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Leader (1850-1860), 31st January 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 100, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      Ardndel , Torquay , Marylebone , Cripplegate , Lambeth , Derby , Bury , Totneas , Evesham , Knaresborough , Chesterfield , and Edinburgh . At Marylebone , a letter -was read from Sir Benjamin Hall , -who observes that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already intimated the intention of Government not to take advantage of the literal wording of the act . Sir ZBenjamin adds that he lias always hoped for a more equitable adjustment of the tax , and that it will afford him the greatest pleasure to record his vote in favour of any scheme -which shall ensure the accomplishment of that object . A deputation from a society established in the City for promoting the interests of tie trading community , had an interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer

      at Downing-street on Tuesday . Prom the opening address of their chairman , Mr . Stratton , it appeared that their object was to suggest the entire removal of the income-tax , from incomes which do not exceed 150 ? ., and the exemption of the first 150 / . from higher incomes , so that the possessor of 500 / . a year would only be chargeable on 350 ? . It was argued by several of the speakers that one of the objections to direct taxation is that persons who have great difficulty in procuring the necessaries of life are obliged to pay tie tax in a lump ; and that various tradesmen ( grocers , for instance ) are already exposed to considerable hardship in being compelled to pay duty in large sums at a time on several articles which they sell , though they only receive it back in

      amall retail purchases . Dr . Challice stated that he knew of several persons possessing an income of 150 ? . a year ¦ who had been compelled to take their children from school on account of paying income-tax . The prices of necessaries , he said , were getting very high , and persons witb only 1507 . a year lad a hard time of it . Having made an allusion to the deputation of the previous Friday , and intimated that he understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to slow a disposition to readjust the tax , Sir G . C . Lewis interrupted him , observing , " I said nothing on that occasion about making any readjustment . I said I was quite ready to entertain any detailed propositions of that kind which might be made to me . " Dr . Challice also remarked that many

      bachelors evade the tax by living principally at clubs . The Chancellor , amidst some laughter , said he was afraid a bachelor-tax might operate as a constant incentive to imprudent marriages . Mr . Gannon , who had been a small tradesman in Clare-market , stated that very few of his fellow-tradesmen were al > le to put by anything for their old age . " He could conscientiously 8 ay that the indirect taxation paid by the middle and labouring classes on the every-day necessaries of life averaged from 35 to 40 per cent ., and on some articles it was as much as 10 0 per cent . He was certain , if it were the rule , instead of the prresent mode of indirect taxation , to send collectors round and make monthly or quarterly demands for a specified sum of money for

      tea-tax , and so on , the people would never for a moment tolerate such imposts . In his own case , as a small tradesman of thirty-one years' standing—and the same might be said of thousands of others—if he took the average of assessments to the local taxes made upon him during that period at 16 ? . a year , it had amounted to 496 ? . ; if indirect taxation paid upon the indispensable aecessaaries of life be added 20 ? . a year , that would malce 620 ? ., making a total of 1116 ? . Could it be wondered at that with the competition of the day , and such sums abstracted from men like himself , that our workhouses , prisons , and lunatic asylums had so many inmates -wlio were respectable , industrious trades persons at one period ? This state of things was" causing a serious amount of

      discontent , which he was convinced would sooner or later be exhibited in some striking manner . " The Chancellor of the Exchequer said : — " With regard to the question of the pressure of tho poor-rates in parishes where there ifl a large poor population , that is a necessary consequence of the present parochial system . It is true that in St . George ' s , which is a rich pariah , the poorrates are considerably lower than in St . Clement Danes , in which Mr . Gannon lives ; but many people think it is essential to the present system of poor-laws that the taxation should continue parochial . Proposals have been made—particularly with regard to towns—to ox-Cend the area of taxation ; but all such proposals have met with gTeat opposition . Each parish holds to its own aeparateness and to its exclusive right to manage its own affairs ; and every othei plan has encountered many difficulties . Aa to taxation on tea and Bugar , as well income taxation

      as , the taxation of the country must either be direct or indirect . You must cither go on income or you must go on articles of general consumption—such as toa , sugar , boor , spirits , and tho like —or you must resort to both those means of taxation as now arranged ; but at prosont it does not fall on tho principal articles , of consumption . Thoro is no tax © n bread or biscuit ; on meat , dry or salt ; fish , dry or salt ; native fruit , or vegetables . Theso are staple articlos of food ; and if a man could confine his means of subsistence to them , ho need not pay any taxes . But , If Mr . Gannon ' s views were adopted , I fear tho unavoidable consequence would bo , not that the Income-tax would be lightened , but that it would bo necessarily aggravated . " Tho case of Mr . Walker , with which our readers are already acquainted , having been mentioned , Sir G . C . Lewis said he would cause inquiry to bo ntado into it .

