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aid of parochial and other libraries, to mechanics' institutions, working-men't cieties, and for distribution to sailors, soldiers, emigrants, miners, and navvies. Hawking or Colportage of carefully selected books and prints was systematically commenced in England in 1851, and within the last ten years much has been done in this way to promote the circulation of pure literature in the rural districa Sixty-two local associations have been organized, and are united with the "Church of England Book-hawking Union," which employs about eighty book-hawies whose aggregate sale is now about £16,000 per annum.

Another society, designated the British Colportage Association, was established in 1860, with a view of carrying out the same object by agents not restricted to the sale of books and educational appliances, but who are expected to act also in a certain sense as missionaries.

The numerous publications specially used for instruction in the Schools of the Poor are mostly issued by one or other of the school societies, and no accurate estimate as to their numbers can be given.

A class of publications intended to impart a general knowledge of Sanitary Science, in its application to every-day life, has been lately introduced, and new forms an important branch of the instruction conveyed to the labouring-classes through the various agencies under review. The production and circulation of such publications is a main object of the Ladies' Sanitary Association, which has, since its establishment in 1857, distributed 468,500 copies of small works, sold mostly at from 1d. to 2d. each. The issue of sanitary publications was commenced by Messrs. Jarrold & Sons about ten years since, under the designation of "Household Tracts," which are sold at 2d. each, and of these the number issued up to June last was 1,345,000. Of another class, entitled "Science for the Household," 125,000 copies have been circulated.

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Publications promotive of temperance are circulated very extensively from the establishment of Mr. Tweedie, 337 Strand, and many other booksellers. journal devoted to this cause has a circulation of 25,000 copies weekly. The British Workman,' issued at 1d., and the 'Band of Hope Review,' at Id have now a circulation of about 250,000 copies each, with a well-merited increase.

From Mr. Peter Drummond's Tract and Book Depôt, at Stirling, N. B., have been issued since 1848, gratuitously and by sale, 33,600,000 tracts of 1 to 12 pages

each.

Another publishing firm, that of Mr. John Cassell, issues from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 annually of well-written penny publications, besides the Popular Educator, the 'Illustrated History of England,' and the 'Illustrated Family Bible,' in weekly penny numbers, of which, up to the present time, 21,000,000 numbers have been printed.

To this greatly increased circulation of a pure and instructive cheap literature, and particularly to the extensive distribution of the Sacred Scriptures, the author feels justified in attributing, in no small degree, the striking change in the conduct of our manufacturing operatives, at the present time of severe privation and suffering, as compared with their riotous proceedings in days not very remote from the present; and he would trust that their conduct may prove instructive to some in other countries, who, exalted in authority, and knowing not the value of moral influence in governing a people, fetter the human mind, and incarcerate those who, having themselves experienced that the ways of true wisdom are pleasant, and her paths peace, would lead others to walk therein.

A Statistical Inquiry into the Prevalence of numerous Conditions affecting the Constitution in 1000 Consumptive Persons. By EDWARD SMITH, M.D., LL.B., F.R.S., Assistant Physician to the Hospital for Consumption at Brompton, ģe. The inquiry was made upon 600 male and 400 female patients at the Hospital for Consumption, Brompton, and was intended to show the influence of all the causes which are believed to modify the health.

The average age of the patients was 28-8 years. London, 36 per cent. had lived chiefly in London,

30 per cent. had been born in and 53 per cent. had lived in

London during the preceding 3 years. 8.8 per cent. could not read or write; and only 14.3 per cent. had been insufficiently nourished.

1. Parental conditions.-54 per cent. had lost the father, 46 per cent. the mother, and 28 per cent. both parents; in 25 per cent. only were both parents living. The average age of the parents at death was 50-8 years, with an increased duration of 4.7 years on the part of the fathers. The most frequent age at death was 35 to 55 years, whilst only 11 per cent. died under the age of 35, and some lived upwards of 95 years. 18 per cent. had experienced feeble health before the birth of the patient, and 34 per cent. throughout life; in 22.7 per cent. one or both parents had fed unsteady lives. 21.1 per cent. of the parents had died of consumption, whilst in 2.8 per cent. the grand-parents, 23.3 per cent. the brothers or sisters, and 9.1 per cent, the uncles or aunts had died of the same disease. They had suffered from rheumatism in 22 per cent., from asthma in 94 per cent., from liver-disease and gout in 9 and 7.2 per cent., and from fevers, ague, insanity, and diabetes in 4 to 5 per cent. Presumed scrofulous affections were extremely rare. In only 6 cases was there consanguinity of the parents.

