The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-07 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, JULY 7, 1845.

THE QUARTER'S REVENUE.

The revenue returns for the year and quarter end-
ing Saturday, July 5, are altogether satisfactory. A
considerable falling off in the departments of Cus•
toms and Excise was expected, as the natural result
of reductions made by the new tariff and the modi-
fication or abolition of certain excise duties. The
duty on glass has been abolished, that on auctions
lessened, about four hundred different articles of
foreign productions or manufacture which formerly
paid duty are now admitted free, and a considerable
reduction has taken place in the customs duty on one
of the necessaries of life—sugar. These, according
to the calculation of Sir ROBERT PEEL, would make
a diminution in the revenue to the amount of about
3,000,0001., without taking into account the in-
creased consumption arising from the cheap-
ness of certain articles. This is a vast
sum, certainly, to venture at one cast—it was admit-
ted to be a bold experiment, but, judging from the
present returns, it has been tried with perfect suc-
cess. Omitting " Crown lands" and " miscellaneous,"
which are no tests whatever of the state of trade or
the condition of the people, in every department, both
for the year and quarter, there is an increase, with
the exception of the Customs and Excise, and in
these the decrease is only on the quarter. The total
amount of decrease is 519,5951., namely, 369,687/.
for the Customs, and 149,9081. for the Excise, and
reckoning the anticipated falling off at 3,000,0001.,
and taking the present quarter as a criterion of
the other three, the amount is less by nearly
1,000,000/. This is a hopeful beginning, and only
shows the vigour and elasticity of trade, and the
healthful state of the revenue when not marred and
shackled by monopoly and extravagant duties. In
the stamps there is an increase on the year of
328,820/., and not less than 132,043/. for the quarter.
The Property-tax shows an increase of 14,291/.
on the year, and 157,5061. on the quarter. We are
glad to find that the Post-office, under the new
system, goes on gradually improving—the increase
on the year being 47,000/. There is a decrease in
the miscellaneous of 408,55,V. on the quarter, as com-
pared with the preceding, which 15 accounted for by
the diminished receipts of Sycee silver: The total
amount for the year, including " imprest other
moneys," and " repayments of advances,"
51,067,8561.—at the same period in the previous
year it was 50,220,678/.7 making an increase of
847,1781. on the year. The nominal decrease on the
quarter is 739,8471., and leaving out of the account
the accidental variation in the miscellaneous returns
already adverted to, the total decrease on the quarter
is only 331,312/.

Wa return to-day to an examination of those
clauses in Lord ASHLEY'S Bill for the Regulation of
the care and treatment of Lunatics in England
which we think most open to objection, on account
of the inadequate security they offer for the personal
liberty of any individaal who may happen to be the
object of fraudulent collusion or conspiracy, on the
part of one or more individuals interested in the con-
finement of his person, or the administration or pos-
session of his estate. It is in reference to the degree
in which it may open or close the door to such at-
tempts, that every measure of this kind must be
finally judged. In our last remarks on the present
Bill we endeavoured to show how perilous, in its
very principle, was the power of interposing in the
affairs of lunatics which the Legislature, certainly
under an insuperable necessity in the abstract, already
exercises, even in cases where no act has been com-
mitted by the parties whom it places, or rather au-
thorises to be placed, under a condition of grievous
restraint, practically prejudicial to the convenience,
safety, or decorum of society. Of course, in precise
proportion to the difficulty we have shown to exist
in drawing the line between excessive eccentricity
and insanity, according to the capricious conditions
required by the conflicting finding of commissions
de lunatico inquirendo, to establish the fact of such
insanity ; should be the jealousy of the public of
this jurisdiction, and of all powers wherewith the
Legislature may propose to arm it. But it should
further be recollected, that this is a domestic question,
which comes home to-day to the business and bosom
of every man's family, and may, to-morrow, become
the unexpected arbiter of the future destinies of any
one's nearest connexions, or even of his own. No
other considerations, we presume, need be urged, to
commend the careful discussion of Lord ASHLEY'S
Bill to all our readers.

