The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-03 00:00:00

KENDAL UNION.

No. of

Deaths.

Average Age

of Deceased.

52 Gentlemen and persons engaged in
profession:, and their families 45
138 Tradesmen and their families
413 Operatives, labourers, servants, and
their families
The following remarks of Mr: Chadwick Jones will
appropriately close the consideration of this subject.
Very dangerous errors,"-be-observes, "arise from
statistical returns and insurance tables of the mean
chances of life, made up froth gross returns of the
mortality prevalent amongst large. classes, who differ
widely in their circumstances. Thus we find on in-
quiry into the sanitary condition of the population of
different districts, that the average chances of the lifts
of the people of one class in one street, will he 13 years,
and of another class in a street adjoining, 60 years.
In one district of the same town it is found, on exa-
mination of the registries, that the mortality is
only one out of every 57 of the population, and in
another district one out of every 28 diM annually. A
return of the average, or the maim of the chances. of
life, or the proportiuns of death in either instance,
\Mold and does lead to very dangerous errorA And,
amongst others, to serious misapprehensions as to the
condition of the inferior distrlets, and to false infe-
rences as to the proper rates of insurance."

STRIKE IN THE WEST OF FIFA,-44 Whille col-
liers in this district and almost Ail tradesmen, have
now struck work • 41.1 they were on Monday last
johied G the shipbuilders, founders, and quarriers in
Inverkeithing and the neighbourhood. Our corrm..Qa.
dent visited several places where the §tvilie is general,
and found those men with whoa be conversed anxious
to resume wprii, but were prevented only by the fear of
•
personal. injury. The quarriers near Inverkeithing,
numbering 100 men, resisted the entreatie,s made upon
them to strike, and after they
_OM Still() they were
ashamed of trwir punduct, arid resolved to return to their
WArk next daY. From inquiries we have made, it is ex •
pected that by this time the greater part of wen
will have resumed labour, and that owle wi Ido ao
by the end of the week.,:kr,oo2.4ati,
.i44HRLIRGII, AUG. 18.—It is a singular fact, that
only a few days ago flames were discerned on digging
among the rubbish in the neighboni'llood of fit. Peter's
Church, thouoll threp. nwpths. 4stye elajsed since the CM
filt
ration —A4tona IVcrczig.

THE STADE DUTIES.
IThe following document, drawn up by an able Ger-
man diplomatist, and intended to defend the claims of
the King of Hanover to the right of exacting " the
Stade Duties," has reached our hands.
" It is at a place called Brunshausen, near Stade,
in the duchy of Bremen, where the offices for the toll
are established.

! " The duchy of Bremen was formerly an Arch-
bishopric, which had been erected in the year 787,
by the Emperor Charles the Great. Already at that
period Stade belonged to the Bishopric of Bremen.
Even in the heathen times this place of ancient origin,
affording the greatest convenience for crossing the
river Elbe, had been considered as a remarkably fit
spot for settling at, in preference to the other locali-
ties, and in particular to that of Hamburgh.
" It was Charles the Great who first established
ship-passage duties (tolls) at the mouth of the Elbe,
and the then frequented harbour of Stade could not
be overlooked by the Emperor for that purpose.
" The laws of Franconia, and the capitularia of the
German kings and emperors, contain several regula-
tions respecting these ship-duties, as, according to the
constitution of the empire, duties of this kind belong
to the imperial privilege.
" The Emperor Louis the Pious gave the river-
duties in particular to the churches. The Archbishop
of Bremen obtained the Stade duties for his church,
and it can be proved, by an official document, that
these duties were considered as a sea-duty for all ships
and merchandise passing up the river from the sea to-
wards Hamburgh, and that this was the only toll that
existed between the sea and Hamburgh.
" The town of Hamburgh, the most violent oppo-
nent to the Stade duties, has herself afforded since
the twelfth century the most striking proof of the
legality of the said duties, by her constant claim of
the privilege of the Emperor Friedrich 1., dated 7th
May, 1188. This privilege was obtained by the
Count Adolphus of Schaumburg, at that time pos-
sessor of the town of Hamburgh, for the benefit of
the citizens of the old town of Hamburgh. It con-
tained the Emperor's permission and acknowledgment
of the right to levy duties at Stade, and particularly
the confirmation of the right to levy toll on all ships
and goods coming from the sea, and passing the town
of Shde.

