The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-23 00:00:00

SIR .ROBERT'S NEW SLIDING
SCALE ON INCOME.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sza,—There has sometimes been a mistake, in crying
out against the idea of a permanent Income Tax as a
measure of ' finance, on the ground of the inequality of
its action upon perpetual and temporary incomes. On
examination there would appear to be no cause of com-
praint upon this ground. The man who has a thousand
a-year for ten years, is taxed, say 3 per cent, for ten
years ; and the man who has a thousand a-year for him-
self and representatives for ever, is taxed 3 per cent by
himself or representatives for ever, which is exactly in
the proportion of the absolute value of the properties.
The complaint therefore ought to be, not that the tax
falls unequally, but that it falls. equally ; and it should
come under the head of the injustice of laying as much
per centage on small properties as on great.
But widely different is the case, when it is systemati-
cally proposed to levy a sum by an Income Tax limited
to a term of years. The Minister refuses to liberate in-
dustry and commerce as the means of enabling us to
meet his demands for motley, and insists on keeping
both down for the benefit of the landed aristocracy.
And how does he propose to supply the deficiency ? By
an Income Tax so contrived, that where industry and
parsimony may be taxed one per cent on what they pus-
sess, the landed proprietors shall be taxed one-ninth per
cent. It is to be another Sliding Scale for the benefit of
the landed interest, varying so as to throw as far as nine
times their per centage on the property of men of the in-
dustrious and commercial classes.
The thing is matter of arithmetic. The present value
of an income of 1001. a year at 4 per cent for three
years is 2741., and of 1001. a year for ever, 2,5001. Ac-
cording to Sir Robert's new sliding scale, the man or
family who may possess 2001. a year for three years, is
to pay 18/. out of what is of the total value of 5481, and
the Duke of Cleveland is to pay the same sum of 18/.
out of what is of the total value of 5,000/. The Duke
therefore is to pay a less per tentage than the other, in
the proportion of 548 to 5,000, which is under 1 to 9.
This is the -extreme case ; and there are others of all
kinds of intermediate proportions in the slide.
It does not require much effort to see, that the incomes
from manufacturing and all other industry, come to a
great extent under the head of temporary. A manu-
factory which now produces 1,0001. a-year, is never such
a provision for children as landel property of the same
annual amount, nor could it be disposed of for the same
sum in the market. In most cases it dies with the
father ; and in the smaller manufacturing incomes, and
the professions generally, the dependence on the life and
health of the principal is still more palpable. The one
great species of property, therefore, which Sir Robert's
scale is meant to shield, is property in land.
Two questions i;rise hereupon.
1. Will no man in the House of Commons move as
an amendment, that the proposal to lay a per centage
on landed property, amounting to only a fraction of the
per centage laid on other kinds, and to tax some of the
industrious and poor at nine times the rate of some of the
powerful and rich, is a defiance of every rule of justice,
and an insolent attempt upon the patience of the country ?
2. Will the middle and commercial classes find out
or will they not, that a *Dutch • burgomaster under the
heel of Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Seoond,
would have had as much chance of being able to take
care of himself, as the industrious classes in Great
Britain under the existing mode of election to the House
of Commons ; and that this can never be a country for
them to live in, till they alter it ?
)our very sincerely,
T. PERRONET THOMPSON,
Blackheath, March 21, 1842.

MR. IIOOK S CELEBRATED STORIES, ENTITLED
'4 SAYINGS AND DOINGS."—The public will be pleased to
hear that a new edition of the three series of this popular
work, comprising the whole ten stories, now first collected to-
gs ther, is just published. In this new edition, the three series,
formerly making nine volumes, originally published at four
guineas and a half, are compressed into three volumes, and
sold, bound in morocco cloth, with a portrait of the author,
and several other embellishments, for eighteen shillings !
