The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 13 1845.

prisoner was in the gaol. He there saw the prisoner, and at
once recognised him.
Cross-examined by Mr. KELLY—If he covered the phial
at all, it was with leather and not with paper. He had no
doubt that the prisoner was at that time affected as he stated
with varicose veins. He did not believe that Scheele's
prussic acid could be taken into the stomach and yet not
ascertained by the smell. He had mixed thirty drops of
Scheele's with eleven ounces, or nearly a tumbler full, of
porter, and the smell was slightly percepti-
ble. The bottle does not contain the quantity of
eleven ounces. It is the property of this acid while
it is volatilizing to give out a smell. He was aware that
apple-pips contained prussic acid. He saw fifteen small
apples tested by distillation, and then with sulphuric acid
and sulphate of iron. The quantity of prussic acid that re-
sulted was one grain and one-fifth.
Mr. Smythe, clerk to Barnett, Hoare, and Co., examined
—The prisoner had been in the habit of banking with them.
On Wednesday, the Ist January, he came between two and
three o'clock, and drew a cheque fur 14/. Paid him in gold.
His account was overdrawn at that date. He Relieved the
paper shown him to be his handwriting. (The paper re-
ferred
to was a prescription for varicose veins.)
Cross-examined—There was not the slightest objection to
his overdrawing his account.

A letter was lianded to the witness, which he thought was
in the handwriting of the prisoner. The letter was addressed
to Mrs. Hart, 93, Crawford-street, Portman-square, and was
as follows ;-7 _

" Dear Friend,—l wish to inform you that I expect to be
at home in a fortnight and therefore you had better not
write to me."—Your friend, " A. HART."
Mary Ann Moss—Witness lived with Sarah Hart, at 93,
Crawford-street, Bryanston-square, about four years
since. She was pregnant when she went there, and a
child was born in March, 1841. The only person
who used t 9 visit her was the prisoner. He came about
once in six weeks, or perhaps oftener. The deceased
lived in Crawford-street about twelve months, and then
went to Farringdon-green, where she lived twelve months.
She then went to Bath-place, at Slough, and witness called
on her about eight or nine months before her death. When
the prisoner first came to Crawford street, he asked if there
was a person living there the name of Hart. She heard him,
and said " Here I am ; it's all right." She had, at first, a back
room furnished, but she aftewards bought furniture
herself for the front-room. She saw a parcel once come to the
deceased, and the prisoner called afterwards, and asked "if
It was all right." Witness observed that she had got some
blankets. When Mrs. Hart was confined, the prisoner called
upon her, and went into her room alone. The last time she
saw the decea-ed was in October last. She had not seen the
prisoner for a long time before.
Mrs. Bacon was unCer examination when cur express left.

TATTERSALL'S.-THIS EVENING.
Six O'CLOCK.

CIIESTER CUP.
10 to 1 agst Cataract
15 to 1 agst Obscurity
16 to 1 agst Era
25 to 1 agst Winesour
30 to 1 agst Theomun ac Bruck
33 to 1 agst Trueboy
66 to 1 agst Foig-a- ballagb.

. DEBBY.
10 to 1 agst Alarm
14 to 1 agst Idas
16 to 1 agst Cobweb colt
20 to 1 agst Clear-the-Way
25 to 1 agst Miss Whip colt
33 to 1 agst Mentor
40 to 1 agst Old England
40 to 1 agst Annandale
50 to 1 agst Young Eclipse

