the county gaol of Dorchester, he was consigned to the magistrates' custody, as will appear from an order of sessions, made at the midsummer quarter-sessions for the county of Dorset, respecting his treatment in confinement, though by the law of the land, he could only be committed to the sheriff's custody, (allowing for the sake of argument, that he might be imprisoned in a different county from that in which the offence was committed, and it is allowed for the sake of argument only). Now, the magistrates of any county have no jurisdiction except what is given them by statute, and no jurisdiction is given them by statute, over a person convicted of misdemeanour, who is, during his confinement, emphatically, a sheriff's prisoner. Your petitioner, therefore, is placed by his sentence in a situation which the law knows not, and therefore he prays the consideration of his case may receive the attention of this honourable house, not on his personal account, but as his treatment may be drawn into a precedent inimical to the freedom and liberties of the subjects of these realms. That your petitioner further submits to your honourable house some peculiar privations and hardships to which he has been subjected since his confinement in Dorchester gaol, which commenced on the evening of the 6th of July, 1808, and when your petitioner was labouring under a very severe and afflicting state of illness, which had been proved to the judges of the court of King's Bench by the affidavits of four most respectable medical gentlemen. That notwithstand ing this infirm state of your petitioner's health, he was denied, by the controlling magistrates of Dorchester prison, for the interval of more than three months, viz. from the 6th of July to the 15th of the ensuing October, all access to the open air, even to the taking ordinary exercise, unless your petitioner would take the same in a small circular stone yard, which was allotted in common for prisoners who were sentenced for fines, such as smugglers and those who had evaded the excise laws, &c. &c. Your petitioner's complaint being a long standing bilious disorder, attended with a complication of alarming symptoms, a mong which he was subject to an almost continued swimming in the head, and a partial stagnation of the circulation of the blood in his feet, he found, after trial, that the walking on the stones, and the circular direction in which he was obliged to walk aggravated his disorder to such an excess, that he was obliged to abandon the attempt; and, although he represented this frequently, by letter and otherwise, to the visiting magistrates, and intreated that he might be permitted to walk in the garden, as Mr. Gilbert Wakefield, Mr. Redhead Yorke, and all other prisoners in similar situations, had been permitted to do before him, this was refused him, until he partially obtained the indulgence, through the be nevolent interposition of Mr. Calcraft, one of the magistrates for the county, and the representation being first made to him by the medical gentleman attending the prison, that be considered your petitioner's being permitted to walk in the garden essential to the preservation of his health. In consequence of this interference and this representation, your petitioner has, since the 15th of October last, been permitted to walk in the garden, in company of the gaoler of the prison, for the very limited space of one half an hour every day, and which limited indulgence your petitioner's health has been such as almost to preclude him from availing himself of. Your petitioner, therefore, humbly submits to this honourable house that such extreme coercion and restriction is not necessary for the secure confinement of your petitioner, and is inconsistent with the benign spirit of the British constitu tion. Your petitioner, in candour and justice, begs leave to state, that he considers this restriction as being personally cruel towards him, because, since his confinement in the goal of Dorchester an unlimited indulgence in walking in the garden has been extended to a rELON, by the partial courtesy of the magistrates, and your petitioner having given no cause of complaint against the propriety of his conduct, to justify such restriction. In addition to this heavy grievance, your petitioner begs to state that his family consists of a wife and two sons:-t :-that, from the enjoyment of all personal intercourse with one of his sons, whose business confines him in London, he is wholly bereaved, by the great distance which separates them:-that his wife and his other son have taken lodgings at Dorchester, at an immense increased expence to your petitioner, for the purpose of mitigating his calamity as much as possible by the comforts of their society: but hitherto they have only been admitted, by the order of the magistrates, alternately to visit him for three days in a week, and each day limited to eight hours, with the exception of your petitioner's wife, for some weeks past, having been permitted to be with him on a Sunday, and during the night, in consequence of the medical gentleman attending him having given it as his opinion that it was indispensibly necessary, on account of the alarming state of your petitioner's health. Your petitioner trusts that this honourable house will liberally consider what a cruel aggravation this must be, merely arising from the local rules of the magistrates, and neither expressed in the sentence, nor warranted by the bill of rights; for, surely every father and husband must deem that imprisonment cruel which confines a man for three years, and allows him only twenty-four hours in each week to have intercourse with his wife and child. That your petitioner has confined himself, in these instances, to a simple statement of facts, and commits the whole to the benignity, discretion, and wisdom, of your honourable house. Your petitioner submits to the consideration of this honourable house, the extreme severity of the sentence passed upon him, as being contrary to the rights and liberties of every British subject in these realms. guaranteed to them by the bill of rights, which expressly says, 66 that excessive fines ought not to be imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments in flicted," your petitioner having already suffered, under a state of severe and dangerous illness, upwards of nine months imprisonment and banishment in Dorchester-Gaol, from his home, his business, and the county where he was tried, and which has already subjected him to a pecuniary expense of upwards of 500l. and which, unless mitigated by the interference of this honourable house, it is more than probable will prove fatal to the life of