The age of the parents at the birth of the patients was, in half of the cases, from 25 years to 35 years, and in only 2 per cent. was it less than 20 years. The number #of the children was very large, viz. an average of 7.5 to a family, and in some families there were 23 children. The patient was the first child in 20 per cent., and the first, second, and third child in half of all the cases. 40 per cent. of the parents' children had died.

2. Personal Conditions.-In only 23 per cent. were the patients under æt. 20, and a few were æt. 60. 24 per cent. had been feeble at birth, whilst 22 per cent. had suffered from feeble general health, and 17 per cent. from generally defective appetite. In 12.6 per cent. the lungs had been always delicate; 2.5 per cent. had been dry-nursed; 25.4 per cent. had perspired with unusual freedom; 25 per cent. had never worn flannel next the skin, and 55 per cent. had suffered from coldness of the extremities; 72.5 per cent. had an excitable temperament; 62:1 per cent. had medium brown or light-coloured hair, 74 per cent. had grey or blue eyes, 60 per

cent. had florid complexion, and 46.7 per cent. had a fleshy habit.

16, 654, 60, and 41 per cent. had not had measles, scarlet fever, small pox, and hooping-cough in their order, and the frequency of any long-continued ill-effects from these diseases was insignificant; 12.8 per cent. had suffered from enlarged glands, and 4.5 per cent. from long-continued affection of the eyes, but otherwise the ordinary scrofulous disease scarcely existed. 16.7 per cent. had suffered from inflammation of the lungs, and 14.8 per cent. from rheumatism, whilst typhus fever and frequent diarrhoea had occurred in 8 per cent., ague in 5.6 per cent., and liverdisease in 4.3 per cent. of the cases.

The menses appeared at æt. 14 and 15 years in 36.4 per cent., and in 11 per cent. only was it before æt. 13. 43.5 per cent. were married, and of these 13 per cent. had not borne children. Their average age at the birth of the first child was æt. 20 to 25, and in only 9 per cent. were they under æt. 20. The number of children per family was 1 and 2 in 44 per cent., and 1, 2, and 3 in 55 per cent.; 38 per cent. of the children had died, and in 43 per cent. the general state of the health of the children was bad; abortions had occurred in 46.2 per cent. of the child-bearing married women.

29.6 per cent. of the males had led a bad life at some period, 24.5 per cent. had smoked tobacco, 19.3 per cent. of both sexes had submitted to late hours, and 22.2 per cent. had suffered much anxiety. In 70 per cent. some complaint was made as to the injurious influence of their occupations, as exposure, long hours, close and hot rooms, bending posture, dust, or fumes, &c.

The author then entered into a consideration of the question of hereditary transmission, and showed the relation of such an inquiry to the purposes of life assurance; but was of opinion, that as consumptives are a very mixed class of persons, and the causes of the disease most various, the only safeguard to life-offices was the careful examination of the chest of applicants by competent physicians.

On the Income Tax. By W. T. THORNTON.

The object of this paper was to show, first, that every income-tax whatsoever must

necessarily violate the just principles of taxation; and, secondly, that's uni income-tax does so to a greater extent than there is any necessity for. Tik the principles of taxation those laid down as such by Adam Smith, and adip by Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, the writer undertook to prove that the least ob jectionable income-tax must needs infringe three of Adam Smith's four marina Instead of being levied at the time and in the manner most convenient to the ontributor, an income-tax is levied at the most inconvenient time and in the ms offensive manner. A man pays his customs or excise dues a little at a time, ani chooses his own time for paying,-never, of course, volunteering to pay, ene when he has wherewithal to pay. But the income-tax comes upon him both ài at once and just at the very time when he is beset with his half-yearly bills, lev ing a pitiless percentage on his means of meeting them. It lays him, too, or the rack, endeavours to extort a confession from him, and leaves him no alternative bo to criminate or to perjure himself. Then, the income-tax is levied most unequi It is assessed, not, as Adam Smith says it should be, in proportion to a mar ability, but in proportion to his honesty. An income-tax must often be, to a ceram extent, a matter of conscience. Those who have no conscience may partially evas it by lying; and thus it acts as a bounty upon lying, and a tax upon truth. The honest man bears the full burden; the dishonest goes comparatively free. This is a vice inherent in and inseparable from every income-tax whatsoever. There ma always be this to counterbalance any virtues it may possess. True, it has the mezit of raising a revenue more effectually than any other expedient, but at what cost does it do so? The mere pecuniary cost of its collection may perhaps be moderate as compared with that of the customs or excise, but money is not the sole element of cost. The income-tax is collected at the expense of the national honesty. It offers a powerful temptation to every commercial and every professional man to tell one deliberate falsehood, to commit one gross act of fraud, every year, and it is certain that a large majority of commercial and professional men yield to the temptation; for, from the last returns, it appears that there are, in Great Britain, only 6066 persons in trades or professions honest enough to confess that they make more than £500 and less than £600 a year; only 6020 who confess to more than £1000 and less than £2000 a year; only 997 persons who confess to £5000 and less than £10,000. Since it cannot be supposed that people who cheat regularly once a year will cheat only once a year, or that, beginning with cheating government, they will end without cheating their customers, it is plain that the income-tax is undermining the national honesty, and consequently that commercial prosperity also of which national honesty is one of the bases. Although then an income-tax may possibly not take out of people's pockets a great deal more than is paid into the exchequer, it is calculated to keep out a great deal that would otherwise have