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
GLOBE.—That the payment of Clerks of the Peace and
Clerks of Petty Sessions by fees, instead of by salary, is a
system fraught with mischief's to the public, and calculated
to pervert the administration of justice in the inferior Courts,
especially in the country districts, we have shown not merely
by argument but by facts. Many of the latter we have
carefully selected from the provincial journals, whose
reports of the proceedings at Quarter and Petty Sessions
we have referred to for the purpose. Intelligent cor-
respondents, in different parts of the kingdom, have also
supplied us with well-authenticated cases, by which the vices
of the existing system were exposed, and the necessity of a
change in the mode of remunerating these officers of justice
was enforced. We may therefore be supposed to feel grati-
fied on finding that the Government has undertaken to cor-
rect the evils so generally admitted to exist. The Bill which
Sir James Graham—as the Minister whose department is
specially charged with the general superintendence of the
public justice of the country—has introduced to the House of
Commons, and which was read a second time last night,
seems well adapted to remove the evils arising out of
the present mode of payment. Having taken a special in-
terest in the subject, we congratulate the country on the
interposition of the Government, and on the prospect
of a more healthful mode of remunerating the Clerks of
the Peace in counties, and the Clerks of Petty
Sessions, than that which has been found to work so
great au amount of mischief to the community. Sir James
Graham, in the speech with which he moved the second
reading of the Bill, stated the principle on which it was
founded, and the means by which it proposed to secure
the purposes it was framed to effect. The prin-
ciple of the Bill, as stated by the Right Hon.
Baronet, is in the nature of an axiom " That, on the
whole, justice is better administered by public ser-
vants receiving salaries for the duties performed by
them, than by receiving fees for those duties." To adduce
proof in support of such an axiom might, indeed, appear to
be superfluous. The Right Hon. Secretary's remarks in sup-
port of this simple and self-evident proposition will be con-
curred in by all who have paid ordinary attention to the
working of the system to which they apply :—" In the
first place, he was satisfied that not only the ends of
justice would be better answered by the payment
of salaries, but he entertained also a very strong
opinion that, in the end, economy also, ard the inter-
ests of the ratepayer, would be considered, and advan-
tageously considered, by the measures they were then dis-
cussing." The cold and discouraging reception which the
measure met with from several country gentlemen, who
carped at rather than spoke against several of its provisions,
shows the jealousy with which the "great unpaid"
view any interference with what they regard as a
.kind of hereditary jurisdiction. A poacher in their
preserves, and a Secretary of State who interferes with
their magisterial privileges,
is alike the object of their anti
pathy. To transport the one, and thwart the other, is their
study. Who, but persons under the influence of deeply-
rooted prejudices, would have started objections so positively
puerile and self-stultifying as those which Mr. Egerton, Mr.
Darby, and Mr. Henley substituted for arguments in the de-
bate of last night ? The former gentleman paid but a
poor compliment to the county magistracy, as a body,
when he assumed that they would victimise the county rate-
payers by availing themselves of the power vested in
them by the Bill to award inordinately large salaries to the
functionaries who are now paid by fees, for the purpose of in-
ducing competent persons to undertake the duties which de-
volve on those officers. We know how dangerous it is to en-
trust any man, or number of men, with irresponsible powers,
more especially with power over the public purse. We therefore
recommend, as we have invariably done in similar cases, that the
amount of salary proposed to be paid to the functionaries
alluded to should be ratified by the Secretary of State
for the Home Department. But who would have expected
that a distinguished member of their own body, as the Hon.
Member for Cheshire is, should have objected to the payment
of clerks of the peace and clerks of petty sessions by salary,
lest the magistrates should award an extravagantly large
amountsT A sopf
A salaryß p.—t
To
ht he eoffi
Property-taxofeer their
!sillw
selectionas,
?
as
our readers
have seen, read a third time and passed last night. Several
amendments were proposed and discussed at greater or less
length, but all rejected by considerable majorities. The
amendment of Sir R. Inglis, limited as it was by the Hon.
Baronet, to incomes of 5001. per annum et infra, shared the