      Untitled Article

      PRISON DISCIPLINE . Mr . Chaki . es Pearson ., the City Solicitor , has addressed a coramunicati on to the Lord . Mayor on the subject of prison discipline , in fulfilment of a promise recently given by him . We were prevented last week , by an unusual press of matter , from introducing our readers to this interesting document ; but we now append some extracts which -will show the attention which Mr . Pearson has given to the subject , and cast some Ught upon one of the most perplexed and solemn questions of the age . It will be seen that the City Solicitor finds the solution of the- enigma in some middle ground between , the savage ignorance of the past and the over-indulgence of the present . Hard , stern labour , directed with an eye to pecuniary

      and by changing their name for a letter by which they were to be known from their admission into prison up to the time of their discharge , by a little secrecy and good management a prisoner might upon his release maintain his incognito . It was said the world would forgive or forget his crimes , and he might go abroad as an exile , or be restored to society as having completed his penal punishment , or be released in this country on n ticket of leave . " J

      Further on , he observes :- — " Solitude has its peculiar vices and evils as well as society ; man is for good as well as for evil a social being and this unnatural , unsocial treatment has often , vertof ten , exercised a most baneful effect , as well upon the body as the mind of those who are for any length of time subjected to its action . The laws of nature cannot be outraged with impunity ; walls and bolts and bars cannot shut the devil out from Ins own favourite workshop—the heart of an idle man . "

      Mr . Pearson proceeds to expound his own conceptions of what the future , or self-supporting , or u labour-and-appetite system" should be , first commenting on the course taken by the Government with reference to the proceedings of a committee of the House of Commons on the subject which sat a few years ago : — "As the ticket-of-leave substitute for the plan which the committee recommended to the consideration of her Majesty's Government must foice itself upon the attention of tlxe House at the very commencement of the ensuing session , we shall learn what has teen done by the Home Secretary between 1850 and 1857 towards the examination of the extensive details which the

      committee were unable to investigate for want of sufficient time for the purpose ; one thing only remains for me to say , —I have never been summoned before any committee or commission appointed to conduct such an inquiry . The other witnesses , who were prepared with plans , drawings , and estimates to confirm their former statements , inform me that they have never been called upon to offer any further observations or to submit themselves to any other examination . As far , therefore , as I am informed , the Government have allowed the plan to remain entombed in a blue book which I have just ascertained weighs five pounds and three quarters avoirdupois . If the report and evidence be permitted to slumber in the pages of that monster blue-book

      they might a 3 well have been buried under the pyramids of Egypt . " Of the new reformatory system we read : — " The proposed plan for accomplishing these objects , as described to the committee , contemplated the establishment of large industrial prisons , secure and strong , plain and cheap , with separate sleeping cells for each inmate . The prison to be surrounded by strong and lofty walls , enclosing 1000 or 2000 acres of land . I propose that each of these prisons shall accommodate 1000 or 2 O 00 inmates , classified , sub-classified , and distributed in different prisons , according to their economical condition , whether artisans , mechanics , or labourers ; according to their physical state , their age , and strength ; according to their moral and legal status ; whether felons or misdemeanants under longer or shorter sentences , and whether hardened

      offenders or novices iu crime . By having one superintending power to deal with the large fund of labour of our prison population , means -would readily bo obtained for a most perfect system of classification—legal , moral , social , and economical—for tlie purpose of meeting all the various objects I have described , so that the mutual contamination of prisoners might be prevented , discipline might be enfo rced , and the separation of the prisoner—one of the first objects of the system—might be promoted , at the same time that justice would be done to the ratepayer by turning the confiscated labour of the criminal to the best and most profitable account . When the proposed plans for the classification of prisoners is complete , I proposo that they shall , as nearly as economical considerations and prison arrangements will admit , bo employed in the pursuits at which they are n > 03 t apt , and to which they will be returned at tho torinination of their sentences . "

      profit , so that the community may derive some advantage from those who , up to the time of their imprisonment , have clung to society like a curse , is the method by which Mr . Pearson would indemnify the honest for the evil they have suffered , and open to the wretched creature of bad education and defective arrangements a path out of the sterile desert of his brutish abandonment and callous disregard of right . Labour , the great source of the world ' s riches and of the earth ' s healthy progress , is to "be , under Mr . Pearson ' s system , the regenerator of our criminal population . After dilating on the old system , which he calls " the cheap and cruel system , " he speaks of the present " expensive and effeminate system , " and remarks : —

