... 49,370
Number of Claims remaining in the Office for Examination and Inquiry
* Of these about 6,000 claims have been found defective, and returned to the Surveyors for correction or amendment.
'l' These claims will be disposed of during the present week.
Special Commissioners' Department,
Stamps and Taxes, 21st May, 1844.

JOHN FULLER;

LORD COTTENII.EiM'S DEBTOR I
AND CREDITOR BILL.
(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
There is a disease of the nervous system which
is most prevalent in the luxurious and refined periods
of civilisation ; it produces such a weakness and
effeminacy of mind, as renders the patient unable to
bear the sight of immediate pain and trouble, and
causes him to sacrifice some of the most important
permanent matters, either to himself, or his family,
or his country, for the remission of a little present
suffering. The affectionate and caressing sympathy
which is lavished on horrible murderers, sometimes
even by ladies of rank and education, is the most
inveterate (but not very uncommon) form of this
disease, but its symptoms are generally shown in the
anxiety to relieve various classes of evil-doers, as
incendiaries, felons, larceners, and insolvent debtors,
from the ancient penalties awarded to their several
transgressions ; with regard to this last clasS of evil-
doers, these diseased persons have been so eminently
successful, that they have succeeded, after some thirty
years' labour, in giving almost complete impunity to
all insolvents, no matter what may have been the
conduct, "wilful or involuntary, which has caused
their insolvency.
A public document, on which a legislative measure
now in progress through the Lords is founded, is a
striking example of this disease, and of its obliterating
effects on the moral sense and the judgment. The
report of the Commissioners appointed to investigate
the Bankruptcy and Insolvency laws, 1840, says page
xxiii,
" The arrest of a debtor who is wholly insolvent is
of no direct use whatever" (observe the crafty intro-
duction of the word direct—the question is, as to its
use, and its indirect use may be very great. If by
direct use he meant compensation to him who is in-
jured, scarcely any evil inflicted on the wrong-doer
has any direct use), " and of this nature are the
greater number of arrests in execution. An honest
debtor who can pay, will do so before the costs of an
action are added to his debt" (such a sort of debtor
none but a lunatic or a wicked man would sue by
law, therefore this remark is only an irrelevance or
worse); " or if he be under temporary difficulties,
and have his liberty, he will exert himself to procure
the means of payment" (and such an one would be
rarely pursued by his creditors). " A dishonest
debtor will probably avail himself of the facility which
the laxity of the present law affords him, to dispose of
his property before the hostile creditor is able to
seize it," (and, therefore, he will not dispose of his
property under a law more lax, such as has lately
been made, and under one proposed still more lax.
under the Commissioners' recommendation !)
" The practical effect of the law of arrest or final
process, combined with the insolvency law, is the im-
prisonment of numbers merely to be discharged,
without opposition at the end of a few weeks," (and,
tnerefore, don't imprison them at all, intimates
this remark—would it not be more salutary, how-
ever, to imprison many weeks ?) " the conse-
quence is misery, waste of funds, and multiplied
frauds and perjuries" (always the consequence when
ill• doing men are liable to punishment), " whilst no
benefit arises to the creditor" (which is just the ques-
tion in dispute); " the arrest, imprisonment, expense,
are ruinous to the debtor" (which is the sad result of
all punishment) ; "in short, the ordinary consequence
is, disappointment and loss to the creditor, destruc-
tion to the debtor" (the common result when men
injure their neighbours, and when the injured seek
protection at expensive and imperfect tribunals, an
argument for the improvement of these tribunals, not
for their abrogation).
It is needful that error like this should be sup-
ported by some evidence, and let—not the trading
people, the intelligent and practical merchants and
men of the world—but any young gentleman much
within his teens, read the evidence and blush that
grave and dignified men in high places can be allowed
to write, unreproved such incoherence, on which, too,
laws are to be, and have been founded, which have
and will continue to confiscate millions of treasure,
claimed by honest men at the hands of idlers, spend-
thrifts, and rogues, who, under the guise and pro-
mise of honesty, were believed on their solemn promise
to pay. The report goes on to say :
'hat this has been the case since the abolition of
arrest on mesne-process, is most fully borne out by
returns, which have been produced before us. By a
return made to us from the Court of Relief of Insol-
vent Debtors, it appears, that from the Ist Oct. 1838,
to December, 1839, being fourteen months—
" The number of Town cases was,
Of these there were out of custody before
the day of hearing (was this because in
the interim they had settled with their
creditors ?) ....... .
Discharged opposed (because the creditor
had failed of legal proof?)
Discharged unopposed, because of the ex-
pense, and therefore additional loss and un-
certainty of obtaining a remand ;* or
rather, as is too often the case, the detain-
ing creditor is satisfied as to his debt, on
condition that he shall not oppose, while
by the discharge all other debts are
cancelled
. •
Of the opposed remanded for punishment...
Country cases during the same period
Of these, there were out of custody before
the day of hearing (see above)
Discharged unopposed.—lt is an easy way
to pay debts amounting to 1,0001. by
getting a friend to arrest, paying him in
full, some 201., chancing the non-inter-
ference (almost certain) of the other cre-
ditors, and thus getting whitewashed
Discharged opposed (the Judge being a mer-
ciful man ?) _ _ ••••

