any deviation from equity muft exift, the rich certainly fhould not be the clafs favoured. The fubject is lefs understood than perhaps any other branch of political œconomy; and, it is with pleasure I find that the abilities of Mr. FREND have lately been employed in inveftigating "the principles of taxation."

The foundation of his fyftem is the fame on which Mr. PITT pretends the tax on income refts, that "every man's contribution to the ftate ought to be in proportion to his means, and the relative fituations of perfons, the fame before and after payment of a tax." The truth of this propofition will be difputed by none, except those who wish to fee taxation made the means of introducing a greater equality of condition; an idea, the juftice of which is doubtful, and which probably, will never be reduced to practice. Admitting the principle therefore, the point on which difference of opinion is likely to arife, is the mode of eítimating the taxable means of individuals in different circumftances. Mr. FREND, in comparing the fituation of two perfons, the one deriving his income from landed eftate, and the other from perfonal induftry, adds to the income of the former, the value of his eftate at a certain number of years purchase, and deducting in each cafe the amount of income abfolutely neceffary for fubfiftence, confiders the refpective remainders as the proportion of contribution. Thus, if an eftate of 200l. per annum is valued at 20 years purchase, the property of the proprietor is 4200l. while that of the perfon whofe income arifes from induftry is only the year's income; and 30l. being deducted from each, if the perfon with 200l. a year from industry is taxed at 201. or 2-17ths of the taxable part of it, the proprietor of the eftate producing the fame income ought to pay 4901. If either poffefs unproductive property, its amount beyond zol. is included in their taxable means.

It would be unreasonable to object to the fums which Mr. FREND has adopted as deductions for the untaxable part of every perfon's property, as they might be fixed greater or lefs; but it feems that it fhould by no means be the fame in all cafes, for the tax profeffes to leave the members of the ftate in the fame relation to each other in which it found them; and it will not be pretended that the income abfolutely neceffary to enable a daylabourer and a peer to maintain their respective fituations is the fame, or with refpect to a married man with a young

family and an unmarried man: the deduction fhould therefore be an increasing proportion accommodated to the fituation of individuals. Again, if the tax leaves perfons with equal incomes in the fame relative fituations in which it found them, it fhould at least permit the capitalift to expend the fame annual fum as the perfon who derives his income from induftry; if the latter is taxed at 201. for zool. a year, he has 180l. to spend, but if the former pays 490l. tax and spends 180l. it is evident, though the tax decreases, his capital will foon be annihilated; the progrefs of its diminution, upon the fuppofition that he continues to spend this fum yearly, will be as follows:

In the thirteenth year the capital and income amount to only 1671. fo that whether the tax is paid or not there is not fufficient to spend 180l. and the whole of the property is confumed. Thus the perfon who by his induftry has accumulated a capital which will produce an income that he judges fufficient to live upon, is not only to diminish his expenditure in the fame proportion as others, but is alfo to pay uch further tax upon the produce of his paft industry, as will entirely deprive him of the means of fubfiftence at the very time when he will be the most unable to help himself. It is true, fome variation is propofed in the mode of taxing income derived from capital when it is reduced to 30l. per ann. but the adoption of this alteration, according to which the income still diminishes, fhews that a more general rule is defirable.

That perfons deriving their income from capital, ought to be taxed much higher than thofe who derive the fame income from induftry; which, of course, if they spend the fame fums, will generally intrench upon the capital of the former, cannot be denied by any who confiders the fubject. Many perfons "fee the effect of the tax in diminishing

the

the capital and confequent income of the one, but do not reflect on the effect of the tax upon the other, in preventing him from realising the capital and increafing his income. Hence we hear terrible complaints continually in the world, when a man's capital is touched, not confidering that the capital which another might by his induftry have realised, if it had not been for the tax, is as facred to him as the part of the capital which another is obliged to trench on to pay his tax." Still, however, it appears inequitable to deny the poffeffor of capital which he may have acquired by his labour, any advantage from it; in the inftance given, the perfon whofe income arifes from industry spends 18ol. per annum, the other fpends no more; yet, if an alteration was not made in the mode of taxing, he would in a few years be left deftitute: if it be faid that the fuperiority of the latter perfon confifts in having his income certain for a number of years, it may be replied, that his difadvantage is great in being equally certain of lofing it if he lives beyond the term. It would, perhaps, be a more just mode of eftimating the property of the perfon who derives his income from capital, to deduct his life intereft in untaxable income from the full value of the eftate or capital, and confider the remainder as the excels of his taxable means beyond that of the perfon deriving his income from induftry: thus, in the above inftance, if the life of the poffeffor of the estate is worth ten years purchase, deduct 300l. from 4200l. and the proportional tax on the remainder will be, 4581. instead of 490l. ; the deduction would diminish yearly, but the poffeffor

may not be unacceptable to fome other of your readers. I wish it may ferve as an additional caution to critics, not to alter the words of an author because they do not understand them.