"The act mentions, however, that the Schaumburg
burghers of the town of Hamburgh were to be exempt
from paying this toll. This exemption the Emperor
Friedrich I. had, in fact, no right to bestow, as he
had not asked the proprietor of the toll for his
sanction, and as the laws of the empire in-
terdicted the Emperor from granting exemptions from
tolls. Besides which the Stade in the year 1189 was
Church property, and by the Roman civil and canon
law alienation of church property was strictly pro-
hibited. Although the Hamburgh citizens employed
all means to colour the privilege of 1189 thus obtained
by illegality, they never have been able to produce a
Papal brief in their favour. The Archbishops even
defended with arms the attack upon Church rights, and
subsequently they were only obliged by force to yield
the freedom from paying toll pretended to by the
Hamburgh burghers. From time immemorial, how-
ever, might has never been considered right.
" In the palmy days of the Hanseatic league, the
town of Hamburgh also attacked the rights of the
Archbishop's toll ; so daring was the league at the
time of its highest prosperity. It even went so far
as to oblige the Kings of Denmark to allow Hanseatic
ships to pass free at his ancient toll of Oresund.
Plenty of writers have tried to prove that these pro-
ceedings of the Hanseatic league were for the benefit
of Germany and of the whole civilised world, for-
getting the rights that were disregarded and trampled
in the dust by the overbearing insolence of the league.
They disregarded the Papal threats of assisting and
protecting the Church's rights, and, in a word, set at
naught the Emperor's authority and the laws of the
empire. Where a toll was inconvenient, they em-
ployed force. In spite of the laws of the empire, the
town of Hamburgh of its own will levied tell in their
harbour in the year 1422, at the very time they re
fused to allow the Archbishop to levy toll at
Stade. It was from this time that the disputes
rose with Hamburgh about levying the toll at
Stade. In the middle of the sixteenth century
these encroachments assumed a very grave cha-
racter. On that account the powerful Emperor
Charles V., by an Imperial edict given at Brussels on
the Bth April, 1556, authorised the Bishops of Osna-
bruck and the Duke of Brunswick (Ernest) to sum-
mon the Senate of Hamburgh before them, and call
them to an account. Already, in the year 1563, the
disobedient town was again avoiding, and assisting
others to avoid, paying the duties of the Archbishop.
But Emperor Rudolph issued, in the year 1576, a strict
order to the town of Hamburgh, reminding them that
the then Archbishop of Bremen had received from the
Emperor (descending from Archbishop to Archbishop)
an imperial grant, by virtue of which he could levy a
transit toll, and the town of Stade a market toll, upon
all goods coming from the sea up the Elbe, and pass-
ing the river Schwinge, and that the Senate of Ham-
burg was particularly bound to observe the rules laid
down about 150 years ago for the guidance of Ham-
burgh sailors.

" The extraordinary exertions made by Sweden
during the war, from 1618 to 1648, entitled her to
claims of compensation ; she was to be rewarded by
the acquisition of German provinces and considerable
rights. In consequence of this, the article X, §7,
of the Westphalian Peace, bestowed on the Crown of
Sweden the hitherto Archbishopric of Bremen as a
lay duchy, cum omnibus pertinentiis ecclesiasticis et
secularibus bonis et juribus terra marique. By the
article X, § 1, all tolls and duties which had hitherto
been established contra jura privilegia, et sine con-
sensu Imperatoris' were abolished, and § 2 of the
same article confirmed all tolls rightfully levied, as
for instance the sea toll on the Elbe at Stade.