since all punishment (nearly) is removed by the,
mock humanity of the law? If the law-making class
were addicted to picking pockets after the Fleet-
street fashion, as they are addicted to getting into
debt, i. e., picking pockets after the,Oxford and Cam-
bridge fashion, the lawyers would soon have made a
report, with a table something like the following:—
Number of persons taken into custody on.
charges of larceny
Discharged by the magistrate for many
reasons, as—that the evidence was not
sufficiently technical to justify committal;
that the prosecutor did not appear ; that
the accused pleaded greattdistress, was a
very interesting young woman, or was a
man with a wife and six small children,
ill of typhus, or the prisons were full, or
because the magistrate was a man who
had a feeling heart for the " unfortunate"
who did wrong (not who suffered wrong)
Of the remainder who were committed, bills
were ignored by the grand jury, chiefly
because the prosecutor did not appear,
that is, they were unopposed
Of those sent to take their trial, many were
found not guilty, because of some defect
in the form of the indictment; or, again,
because the prosecutor did not appear—or
a witness had broken down, bullied by.
Counsellor P—; or the judge was care-
less, and did not clearly charge the jury ;
or because the jury were chiefly humanity-
mongers, who would not convict a fellow-
creature, and send him to prison for some
months to keep company with bad people ;
thus, in the end, of the original number
accused, there travelled on to punishment
only . . l4l
Thus, because of 1,679 captions, only 141 travelled
past the various bye-ways of escape, and reached the
goal ; therefore it is proved that the punishment of lar-
ceny is useless, and ought to be abolished I Let the
vengeful prosecutor be satisfied that the law has granted
him a. cessio bonorum,—a return of his watch if found
on the person of the thief, or else a nulla bona; but
for the poor unfortunate thief, why send him to pri-
son, to get his morals corrupted, and moreover prevent
his getting "a chance of a bit of bread for his Nancy
and the kids."

1,679

1,147

It is very remarkable that a man of the high intel-
lect and probity of Lord Cottenham should have
been misled by this childish report of the Commis-
sioners; but it may be taken as a melancholy proof
of the sporadic character of this class of Neuroses.
The best treatment fur it, as far as research has yet
gone, consists in abundant exercise in the open air,
and nutricious diet, neither slops nor stimulants, the
pressure on the brain is by these means relieved, and
its firmness of substance restored ; while the diseased
trains of ideas are best broken by study of the early
English writers, such as South, Fuller, and Milton,
and, above all, by the study of the Holy Scriptures.

• A creditor lately opposed a man in the Court at Exeter
who owed him 201., at a charge of 9/., and got nothing but a
remand for six months ; thus losing by his public spirit, not
20/., but 29/. Creditors do not arrest for vengeance, but they
press and press, to get all they can out of an unwilling deb-
tor, of whose real ability to pay they have no possible means
of knowing, and when he has allowed himself to be taken to
prison, they infer that he really cannot pay, or rather, that
he cannot be' made to pay, but by further process too expen-
sive and laborious for them to hazard.

LIT ERATURE.I
THE TRIUMPHS OF TIME.
B of three tales,
The " Triumphse n Bentley/, ,
Time" cons
consists
all of which are written with a certain degree of
spirit and intelligence, though the longest, entitled
" The Previsions of Lady Evelyn" is, in some of its
leading incidents so improbable, that much of the in-
terest, which would otherwise attach to it, is de-
stroyed. We allude, more especially, to not a few of
the scenes which take place in the household of
Lord Glenmore, where the young hero, Gerald James,
is domesticated as a tutor, and which, though highly
wrought up, have certainly little in common with
real life. The most entertaining story in the collec-
tion is " Sealed Orders," which is a Vinslation from
the French of Count Alfred de "Nay,' and turns
upon the melancholy fact of a bluntiketind-hearted
captain of a French vessel, having teen-ordered"to sail
with two young people, just marriedr7andy greatly
attached to each other, who are to be treated accord-
ing to certain sealed orders transmitted to the captain
by order of the French Directory, and which he is
not to open till the vessel has passed the line. On
opening these orders at the appointed locality, he finds
that he must instantly execute the young bridegroom
as a traitor—a task which he accomplishes, notwith-
standing the deep interest which the manners of the
young couple have excited in his mind. The account
of hi 3 subsequent remorse, and of the madness of the
bereaved girl, is exceedingly affecting, indeed quite
painfully so.

1,679

1,441

673

Of the opposed remanded for punishment.. 220
" Therefore the whole number imprisoned in town
and country was 3,905, and out of that number 2,758,
were discharged, either before the day of hearing or
without opposition ; of those opposed, 1,147 were
nevertheless discharged, and only 361 remained for
punishment. Out of the whole number, divi-
dends were paid in 199 cases." These re-
turns are very imperfect, and, indeed, all
bankruptcy and insolvency returns are so. What
we should have been told is, the amount of debts
owing by the 3,905 debtors, and the amount of divi-
dends paid, and all particulars respecting the various
sub-divisions. But even important as the returns
are, they will not prove the conclusion of the Com-
missioners, who say :—" Deducting 361 who were
remanded, from the 1,147 who were opposed, it
would appear that 786 were opposed without
sufficient grounds; then, adding . these 786
to the 2,758 who were discharged unopposed, it
would appear that, out of 3,905, the whole number
imprisoned, 3,544 were imprisoned who ought not, in
good policy, to have been imprisoned at all—for the
imprisonment of those persons produced no legitimate
advantage either to the creditors or to the com-
munity." Upon such statements the whole penal
laws of the, country might be abrogated ; the prisons
pulled down; police disbanded; and the lawyers and
judges sent to the colonies; and the industrious and
frugal of mankind left an abandoned prey to the
cunning and the violent—those who have strong wits
and strong fists. For other. purposes than these
however, was the expensive machinery of government
designed.
It would have been just as rational, had they at
once said that the picking of pockets ought not to be
punished, because some persist in so doing in defiance,
of the terrors of the law. But the question is—llow
many more would he pickpockets if there was no
punishment ? Just as, how many more men would
have refused to pay their debts, or have rendered
themselves unable to do so, had there been no arrest,
no punishment, to constrain them; and how many
such are there uoW more than there used to be,