Now, we must premise that the Bill is altogether
one of details, whereas the feeling of society at large
clearly demanded a remedial measure of principle.
We attach little value to clause 2, enacting that the
" Commissioners in Lunacy already appointed," and
"hereafter to be appointed under the sth and 6th Vlc-
TORIA, c. 34, shall henceforth be called Masters in
Lunacy.' " At the best, this is a very ambiguous
designation. It irresistibly suggests strange inquiries
as to who, among our legislators and characters
of the day, have most qualified themselves by absurdity
and folly to challenge the distinction of having earned
that sort of " Emeritris" professorship which should
exalt them, whether in Bedlam or Westminster, to
the rank of " Masters in Lunacy." If the Bill had
contemplated the reform of our vicious principle of
legislation for lunatics, it would first have made a
clear sweep of " Commissioners" heretofore appointed
under it. But if it have no loftier scope than the re-
casting of details, we can understand the value of
this clause to lead the next, which modestly ap-
points no less than six out of the eleven Lunacy
Commissioners it nominates (the six being
physicians or barristers-of-law of at least ten
years' standing) to salaries of 1,5001. a year each, their
appointments being during good behaviour therein.
For a staff of 9,0001. a year, even in these days of
patronage, it was necessary to make out something
like a case, so that two Masters, like two general
officers, were absolutely necessary to be placed over
so influential a body of subordinates. On this scheme
of official pay, clause 5 engrafts another of " retiring
pensions" to "incapacitated Commissioners ;" and
there are ample provisions for the formalities of a
common seal, a permanent chairman, appointment of
clerks, forms of oaths, Scc. Clause 13 is one of
sweeping terms, whereby the power of granting
licences for the keeping of private houses for the re-
ception of lunatics in the cities of London and West-
minster, the borough of Southwark, the counties of
Surrey, Middlesex, Essex, and Kent, "and also
within every other place, if any, within the distance
of seven miles from any part of said cities of London
or Westminster, or said borough of Southwark, all
which cities, county, borough, parishes, and places
aforesaid, shall be and are hereafter referred to be the
immediate jurisdiction of the Commissioners." This
seems to us a clause of powers altogether too exten-
sive to be confided to such a body, unless the latter
were associated with (and controllable by the ma-
jority of voices in such enlarged commission) the
lords and deputy-lieutenants of these counties, and
the chief officers of the muniilipalities and districts
enumerated. In the clause empowering Commis-
sioners to hold quarterly and special meetings for
granting licences, five are constituted a quorum ; and
neither in the number of this quorum, nor in the
latitude allowed to their discretion in the matter of
granting or witholding such licences, do we find any
adequate guarantees to the public against the mal-
administration, or even the corrupt abuse of such
very grave functions.

With regard, again, to clause 6, authorising
" justices of the peace in general or quarter sessions,
in all other parts of England, to license housesfor the

reception of lunatics, and to appoint visitors," we
have no such confidence in the wisdom or sagacity of
our assize jurisprudence, as not to deprecate this
wholesale delegation of a most dangerous and delicate
authority to the uncontrolled exercise of those who
so frequently astonish mankind in their administration
of that jurisprudence. Great care is taken to enact
that " every visitor, being a physician, surgeon, or
apothecary, shall be remunerated," but it is loosely
enough declared that so important an office as that
of the " clerk to the visitor"—technically speaking,
but virtually and practically, assessor to the whole
Commission,—shall be discharged by " the clerk of
the peace or some other person." We must again
remark on the heedless manner in which clause 24
has been drawn. "No licence to include more than
one house, but detached buildings, in certain cases,
to be considered part of a house." Everybody who
knows any thing of the interior management of pri-
vate lunatic reception houses must know, that where
a detestable tyranny is to be exercised, a cruel system
of coercion to be practised, a refractory patient to be
punished, in short, any abuse or illegality to be prac-
tised, it is in these " detached buildings," from a
laundry to a dog-kennel, that those offences against
humanity and the law have hitherto been practised by
the native, or the paid brutality of masters and
keepers. What is to secure the fact that such " build-
ings" will all be faithfully described, or noticed at all,
in the " notice, plan, and statement" required by the
terms of this clause to be given ?

But ws pass on at once to clause 44, which is in
these terms :

" And be it enacted, that no person (not a pauper),
whether represented to be a lunatic, or to be only a
boarder or lodger, or otherwise, shall be received into or
or detained in any licensed house, and no person (not a
pauper) shall be received into or detained as a lunatic
in any hospital, without an order under the hand of some
person, according to the form, and stating the particu-
lars required in schedule (B) annexed to this Act, nor
without the medical certificates, according to the form in
schedule (C) annexed to this Act, of two physicians,
surgeons or apothecaries, who shall not be in partner-
ship, and each of whom shall separately from the other
have personally examined the person to whom it relates,
not more than seven clear days previously to the recep-
tion of such person into such house or hospital, and
shall have signed anti dated the same on the day on
which such person shall have been so examined ; and
every person who shall receive or detain any person in
any such house or hospital as aforesaid without such
order and medical certificates as aforesaid shall be guilty
of a misdemeanour."