Hitch is in common ufe among seamen to fignify a particular kind of knot, employed to faften a rope over a pin. They alfo fay bitch a hook into an eye, or a loop, or under any thing of which they want it to take hold. I believe, too, the word is ftill familiar in the weft of England, at least with all the parts of it with which I am acquainted. Thus, if a lady's cloak, or gown, as fhe walks along, fhould be caught by a nail, a tenterhook, or the like, fhe will fay it is hitched: or if Molly, when she takes her linen from the hedge, fhould find it held faft by the thorns, he will be vexed by its hitching. Hitchel, or hatchel, is the name given to a fort of comb, confifting of a number of fharp flender fpikes, fixed on a piece of wood, with which flax-dreffers bitchel their flax, or part the fibres into fine threads, and feparate the bits of stalk, &c. from them. The Germans ufe bechelen for the fame inftrument and the fame procefs. They alfo call the beard of corn hatchel. All thefe words, no doubt, are derived from the fame root; and the expreffion of Pope always appeared to my ear, accustomed to nautical and weft-country terms, as particularly appropriate.

Your's, &c.

S. N.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. "Mores hominum multorum."

on it.

11th Feb. 1799.

HAT a fortunate fellow, Mr. Editor, was that fame fcholar of Alcala, Don Cléofas Léandro Pérez Zambullo! He would have known no more of what paffed in Madrid than I do if he had not fcraped acquaintance-and it was by the mereft accident in the world too-with the renowned Afmodeus; who, in gratitude for his liberation from the aftrologer's phial, perched with him on the tower San Salvador and uncovered the houses of the city, fo that the scholar might fee every thing within them, just as eafily as he could fee the contents of a pye when the crust is taken off*.

Now, Mr. Editor, were I endued with the diabolic power of Afmodeus, I would feat you on the weathercock of the ca

thedral, and fhow you every thing that is going forward in the city of Norwich; nor fhould it be an idle furvey; I fhould addrefs you as my friend Monfieur le Diable boiteux did his companion: "il faux que vous le rende utile" faid he; "et pour vous donner une parfaite connoiffance de la vie humaine, je veux vous expliquer ce que font toutes ces perfonnes que vous voyez. Je vais vous découvrir les motifs de leurs actions, et vous révéler jufqu'à leurs fecrètes pensées." But after all, perhaps, this might have been a very ungrateful task; I should have the ill will of my neighbours for expofing their follies, without being thanked for displaying their virtues. So 'tis all very well as it is: inftead of pointing out to you, therefore, this mifer and that spendthrift, this rogue and that fool, that is to fay, inftead of particulars, I muft deal in generals, in the following sketch of the ftate of the fociety in the city of Norwich.

:

It is now, I think, about fifteen years fince the establishunent of a public library in this city it contains a variety of valuable books, which, in the catalogue of it, are well arranged under the following heads: 1. Theology, Ecclefiaftical hiftory, Morality. 2. Metaphyfics, Logic, Theory of Language, Criticifm, Oratory. 3. Education. 4. Law, Polity, Commerce, and Art of War. 5. Natural Philofophy, Mathematics, Medicine, Agriculture, Chemistry. 6. Natural History; Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy. 7. Fine Arts; Agriculture, Sculpture, Painting, Mufic, Gardening, &c. 8. Hiftory, Biography, Heraldry, Chronology. 9. Geography, Topography, Voyages and Travels. 10. Antiquities and Mythology. 11. Poetry and Dramatic works. 12. Romances, Novels &c. 13. Greek and Latin books; and Tranflations from the Ancients. 14. French, Italian, &c. 15. Miscellaneous works; Dictionaries, Reviews, &c.

