the rental at the Revolution. In France the foncier, or land-tax, amounts to one-fourth of the whole annual revenue;* in England it does not amount to a sixtieth part. The proportion of our excise, custom, and assessed taxes to similar taxes in France, is as forty-five to twenty; while the proportion of the public revenue of the former to that of the latter is as three to two.

Need we say anything further to illustrate the tendency of aristocratic taxation, or the selfish purposes to which the political power of the Oligarchy has been perverted? Yes, we shall briefly add a few more facts.

When the income-tax was imposed, or rather when it was screwed up by the Whigs, in 1806, lands and tenements were assessed at 2s. in the pound. Precisely the same assessment was laid on incomes arising from professions, trade, or other vocation. Thus was as heavy a tax levied on revenue not worth five years' purchase as on revenue worth thirty years' purchase; in other words, the tax was six times heavier on the industrious than on the unproductive classes of the community. A merchant, attorney, tradesman, or shopkeeper, whose income depended entirely on his personal exertions-which ceased at his death-and by savings from which he could alone make a provision for his children after his decease, was taxed six times to the amount of the landowner, by whom the burthen was imposed-whose property was entailed, and protected from all liability for debts however extravagantly incurred.

If the Boroughmongers ever charge themselves with any burthens they are always prompt to get rid of them the first opportunity, though they touch them ever so lightly, and have been rendered necessary by their own infatuated measures. Thus, immediately after the peace, before any reduction in the public establishments, or in the amount of the monstrous debt they had contracted, the income-tax was abolished. Again, the duty on horses employed in husbandry has been long since repealed, but the malt-tax is still continued, and the beer-duty-the most unfair and oppressive of all duties-was only repealed last session of parliament.

From some duties the peerage is exempted altogether. A lord of parliament sends and receives all letters free of postage; he usually franks the letters of all his relatives and friends; he enjoys, also, the privilege of sending a letter from London by the post on Sunday-a sort of sabbath-breaking which would be considered impiety or perhaps blasphemy in another person.

It would be tedious to go through the whole roll of taxes, to show how indulgent our legislators have been to themselves and how unjust towards the rest of the community. If a lord by inheritance succeed to an estate worth £100,000, he has not a shilling to pay to governIf a rich merchant dies, and bequeaths as much to his children, they are taxed to the amount of £1500, or, if there is no will, to the

ment.

Lowe's Present State of England, p. 318.

amount of £2250. If a poor man buys a cottage for £10, he has 10s. or one-twentieth part of the purchase-money, to pay for a conveyance. If a nobleman buys an estate worth £50,000 the stamp-duty is only one-hundred-and-eleventh part of the purchase-money, or £450. Á similarly unequal tax is incurred in borrowing small sums on bond or mortgage, while special favour is shown to those who borrow large sums. If a man has eight windows in his house he is assessed 16s. 6d.; if he has one more he is charged 4s. 6d. for it. If a lord has 180 windows he is charged £46:11:3; and if he has one more he is charged only 1s. 6d. ; and he may have as many more additional windows as he pleases at the same low rate of assessment. If a poor man's horse, or his ass, passes through a toll-bar there is something to pay, of course; but if a lord's horse passes through, provided it is employed on the lord's land, there is nothing to pay. If a cart passes through a toll-bar, loaded with furniture or merchandize, there is something to pay for the cart, and something extra to pay according as the wheels are broad or narrow; but if the cart is loaded with manure for his lordship's estate the cart is free, and the wheels may be any breadth the owner pleases without liability to extra charges. If a poor man refreshes himself with a glass of spirits (though beer would be better for his health and pocket) he is taxed seventy per cent.; but if he takes a glass of wine, which is a lord's drink, he is only taxed seventeen per cent. Lords do not smoke, though they sometimes chew, therefore, a pipe of tobacco, which is a poor man's luxury, is taxed 400 per cent. If a poor servant-girl advertises for a place of all work she is taxed 3s. 6d.; if a lord advertises the sale of an estate he pays no more. The house-tax falls heavily on the industrious tradesman, but lightly on the lord and esquire; the former must reside in town, and occupy spacious premises, which make his rent large, and the tax being proportionate, it deducts materially from income, while the latter may reside in the country, occupy a fine mansion, and not be rented more than £50 per annum. Lastly, lords and gentleman may retire to Paris, Florence, or Brussels, for any thing they have to do, or any good they are capable of doing, by which they avoid house-tax, window-tax, and almost every other tax; but the tradesman and shop-keeper are ad scriptæ gleba,—they must stick to their counting houses and warehouses, and expiate, by toil and frugality, the follies and extravagance of their rulers.