your petitioner, and ruinous to his circumstances, and future welfare of his family! And your petitioner most humbly craves that he may be permitted to prove the truth of his allegations before a select committee, or at the bar of your honourable house, and he prays such relief as in your wisdom shall seem meet. HENRY WHITE, NECESSITY OF ECONOMY. [From the Edinburgh Review.] manent taxes (which, with the trifling exception of the legacy-duty, are all laid on consumption) last year, fell short of their net produce " the year before by about 500,0001. although new taxes, to the amount of two millions and a quarter, had! been collected. The deficit upon the former taxes was therefore above two millions and a half; and a similar defalcation took place in almost all the war taxes, which fall. on consumable articles. It cannot be denied, that the public burdens press upon the people of this country with a weight, only not intolerable. There are even manifest symptoms, that an increase of taxes could scarcely be effected, whatever might be the call for new contributions. The revenue is raised, partly by direct taxation, and partly by duties on consumption. The property-tax, which forms the bulk It appears, then, that when the of the direct imposts, has been, of property tax was strictly levied, the late, collected with much more ri- difficulty of paying it increased ;~~ gour than at first,the persons en- that an imposition of new taxes trusted with the management of it upon consumption occasioned a dì” having, of course, become more minution in the produce of the old; skilful, and acquired a more intimate and that the increased paymentknowledge of people's affairs. The of direct taxes was compensated by effect of this has been exactly the a defalcation in the indirect taxes. same as if the rate of that tax had The facts which we have stated war been augmented. But the difficulty rant the inférence, not merely that of procuring payment has also in the one species of taxation operated creased in an alarming degree. The at the expence of the other, but assessment of 1805 was not quite that, independent of all duties, the six millions and a quarter; that of difficulty of raising the same amount 1806 amounted to above eleven mil of taxes had increased; that, in lions and a quarter although there short, the circumstances of our si had only been imposed an addition tuation-the wasteful consumption of three and a half per cent. But of war-the rise in the price of la the arrears have encreased at a much bour from the demands of the army higher rate. Last April, there re→and the checks upon our commained due, of the assessment 1805, only 92,0001. but of the assessment 1806, above 900,0001. and of the assessment 1807, no less then 2,357,000l. The difficulty of procuring payment has thus rapidly increased; and this can only be explained by the augmentation of prices in consequence of the war, and the increase of taxes upon articles of consumption. The produce of this other class of taxes has accordingly suffered a great diininu tion. The net produce of the per *Parliamentary Returns, 8th June, 1809.-The arrears of last year's assess ment were above eight millions and a quarter; but these cannot be taken into the computation. meree, had so far straitened the means of the people, and raised the price of commodities, as to disable them from contributing the accustomed proportion to the exigencies : * The taxes on which the greatest proportionate deficit is perceivable are, as might be expected, those on articles ofluxury. The duties on horses, carriages and servants, fell off from 2,150,000l. to 1,523,000l.-Customs and excise, from 19,178,000l. to 17,960,000l. These deficits were in part covered by the new increase of the assessed taxes known by and most impolitic stamp-duty, and the the name of, a new arrangement of them,"-and in part by an increased receipt upon the 10 per cent. of 1806 laid on the assessed taxes, and the duty of the same year on British spirits. Lady D'Amiland. And many oth SIN Lo V & cannot 6' articles rnment, if vite Let any man reflect on the remark which he must so frequently have made while passing through the halls, the chambers, the offices, and the gardens of the former an English grandee's palace, and, Consume as manner in which his estates are-ma is property shall be taxed still more, while considering the the nation has at last reached naged-"The loss and the waste of people is now made to pay as much which ever and anon presents itself. wants the revenue of the state as Who can doubt, then, that much is any human means can extort from wasted in an establishment which if the natural period of taxation. costs above ninety millions a year if the revenue of the thousands by the year," is the thought is at income Acct, that arrived--by the public which is spread over many thououtstripping that of indivi- sand square miles entrusted to secure (and, surely, when we re mulntudes who have no interest in lions borrowed, above seventy mil- hastily, incidentally, and according within the year by taxes, we cannot bud, by a few persons who volunmarvel at this crisis being come*); teer their services, change every day, twenty-two mil- being economical, and watched over lions sterling man of our --- are at present raised to rules devised when it was in the how clearly must every thinking and must see all abuses at a vast perceive, that the whole system distance, if they see them at all? In policy depends, for its exis- the present state of our affairs, we tence, upon the continuance of our may be well assured, that the danger commerce, that inextricable con- which chiefly besets us is not that fusion will arise from any consider- of parsimony. From this source wo able diminution of the income of can descry nothing to appal us, exthe country, and that the only cept, perhaps, the risk of bringing means of augmenting the public re- the cause of reform into a temporary venue, must be sought in the ex- discredit, by too rash and indiscri minate a pursuit of it. But, from a continuance of our present scale of expenditure, coupled with what is infinitely more ruinous-a con tempt for the only means of meeting it;--from a disinclination to retrench whatever is useless in our outgoings, and, still more, from an aversion to those conciliatory measures, which, *The revenue raised by Great Bri tain, in 1809, is estimated at 65,885,3451. including the surplus of 1808, and exclusive of money raised by loan and exchequerbills, to the amount of 18,660,000l. The net revenue of Ireland, in 1808, exclusive of about 4,000,000l. loans, was 4,571,2501; so that the revenue of the empire may be reckoned at 70,456,6921. |