DESTRUCTION OF LONDON.—Some of the daily
journals have announced, that a number of poor Irish families,
residing in the neighbourhood of St. Giles's, have taken the
alarm at the predicted earthquake, and are actually pack-
ing up their wardrobes, with a view to their departure
for their native )and. Nearly a century ago, in 1750, a
prophet of the Dr. Dee school, in the person of a crazy
Lifeguarchiman, foretold that London would be swallowed up
by an earthquake, on Wednesday, the 4th of April, in that
year. By a reference to the second volume of Bentley's Col-
lective Edition of Horace Ifidpole's Letters, it will be seen
that the panic of that day was confined principally, not to
what Daniel O'Connell calls " the butiful pisintry of green
Erin," but that the nobility and gentry partook equally in
the alarm. "Several families," he writes on the 2d of April,
" are literally gone, and many more going to-day. I am al-
most ready to burn my letter now I have begun it, lest you
should think I am laughing ; but it is so true that Arthur, of
White's Club, told me last night, that he should put off the
last ridotto, which was to be on Thursday, because he hears
nobody would come to it. Dick Leveson and Mr. Rigby, who
had supped 'and stayed late at Bedford-house the other
night, knocked at several doors, and in a watchman's voice
cried ' Past four o'clock and a dreadful earthquake
This frantic terror prevails -so much, that within these
three dap, seven hundred and thirty coaches have been counted
passing Hyde-park-corner, with whole parties removing into
the country. Here is a good advertisement which I cut
out of the papers to-day-_' On Monday next will be
published, puce sixpence, a true and exact list of all
w'ehaorthhqauvaeklee.rt, Several women hare
place,thenotbhirloitlayilar
anal nfedorthe gentryi or shall leave, this
made earthquake gowns—that is, gowns to sit out of doors all
night. These are of the more courageous. One woman, still
more heroic, is come to town on purpose. She says all her
friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But,
what will you think of Lady Catbei inc Pelham Lady Frances
Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to
an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag
till five in the morning, and then come back, I suppose, to
eight o'clock,
look for the bones of their husbands and fami ies under the
rubbish? The prophet of this is
_a trooper of Lord Dela.
warr's, who was yesterday sent to Bedlam."
Southampton
This rapidity is unprecdented.
SOUTHAMPTON, MARCH 20.—The Peninsular com-
pany's steamer the Lady Mary Wood, Captain Cooper, ar-
prttoo,n LYiessbtoenri,layandmoGrlibnrgaltaart. as stated in
frriovmed avt
igSoo,uthoapmo
The Sun of last evening. She was not due until the 20th.
at
just as art.ain was scarfing, her pass.enger.s vere in London by
The passengers by the Lady Mary Wood were Messrs. Bourne,
She lef Lisbon on the 14th, and arriving
1' o'clock at noon on the 19th.
Lapeaslide, Collins, and Colbert, Mr. and Mrs. •
Thomson. and
Miss Keeling. The some company'asts steamer Ilragemea, Capt.
Lewis, left Southamton Water l evening, With
several
passengers and a general cargo, to receive at Falmouth on
Alonday morning, the mails for Gibraltar, Lisbon, and
Spain. The Montrose, which has been undergoing
repair
for damage received during her last Egyptian voyage, will
be ready to take out the Peninsular mails next week. The
Great Liverpool steamer, wh;ch brought the last Indian mail,
was relieved from quarantine, and arrived at Southampton this
morning. The immense number of passengers which she
brought has engaged the Custom-house authorities the whole
of to • day.
Late en Monday night, a man, apparently- in a
state of complete intoxication, requested permission from the
sentry on duty, near the Hotel de Ville, to Pass the rest of the
night near the stove in the corps-de-garde. The sentry,
knowing that. this hospitality was contrary to order, refused to
permit him, but said he might apply to his ()Meer. Whilst
speaking, the patrol came up, and the individual was imme.li-
ately recognised as an escaped convict. His object was sup-
posed to be to give his accomplices notice of the moment when
the patrol were absent on their rounds.
SHIPWRECKS.—We regret to state that the George,
Taplin, of Newport, and the Vaga, Williams, of Chepstow,
which sailed from Port Talbot for Bridgewater, were both
lost, with the whole of their crews, on the Nash Sands, and
near the Nash Point, in a few hours after sailing, on the 11th
inst. The Success, of Arundel, Wheeler, master, in ballast,
was totally wrecked between Cornet Mawr and Govrin Point,
near Kidwelly, on the 15th instant; the materials were all
saved. One young man, after having been thrice washed out
of the boat, was unfortunately drowned.—Cambrian,