These are a few specimens of our fiscal regulations: we should never have done were we to notice all inequalities and oppressions resulting from aristocratic taxation. What we have said must, we imagine, demonstrate, practically, to merchants, copyholders, shopkeepers, tradesmen, and the middling and working orders generally, the advantages of having a friend at court—that is, of having political rights-that is, of having real representatives-that is, of not being taxed without their consent—that is, of having a reform in the Commons House of Parliament, instead of leaving public affairs to the exclusive management of noble lords and their nominees.

IV. ARISTOCRATIC GAME-LAWS.

A salmon from the pool, a wand from the wood, and a deer from the hills, are thefts which no man was ever ashamed to own.-Fielding's Proverbs.

We learn, from this old Gaelic apophthegm, the sentiment is very ancient, that an exclusive right to game and other feræ naturæ does not rest on the same basis as property. Mankind will not be easily convinced that stealing a hare or partridge is as criminal as stealing a man's purse. While this continues the popular feeling it is vain to multiply acts for the preservation of game. Laws, to be efficacious, should be in accordance with public opinion; if not, they only disturb the peace of society, excite ill-blood and contention, and multiply instead of diminishing offences.

But our Norman lawgivers are not satisfied that game shall be protected like property merely; they wish to elevate it into something far more sacred; they have arbitarily fixed on certain fowls of the air and beasts of the field, and these, in their sovereign pleasure, they have decreed shall be endowed with peculiar privileges distinct from all others; in a word, that they shall be aristocrats like themselves, and it shall be highly criminal in any base-born man to kill them, or eat them, or buy them, or sell them, or carry them, or even to have them in his possession, or to have in his possession any engine or instrument by which the dear and favoured creatures can be slain, maimed, or injured. In pursuance of these lordly whims they have framed a code of laws to which we will venture to say, in sublety and refinement of insult, nothing equal can be found in the records of the vilest despotism ever established to experiment on the limits of human endurance; we will venture to say that, in no other country in the world, with the least pretence to freedom and civilization, is there to be found a body of laws so partial, so repugnant to the common sense and subversive of the common rights of mankind, as the game laws of the English aristocracy!

What is it that our insolent oppressors have determined shall be the qualification to kill game? Why, that a man shall have a real estate of £100 a-year, free of incumbrance. There being fifty times more property required to enable a person to kill a partridge than to vote for a knight of the shire. A rich merchant or manufacturer has no right to kill game; his warehouses may be filled with valuable merchandize; he may give employment to thousands of people, as some of them do in the North, yet have no privilege to meddle with the aristocrats of the air nor of the field. Their wealth is base-it is not feudal, it has not been acquired by war, plunder, and confiscation, and does not qualify them to spring woodcocks, no, nor even to pop at a snipe, nor a teal, nor a quail, nor a land-rail. A parson, however, who has a living worth £150 per annum, though his estate is only for life, may kill as much game as he pleases.

P

But the sages of the King's Bench (blessed be their names!) have been more indulgent than the Upper House: they have determined that even plebeians shall have a little sport, and have accordingly ruled that a qualified person may take out a stock-broker, clothier, attorney, surgeon, or other inferior person to beat the bushes, and see a hare killed, and they shall not be liable to penalty. But, beware of the man-traps and spring-guns of the law; if any of the aforesaid ignoble beings venture to meddle, without first being invited by a gentleman so to do, he shall be fined, or else imprisoned in the House of Correction.* Ah, these boroughmongers, how they stab us! how they kick us! how they laugh

at us!