entered.

Considering it to be thus apparent that every income-tax must necessarily be at variance with just principles, Mr. Thornton proceeded to argue that a uniform income-tax violates them to a needless extent. It does so by superadding to the inequality and injustice inseparable from every income-tax an inequality and injustice peculiar to itself. This is implied by its very name-a uniform income-tax, i. e. a tax levied at the same rate on all incomes. But, says Adam Smith, every one should pay taxes in proportion to his ability. His ability to do what? Obviously in proportion to his ability to pay taxes. But such ability by no means corresponds with income. To illustrate this point, Mr. Thornton supposed two persons, each with £1000 a year, but the one a bachelor, and the other a man with a family. Both have the same income, but their ability to bear taxation is very different; or, to use Ricardo's application of Adam Smith's principle, equal taxation requires from them very unequal sacrifices. Consequently, a tax assessed at the same rate on all incomes, without reference to the varying amount of claims on those incomes, is not assessed "in proportion to the respective abilities of the several contributors." Moreover the income-tax is the only tax at present in use amongst us which does affect incomes without regard to other claims upon them. A prudent family man, by living in a cheaper situation, by keeping only female servants, by walking on foot or riding only in cabs or omnibuses, by eschewing cigars, and drinking beer or spirits instead of wine, may always manage

to pay a smaller percentage on his income, in the shape of assessed taxes, customs, and excise duties, than an unencumbered bachelor of equal income. It is the income-tax alone which falls with indiscriminating weight upon both, and which, regarding not the ability to pay taxes, but simply the amount of income, makes the same deduction from the £1000 by which a dozen persons are to be supported, as from the £1000 appropriated to the exclusive use of a single individual.

Here is one inequality incidental to a uniform income-tax. Another arises from the equal assessment of permanent and precarious incomes. Two persons, each of £1000 a year, but derived in the one case from landed, funded, or otherwise realized property, and in the other, from the profits of trade, the gains of a a profession, or the salary of an office, have not the same means of paying taxes. The one may spend his £1000 a year for fifty years together, and at the end of that period his means of spending £1000 a year will be found undiminished. But if a merchant, or tradesman, or doctor, or lawyer, or railway secretary be silly enough to spend the whole of his £1000 a year, then if health fail, or business fail, he may suddenly find himself without a penny. Accordingly, he commonly puts by part of his income, and spends only the remainder; and the amount of that remainder is the measure of his ability to pay taxes, the amount therefore on which he ought to be taxed. In support of his view on this point, the writer quoted an expression of Adam Smith, to the effect that “ every subject of a state should contribute to the support of the government in proportion to the revenue which he enjoys under the protection of the state;" from which he inferred that Smith intended to distinguish between the income which a man possesses and enjoys and that which he possesses and does not enjoy, remarking that a man enjoys only that part of his income which he spends, and that he no more enjoys what he saves for the benefit of his heirs than he enjoys the wine which is ripening in his cellar, and which may not be fit to drink till he is gathered to his fathers, or which may be kept till it spoils and may never be drank at all, just as money that is invested may not be accumulating for the benefit of the actual owner, and perhaps may not be accumulating at all, but may be dwindling away to nothing in the shape of railway shares. Mr. Thornton proceeded to remark that, among the many faults of an income-tax, there is only one which can be remedied. The tax is in most respects incurably bad. Nothing can prevent its being discouragement to honesty and a bounty upon fraud, or from being collected at the expense of national probity, or from pressing with equal weight on single and married men of the same income, notwithstanding their unequal ability to bear the weight. One of its iniquities, however, is partially remediable. It might be prevented from pressing equally on permanent and precarious incomes, in the manner proposed by Mr. Mill, viz. by exempting from taxation that proportion of a precarious income which, taking the average of cases, its recipient would be bound in prudence to save.