      " The system is thus pithily described by its most able and zealous advocate , tho chaplain of Reading Gaol , who thus observes , ' The essentials of the separate system are seclusion as a punishment , labour as a relaxation , and scriptural instruction as a corrective , ' as explained by tho regulations and illustrated by tho practice of the gaol . Tho chaplain ' s short description may bo thus translated into pla . iu language : —Under tho separate system criminals arc to have a great deal of solitude , a groat deal of victuals , a great deal of warmth , a great deal of sleep , a great deal of mental instruction ,

      a great deal of religious teaching , with a very little exercise , and labour sufficient only for tho purposes of recreative relaxation . By tho combined influences of those corporeal , mental , and religious agencies , it was assumed by the enthusiastic advocates of the . system that the hearts of criminals would bo softoned , their unruly wills subdued , their ininda would bo enlightened , their souls converted , and their lives rofonnod . It was moroovor , aaid fcy its advocates , that by uniting secrecy with aolitudo , by plucing ; crimiiuila in colls so constructed as to oxcludo both sight and sound , by hooding and masking thoin when lod out to chapel or oxorciao ,

      Untitled Article

      STATE OF TRADE . The trade reports for tho week ending last Saturday show a further increase of activity , except at Manchester , where business oponed heavily , a decline in prices being arrested only by the firmnoss of tho Livorpool cotton-market . At Birmingham , there is an advancing tendency in iron , owing to tho American and also tho Continental demand . In tho general trades of tho placo there has feoen no particular alteration , but in some oases employment is checked by tho uninterrupted advance in tho prices of raw material . Tho Chamber of Commerce have resolved to aid tho movement for

      procuring a reform of tho bankruptcy laws . The Kidderminster Dank , winch stopped on tho 10 th ult ., shows debts amounting to 45 , 872 £ against assets estimated nt 34 , 700 / ., and a dividend of 12 s . Cd . is expected . At Nottingham there Iius been gencrul activity , and , notwithstanding tho adva nce in prices , the stocks of hosiery aro lower than over . In tho woollen districts there is full employment , and tho Irish linen-markota aro without chango . —Times .

      Untitled Article

      100 TH E LEAPE R . [ No . 358 , Saturday ,

      Untitled Article

      INAUGURATION OF A NEW SCHOOL , OF ABT IX SHEFFIELD . The opening of a new sctool of art in Sheffield was celebrated on Monday evening by a public conversazione , at which Mr . Roebuck , M . P ., presided . After addressing the meeting in a speech , in which he insisted on the ennobling and comforting influences art , he gave place to Mr . Cole , of the Government department of science and art , who , speaking of the ' various schools of design scattered through the country , observed : — " The Exetei school was founded some two or three years ago , and , though the population of that town was only 40 , 000 ,

      the average number of students coming up there for examination from the various parish schools and schools of other denominations was no less than 835 ; and in the Exeter school of art there were , besides , 190 students . In Cheltenham , with a population of only 35 , 000 , the number of art students from , all the schools is 1350 ; in Chester they have 1200 students from the public schools ; and in "Worcester nearly 500 » . But in Manchester , which was an old school , and wher « there was a population of 300 , 000 , he was sorry to say they had only 230 students from the parish schools . In Sheffield the number was only 18 . "

      MR . ERNEST JONES S POLITICAL SOIREES . . Mr . Ernest Jones delivered another of his political lectures at St . Martin's Hall , Long Acre , on Tuesday evening . The subject wa 3 " Foreig n Affairs , " and his remarks contained a fierce denunciation of England and Russia as the two great upholders of despotism . Alluding to the distress of the operatives , he thus wound up his discourse : —" The hour [ for emancipation ] is near , but it ha 3 not come . "When it arrives , you will not mistake it . It will be when the cup of your misery

      overflowsit is not full yet ; " when from every trade comes up a cry of misery—not from one or two alone ; when confidence in Parliament and Crown i 3 lost entirely—you still cringe to both ; when you no longer go creeping to workhouse doors , but swarm up to palaces instead ; when you begin to say To- seek redress from those who live by injuring us , is useless—let us redress ourselves ;' when you are no more whining about Parliament and Throne , but cry : ' We , the people , are the Throne and Parliament . ' Then I shall know the hour has arrived ; and then I'll throw myself , a soldier , in your midst . "

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 31, 1857, page 100, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2178/page/4/