" The confusion of the thirty years' war had com-
pletely set aside the question of the toll. From the
distance of Stockholm, the King being elsewhere oc-
cupied, and his advisers ignorant of the circumstances,
a thousand mistakes occurred. The Ministers hardly
knew how to decide in cases that were reserved for
the King's decision. Generally speaking, no answer
was returned to the earnest entreaties of the then
acting central Government in the Duchy of Bremen.
It was principally owing to these embarrassments
that in the diplomatic conference of the seventeenth
century the right of toll was so hardly treated. On
the 27th of June, 1653, the toll levied by Govern-
ment was separated from that levied by the town of
Stade, and the levying the Royal toll was entrusted
to the officers of the Royal domains at Brunshausen.
Since that period it is known under the name used
by the Hamburgh merchants—viz., The Toll of
Brunshausen.' About this time the Royal (4overn-
ment at Stade determined to place an armed ship in
the Elbe, which was ordered, on the Ist of June,
1672, to stop at the toll all Hamburgh ships, as the
only means to compel them to fulfil their duty, gene-
rally neglected.
"In the Conference which met soon after, in 1673,
of Royal Commissioners and Hamburgh Deputies, the
Government declared that the King of Sweden asked
for nothing new, but only for that right a levying the
toll which had been warranted by the I.Veaphalian
peace; that the imperial privilege of 1189 only spoke
of freedom from duties, but by no means of allowing
the Hamburgh ships to pass the toll without stopping
in order to certify the personal quality of Hamburgh
citizens, and that the merchandise belonged to them.
The result of these Conferences, however, falling
short of the expectations of the Senate of Hamburgh,
the latter endeavoured to shift the provincial Govern-
ment, by sending to the King, at Stockholm, a depu-
tation furnished with all the necessary means, as well
as with a strong letter of recommendation from the
Duke of Helstein Gottorp. This embassy tried every
thing at Stockholm, and presented to the King a me-
morial, in which the whole question of the toll duties
was represented in a false light,
" Without further investigating this important
question, or hearing the Government at Stade, the
Royal Government at Stockholm, thus influenced,
declared, on the 26th of November, 1674, that, ac-
cording to their opinion, the Imperial privilege had no
other meaning than that which the Hamburgh mer-
chants chose to give it. This Royal resolution_ was,
of course, in the highest degree favourable to Ham-
burgh. Nevertheless the inhabitants of this republic
now made the most exorbitant demands, and rejected
the favours just granted them at Stockholm.
"Some time later conferences were held again
about these difficulties with Hamburgh in the town
or Stade. The instructions of the Royal Commis-
sioners consisted simply of their examining into some
complaints of the town of llamburgh against the
Vuslom-house officers, and also to state that no diffi-
culties were to be thrown in the way of the Royal
Custom-house offieers in Hamburgh in the perform-
ance of their duty. These instructions were far ex-
ceeded by the Royal Commissioners. One of them,
during the conference, took the management of every
thing into his own hands ; and the only Custom-
house (Aker at Brunshausen who was really ac-
quainted with the state ,of things, and who violently
protested against the injustice of the llamburgb
claims, was silenced. by him, and reminded that he
was only called there to listen.
44 The Hamburgh members of the conference now
framed themselves a treaty, the treaty of 1691, so
frequently quoted atfterwards. The Royal Commis-
sioner mentioned above made only slight a Ite
tians, the treaty was hastily signed, and although r
containing matters of the greatest importance, it was
presented to the Ding with a very superficial notice
of the transaction, and the remark that they did not
CokrAvit the Hamburgh claims very unreasonable '
and that it NM sent over for his Majesty's graciou's
approbation.
" It was soon afterwards discovered that in making
this statement it had been kept a secret from the
King that Hamburgh by this treaty had aimed at a
change of their ancient obligation, and at a reduction
of the duty.
" This treaty was so ruinous to the royal privileges,