The remainder of the paper was occupied with an examination of objections to Mr. Mill's suggestion. It has been urged that there is often a great difference between what a man ought to save and what he does save; and it has been asked, what could be more monstrous than to extend exemption to a spendthrift, who, being bound in prudence to lay by, say, a fourth of his income, thinks proper to spend all, and to save nothing? What could be more monstrous than to confer the reward assigned for the performance of a particular duty to one who had culpably neglected to perform that duty? In Mr. Thornton's opinion it is more monstrous still to withhold the reward from those who have performed the duty. In a country in which economists must be to spendthrifts as 100 to 1, it would, he thinks, be better that one spendthrift should obtain an exemption which he does not deserve, rather than that a hundred economists should be denied the exemption they do deserve.

Again, it has been urged that to assess precarious at a lower rate than permanent incomes, on the avowed ground, too, that the former belong to a poorer class of men, would be to tax the poor at a lower rate than the rich-a measure subversive of security of property. If, however, a reduced rate has been proposed for precarious incomes, it has been on the supposition that whatever rate were adopted would be assessed on the whole income. But to assess the whole of a precarious and the whole of a permanent income at the same rate would be to disregard their relative ability to bear taxation. If only that part of an income be taxed on which 1862.

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depends ability to pay, no one will object to the same rate being applied to all comes. It is only because injustice is committed by taxing the whole income, that an attempt is made to repair the injustice by demanding that a lower rate be inposed than would be proper if only part were taxed.

A third objection to Mr. Mill's suggestion is the opposite of the second. It s been said that to exempt savings would be to favour the rich at the expense of the poor, inasmuch as it is by the comparatively rich that the greater part of saving are made. To this Mr. Thornton answers, that if the rich pay on all they spend and are exempted only on what they save, they obtain the exemption only on that part of their income with respect to which they abdicate the advantage of richs not consuming it themselves, but making it over to be consumed by the post. Moreover, if they pay on all they spend, they pay on all they enjoy; and the pr ciple that every man should pay on what he enjoys, whether the sum be great r small, is fully carried out.

On Expectation of Life.

By CHARLES M. WILLICH, Actuary, University Life Assurance Society. The author showed that the following hypothesis agrees very nearly with D Farr's English Life Table, which was obtained from Returns made by every parish in England and Wales.

If a = age in years,

then (80-a) = expectation.

Also, that by an extension of the hypothesis we obtain the expectation of life closely agreeing with the result of the laborious investigation made by the late Mr. Finlaison as to the duration of the lives of female Government annuitants.

If a = age in years,

then (86a) = expectation.

MECHANICAL SCIENCE.

Address of WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., President of the Section. EVERY succeeding year presents to our notice some new feature of construction, or some new application of science to the useful arts. Last year we had to record several new discoveries in chemical as well as mechanical science; and this year is fruitful of machinery and the industrial developments, as exhibited in the courts of the International Exhibition. It is not my intention to occupy your time with a history of these Exhibitions, but I may be permitted to notice some of the most interesting objects, and some of the ingenious contrivances which we are called upon to witness, and which do honour to the age in which we live. Before I venture on a description of these objects, I must, however, crave your indulgence whilst I endeavour to notice some of the more important improvements which have taken place in mechanical science during some of the past years.

It may be stated that there is no period of the past history of science so fruitful in discoveries as the present century. Within the last fifty years we are enabled to enumerate the application of steam as a motive power to every description of manufacture, as also to navigation, locomotion, and agriculture. At the close of the eighteenth century the power of steam and its now almost universal application was, with the exception of a few engines by Boulton and Watt, comparatively unknown. Now it is the handmaid of all work, from our domestic requirements to the ocean-steamer of a thousand horses' power. This we may consider as the present state of steam and the steam-engine, and we have only to compare the small but beautiful construction of engines for private and domestic use, as seen in the Exhibition of this year, with those which propel our fleets, drain our mines, and move with clockwork precision the innumerable machines of our manufactories. To these we may add the use of steam to locomotion, and we realize the law of heat reciprocally convertible into mechanical force, or the dynamic theory of

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