Although an unqualified man is not allowed to kill game, it might be thought, by a rational mind, he would be permitted to buy it of those who are. No, he is not. What, the lords of the soil become dealers and chapmen! degrade grouse and black cock into mere commodities of traffic, like broad cloth and calico! Impossible! Therefore, they have passed laws that game shall neither be bought nor sold; that higglers, victuallers, poulterers, pastry-cooks, and other mean persons shall not carry it, nor have it in possession, nor shall any unqualified person have in his possession any deadly or dangerous weapon for its injury or destruction. If an unqualified person be only suspected-barely suspected, mind-of having game, or any dog, gun, or snare for killing or wounding it, his house may be SEARCHED, and if any net or snare, pheasant, partridge, fish, fowl, or other game is found, the offender may be forthwith carried before a justice and fined, or sent to the House of Correction, and there whipped, and kept to hard labour. If a man only happen to spoil or tread on the egg of a partridge, pheasant, mallard, teal, bittern, or heron, he is liable to fine or imprisonment. But if he go forth in the night for the third time, with the full intent of catching an aristocrat bird, a coney, or other game, he may be transported beyond the seas for seven years, or imprisoned, and kept to hard labour, in the House of Correction for two years; and if he run away, in order to avoid this merciful infliction, and resists the land-owner or his 'servants, either with club, stick, or stone, rather than be apprehended, he is guilty of a misdemeanour, subjecting him either to transportation or imprisonment.

Now, mark the commentary afforded by the NIMRODS themselves on Within very few these preposterous, arrogant, and savage enactments years three parliamentary committees have been appointed to inquire into the state and administration of the game-laws; the results of their inquiries are—that poaching cannot be prevented-that buying and selling game cannot be prevented-that the game-laws are the fruitful sources of crime and immorality, and fill the gaols with delinquents, and that the only means of remedying the evils are by allowing game to be openly sold like other commodities, and by altering the qualifica

* 5 Ann, c. 14, and decisions thereon; Loft, 178; 15 East Reports, 462.

tions, so that every owner of land may not only have the liberty to kill game on his own estate, but be empowered to grant a similar indulgence to any other individual. Instead of acting on the knowledge so communicated, or the suggestions recommended; instead of repealing the absurd laws which are the sole cause of game being so highly prized, and of the deadly nocturnal encounters between keepers and poachers; instead of doing any of these, the only measures that have been carried are the 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 29, and the 9 Geo. IV. c. 69, which greatly augment the sanguinary character of a code already too ferocious, and the everlasting opprobrium of the misnamed free and enlightened community which tolerates them.

But observe what was disclosed respecting the sale of game, about which the descendants of the Normans have been so extremely fastidious. From the inquiries of the committee of the House of Lords, in 1828, it appears game is a regular article of sale in all the principal markets of the metropolis: the penalties, indeed, which are imposed on the traffic are easily evaded; since, by one sapient and moral act of our legislators, the 58 Geo. III. if a person who has incurred them to any amount will only inform of some other person who has bought or sold game, within the preceding six months, his penalties are remitted and he receives the informer's reward, for this neighbourly, and, as it is now practised, friendly treachery. One salesman sold, on the average, 500 head of game in a week; in one year he sold 9628 head of game. The sale is mostly on commission, at two-pence or three-pence a head. It will naturally excite surprise how all these waggon loads of game can be conveyed to London, and by whom supplied. The poor labourer, mason, or weaver, who perils his life, his limbs, and his health, in the covert attempt to catch a hare or partridge, cannot possibly be adequate to support a commerce like this. No, it is not done by poaching exactly; the wholesale dealers are the law-makers themselves-those who have interdicted the traffic-noble lords and men of title, who have condescended to supply the London poulterers and salesmen with game, on commission, as a means of augmenting their territorial revenues. -See the Report of the Lords Committee in 1828, and the able letter of Lord Suffield on the subject.

We shall only trouble our readers with one or two more observations on the game-laws, which Mr. Justice Blackstone denominated a "bastard class of the forest-laws." But the fact is, they are a refinement in insult on the savage code of William Rufus. The territorial jurisdiction of the forest-laws, though extensive enough in all conscience, had their local boundaries; at least, they did not extinguish the old common-law right every proprietor exercised to kill and have all animals, feræ naturæ, found on his own land. These inroads on the most obvious rights of property and the common sense of mankind, were left for a much more recent period,—a period subsequent to the glorious Revolution; for, though the Qualification Act was passed in the reign of Charles II. the statutes which first made it penal to sell game, or for an unqualified person to have game in his possession, were not passed