fate of the rest—sufficient proof that the House was resolved
to carry the measure in its integrity, for if any alteration
could be permitted, that proposition had certainly the
strongest claims to consideration. Most, indeed, will regret
that the danger of allowing exceptions, which, once ad-
mitted, would soon eat up the whole measure, rendered it
impossible to adopt the benevolent proposition of Sir Robert
Inglis. One or two points were raised in the successive dis-
cussions that are not undeserving of remark. Sir William
Clay entered his protest against the. Bill, as an attack
upon that most amiable and interesting class,
misers; and Mr. Benjamin Hawes burled after it
his malediction with a spirit and energy, that gives us all
reason to be thankful that the Member for Lambeth cannot
yet launch thunder-bolts. Misers, says Sir William Clay,
are the great benefactors of mankind. Demosthenes thought
differently when he called them " instinctive traitors."
Bacon thought differently when he charged them as
the collectors of foniites of misery and of moral con-
tagion. Lord Chatham thought differently when
he called them bloodsuckers. History tells a dif-
ferent story of them, and history is not ill supported by the
experience of common life. However, we concede, for argu-
ment sake, that misers are the objects of all that tender
for them, and we concede, absolutely, that men are not to
love and deep veneration which Sir William Clay demands
be persecuted on account cf their wealth, or presented in the
Turkish fashion with a bow-string, as the acknowledgment of
their merit in accumulating money. But conceding all this,
we take leave to ask, how is the miser more injuriously
affected by a property and income tax than is any other
person? "If the State take more , from the rich man
than the poor man by a property and income tax, does
it not leave him more and protect more for him
also? For example, the man of 1501. a year pays
to such a tax but 41. 10s. ; whereas the man of 1,5001.
a year pays 451. This, however, is but one side of the
account ; turn to the other. side. The State leaves to the
former 1451. 10s., and protects it for him ; and it leaves
to the latter 1,455/., and protects it for him—there is
surely nothing unequal or unreasonable in this as
they will tell at any insurance-office,- where we always
find the premium bearing, ceteris paribus, an exact
ratio to the sum insured. As to the ability of the
Ipartiesie and to
spuapyp,oirtt a
i s av
very simple sum, whether it is easier to
vfamily
upon 1451. per annum, or 1,4551.?
There is, however, another view of the subject, at which the
Member for the Tower Hamlets appears to glance. He seems
to think that men will be deterred from growing rich, by the fear
of the property tax ! Let him dismiss all apprehension upon
the
such dangers,
subject;me
witness
n will
growthe
rich
if
well-taxed de a 1 'in contempt of
all Jews of the 11 th ,
12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Nobody will refuse
9701. because it is not a thousand. Well, if the property-tax
neither persecutes the lovely miser class nor deters men from
joining its ranks, where is Sir William Clay's objection?
o
We, for ourselves, though not altogether so much enamoured
the venerable order of misers as Sir William Clay, have
nevertheless the highest respect for the prudent, frugal,
saving order, and therefore we much desire to see that
order infinitely extended ; confident that some thousands of
prudent, frugal, and saving men, will accumulate more
capital in a country than any possible number of
mere misers—capital, too, which may be collected upon
single objects of the greatest magnitude, as we have seen
it in the case of our great companiesoind as we see it in the
case of railroads. But how is the order of prudent, frugal,
to almost
ienvcciise objects of
en,gand by un-
afe
evntedt
re3s;
gianntgi meo
mepnue
tristicuil btgse
too extended, xf
savetei
dd
industry?
dset,yr
utt
ibbes
spr
tge
Sir Robert Peel's financial reforms, of which the property-tax
is the essential basis. The differenez between the Member
for the Tower Hamlets and the . Premier is this—the
former would nurse and fondle a few Harpagons, extending to
their bags an inviolability from even equal taxation, the latter
would have a rich and frugal, industrious and progressive
people—not persecuting the Harpagons, but not sparing to
call upon them for an equal contribution.upon which Mr. Hawes hurried, his malediction is
The round
g
the opportunity which the property-tax gives to the Premier
to remove the taxes that affect industry and commerce—a
reason, in the full enjoyment of all the honour of which
we shall leave the Honourable MeMber for Lambeth
unmolested. There is a remark of Sir Robert Peel's
equally profound and just, width goes to the root
of the whole question of the preference due to
direct or indirect taxation—a remark-which will, we trust, be
seriously eousidered ~by the peof)le, 41i depends upon the