If the framers of this Bill imagine that these terms
provide any security for the sane against the disabili-
ties and penalties enforced against the insane; any
protection of rightful heirs against grasping guar-
dians, expectants in reversion, and those other rela-
tions and connexions of husbands, wives, &c., to
whom we alluded in our last article on this Bill;
they must have strangely forgotten the past history
of these " asylums," in the occasional disclosures that
have been made to the public of the manner in which
they are supplied, sometimes, with their best, that is,
their heavily paid-for patients. They must have for-,
gotten the frequent experiences we have of snapped-
up commissions " De Lunatico," granted on purely
" exparte statements" in the Court of Chancery.
They must be willing to continue that frightful
liability to sudden seizure, to the being dragged,
under circumstances calculated to " drive wise men
mad," before magistrates at any unexpected moment,
to be examined on allegations of insanity in their
concitt::
at no moment expected by them, and com-
mitted, wititzTt opportunity of disproof of charges, or
cross-examination of witnesses, to the horrors of a
lunatic " asylum." Whet; Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S
Bill for the regulation of the prz-ctioo of. General
Practitioners came before the House of Coma:f_ms, we
denounced it as unjust and injurious to a very meri-
torious body of men. But if it be supposed that
the certificates of two of the body, not connected in
partnership, and each of whom shall have separately
examined the patient, be any mutual or universal
security against the malpractices, the collusions, and
conspiracies, that have been practised under the exist-
ing state of the law; they who can believe in such a
result must be imbued with a simplicity of good
faith, and an easiness of credulity, that should qualify
them for the very first order of committal to be made
out by the new Commissioners.

The apathy with which the House of Commons
has hitherto regarded the rapid progress of the
" Wastes and Commons" Inclosure Bill, supplies a
most instructive lesson to the people. It is a signal
evidence of the utter selfishness which actuates a
vast proportion of those who call themselves their re-
presentatives—but who, in truth, consider only the
local interests by which they are immediately re-
turned—not the general community of which those
interests are but one element. Now, generally
speaking, the constituents of those who are returned
to Parliament are not the class of people to whom the
reservation of waste lands in waste, and commons in
common, is of the vital importance and even necessity'
which we have so often been called upon to demon-
strate. The poor labourer in husbandry and
agriculture, the toil-spent artizan in towns, the
factory child, who even in its tender infancy is
harnessed.to that ponderous machine of human labour
which in some shape or other, but in general at a
maturer period of existence, it is the lot of nine-
tenths of our race to be compelled to draw—the in-
digent sick, whose only chance of recovery is the
moving about in the fresh air in quiet and undis-
turbed liberty; it is to these that the unrestrained
ramble, the manly exercise, the pure invigorating
atmosphere, the tranquil excitement, and the healthful
ramble "far away," are " dear as the ruddy drops
that visit their sad hearts" at all other times. But
they, poor creatures, have no Member to return
whom they can bind, by pledges, to the advocacy of
this measure, or the rejection of that. They have
no immediate representative whom they can keep
straight in the path of his duty, or hold to compliance
with their wishes, by the controlling prospects of
an approaching or a pending election. And for this
very reason their remonstrances, their protests against
the present Bill are feebly heard within the walls of
the House of Commons. The " returned Member"
pays attention only to the particular views and ob-
jects of his own supporters in the borough or county
which he may happen to represent; and between the
comparative competency of its electoral body—their
connexion with mercantile pursuits, or with some
local staple or manufacture—and the proverbial disin-
clination of any body to put himself forward in look-
ing after that which is every body's business ; the
k 'lts of the poor to their ancient enjoyment of com-
mon and waste stand little chance of being vindi-
cated or even remembered. The fourteen or fifteen
Members who, last week, in common with Mr. HUME,
made a manful stand against the Earl of Lisicoms's
Bill (for such we hold ourselves at liberty to con-
sider it)—that crafty, uncalled-for, and most iniquit-
able Bill—cannot long make head against such
a majority as that which disposed of the
amendment for postponing the going into Commit-
tee on the Bill for three months. On the
occasion to which we refer, Lord WORSLEY appeared
to act as sponsor for this ill-favoured bantling; and
this was no matter of surprise to us, who had, about this
time last year, pointed out the repulsive features of its
predecessor and very near kinsman, Lord WORSLEY'S
own progeny. But that Lord WORSLEY, who is a
man of considerable Parliamentary experience and
judgment, should have so committed himself to the
cause of a Bill which is a pet measure with Lord
LINCOLN, who has not yet acquired the former, and
never possessed the latter, surpasses our comprehen-
sion. We might marvel at finding a man like Lord
WORSLEY countenancing such a scheme as that
really one-sided one which is provided for the work-
ing of the measure. It throws all opportunities
into the way of the landed proprietor fo cheaply ex-
tending his domain, but professes to be especially
intended for the benefit of the poor; ( !) and
Lord Lt scoms afterwards boasted that there
was no other inclosure measure, under
which the poor man (being minded, in the
first place, observe, to part with or exchange his com-
mon right in one locality for some allotment in an-
other) could do so at so trifling an expense. But this
is not the question. We ask, why is the poor man to
be subjected to this needless interference with his
comforts—this total bereavement of the limited means
still left him and his family for innocent relaxation
from his incessant toils, for renovating and renewing,
as it were, his exhausted spirits and strength ; and
in the contemplation of those scenes in which even
he can commune with the ever freshening. beauties
and the peaceful aspect of nature, derive pleasure,
health, and moral improvement, even from the contrast