The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-18 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION.

The Post thus forcibly alludes to ;One of the griev-
ances of the Income-tax :—" At last we find our Con-
temporary the Times using its influence to abate the
great nuisance of the misconduct of the assessors
under the Income-tax. We wish it had begun a
little sooner, when its interference• would have been
of more use. Our Contemporary attributes the
monstrous , mischief done by these functionaries to
stupidity. We propose an alteration of the first
syllable : we think it is their cupidity which is to
blame. They do not hesitate to worry and torment
people whom they well know they have no right to
ask for a single farthing, because possibly they may
wring something from the ignorant, or the timid,
or the busy, and then they will have their poundage
all the same as if the money were fairly taken.
This is. abominable work, and it is strange that
the Government should not observe the excessive mis-
chief it will do, and take measures for putting an end
to it. In Constantinople the bakers, who endeavour
to assess the public by giving short weight, are re-
minded of the impropriety by being nailed by the
ears to their own doors. We wish that a similar rule
were enforced with respect to extortionate assessors
under the Income-tax. Really it is high time that
some dismissals took place. Some severe examples
have become necessary. Many a poor creature is
justly sent to the tread-mill for a less guilty thing than
endeavouring to extort a tax from those who are not
liable, in order to pocket a per tentage on the sum ex-
torted. We recommend Sir Peter Laurie to see
whether he cannot deal with a few of these assessors
in a summary way. A taste of the tread-mill would,
we have no doubt, be very efficacious."
The Chronicle observes, in• reference to the new
law appointments :—" The excuse for the jobbing in
the new bankruptcy appointments is, that it is not
mere political jobbing. The name of one Commis-
sioner of Liberal politics is pointed out, and another
is said to owe his appointment to the interest of Lord
Cottenham. Those must have a low idea of the spirit
in which important judicial patronage should be ad-
ministered with whom excuses such as these can amount
to any justification of Lord Lyndhurst. If the entire
list of the new Commissioners had been Liberals of
the most approved shade of politics, it would still have
been not the whit less a list of most discreditable in-
competence. If Lord Cottenham had persuaded his
successor to make all the appointments, he would, un-
doubtedly, have deserved severe reprobation for such
participation in a job ; but he would have taken his
share of blame without, in the least, diminishing that
which Lord Lyndhurst could in nowise shake off him,
by showing that it is for other men's benefit that be
has tarnished his name by rendering himself respon-
sible for this abuse of patronage. But the truth is,
that the list would have been better, had its sole ob-
ject been political jobbing. If Lord Lyndhurst's ob-
ject had been merely to serve his party, the Tories of
the Bar would have supplied him with the means of
making a more creditable list."

The Times says :—"lf the present Government have
any regard for decency and order, one of their ear-
liest practical reforms will be the revision of the law
of vestries, and especially of that masterpiece of bad
legislation the Select Vestry Act. The leading me-
tropolitan vestries belong to the first class of public
nuisances. Their appetite for political intrigue and
jobbery, their impertinent and offensive intrusions in-
to matters with which they have no concern, and their
constant tendency to prostitute their powers to the
worst purposes of lowest Radicalism, have brought
theminto universal contempt. If these bodies were
constituted for the discharge of political functions,
nobody would have a right to blame them because
their politics did not agree with his own. But the
contrary is the fact. The Constitution knows no-
thing of them except as a machinery by which the
local rates are collected and applied. If, in right of
their authority over scavengers and paviers, they
preach sedition in the streets—if, as relieving-officers,
they teach infidelity in the parish schools—it; as con-
servators of the church fabric, they obstruct the
clergy of the Church in the performance of their
duties, or the enjoyment of their legal rights—if, as
'parochial treasurers, they waste in political propa-
gandism the money of the parish—they become a
rank, flagrant, and rotten corruption, and ought to be
taken away."
The following appears in the Herald:—" There are,
we should suppose, few ladies who suspect the low
amount of wages paid by their milliners and dress-
makers to the unfortunate needle-workers engaged in
the production of their dresses—who know the inces-
sant toil and exertion of the poor girls who are so
employed—or who have thought of the amount of
pain, anxiety, and elisease generated by such employ-
ment. Yet are these topics, by acquaintance with
which ladies in the enjoyment of comfort and wealth,
might, if so disposed, accomplish much good to their
own sex—and they could achieve no greater temporal
good than the elevation and better remuneration of
that portion of their sex from which debauchery and
profligacy" now receive their amplest and their readiest
supplies.