It is evident from this sketch of its contents, that the Public Library is adapted, not merely for the amusement of loungers and boarding school young ladies, but for the instruction of ftudents and the reference of scholars. Its concerns are managed by a committee, confifting of a prefident and vice-prefident, (both of whom are annually elected,) and of twenty-four other gentlemen, one half of whom

† So long ago as the year 1608 was established a city library, "communi studioforum bono:" it has long fince dwindled into infig

nificance.

alfo is chofen annually by the subscribers at large; fo that each gentleman on the committee fits for two years; he is not again eligible till after twelve months have elapfed. The committee meets on the evening of the fecond Monday of each month, when it takes into confideration the propriety of admitting into the library or rejecting, fuch books as have been propofed by any of the fubfcribers fince its former fitting the admiffion or rejection of a book is decided by the majority of votes. There are about five hundred fubfcribers to this library; and confidering how eafy are the terms of admiffion &c., it is wonderful that the number is not greater: the price of tickets (all of which are transferable) is two guineas and a half, and the annual fubfcription for fupplying the library with books and for defraying all the expences of the inftitution is only eight fhillings. For the, accommodation of officers principally; it was agreed, that from the first of January, 1794,

temporary refidents be admitted to the ufe of the library, on fubfcribing five fhillings quarterly, and depofiting a guinea, which fhall be refunded when the fubfcription ceafes, and the books are returned in good order to the library."

no

The effects which this library has produced are ftriking, and will, doubt, be permanent it is obvious, that antecedent to its inftitution there muft have been fome tafte for literature among the citizens of Norwich, for if there had not, the library would never have been inftituted; but an eafy unexpensive access to useful and entertaining books of every denomination has widely diffufed a taste for reading, and this again has had a favorable influence on conversation. We have among us fome female circles, where it is more common to hear the merits of a new book canvaffed, the truth of an author's theory or the folidity of his fyftem, than the merits of a new fashion, the elegance of a cap, or the gracefulness of a gown.

Befides this public library, there are feveral book-clubs among the respectable. tradefmen and fhop-keepers, who find amufement for their leisure hours in perufing the publications of the day. We have alfo fome circulating libraries; one is of confiderable refpectability, and from the circumftance of its procuring new books on their earliest appearance, and occafionally of its procuring half a dozen copies of them, it meets with very liberat hand books are not mumerous but a encouragement. Our fhops for fecond

by the decay of the worsted manufacture, which was now at fo low an ebb that many were forced to leave their houfes and go into the country to get their bread,' the mayor, theriffs, &c, waited on the Duke of Norfolk then at his palace in the city, for the purpose of confulting with him, how they might remove it. They wifely refolved to invite divers ftrangers of the Low Countries which were now come to London and Sandwich."-I am ufing the words of Blomfield" for refuge from the perfecution then raised against them by the power of the Duke of Alva, principal for the king of Spain; which ftrangers had obtained licence from the queen* to exercife the making of Flanders commodities of wool in her majesty's dominions." The confequence of this application was, that letters patent were granted, "for the placing of 30 mafter workmen, each of them to have 10 fervants, being in all 330 Dutch and Walloonst who came to Norwich and fet up the making of bayes, fayes, arras, mockades, and fuch like, which immediately employed a great number of hands, fo that," &c. .. "both city and country grew rich ‡."

The Dutch

*Elizabeth.

+"Norwich Roll.”

characters as thofe of Philip, and Duke Alva, vilified and infulted by the tame tender-hearted politicians of this day, Short-fighted beings! do they not know that almost all the European manufactories received a moft extenfive diffufion from the measures which thefe very men, prompted, no doubt, by the keenest wisdom and the nobleft policy, purfued? Philip inherited from his father, Charles the Fifth, an implacable antipathy against the Lutherans; and to extirpate the proteftant religion from his dominions was the object of his moft ardent ambi tion. But religion and its profeffors must ftand and fall together; during the fift year only of Alva's vigorous, "juft, and neceffary" administration in the Netherlands, upwards of a hundred thoufand perfons relinquished their habitations, England, as it has been already obferved, received many of the fugitive manufacturers, under the fagacious aufpices of Elizabeth: hither they imported their fuperior skill and induftry in the woolen manufactories: thofe fine ones of Wiltthire were erected on the ruins of the Spanish Netherlands, and the establishment of thefe, now become unrivalled, introduced various collateral branches more or lefs connected with them*. If I were difpofed to digrefs ftill farther by enlarging on the beneficial confequences of what it is the fashion to call perfecution, I could tell thefe timid politicians, that when Louis the fourteenth revoked the edict of Nantz, about half a million of fubjects deserted France and carried their arts and manufactories into various countries which have been enriched by them: England is indebted to the revocation of that edict for its Spitalfields colony.

As it is with manufactories, fo it is with fcience; violent oppreffion is equally favorable to the diffution of both when the Turks, under the command of Mahomet the fecond, reduced the city of Conftantinople and deftroyed the Roman empire in the eat, many of the learned Greeks fought shelter under the auspices of Cofmo de' Medici, and became profeffors of that language in Florence. A fpirit of emulation was excited between them and the Italian profeffors, and thus the efforts of each contributed to diffufe the sciencet, Can there be any doubt but that the