Giving Employment.—Indirect Taxation.
Mr. Babbage relates the following illustrative anecdote: An Irish proprietor, whose country residence was much frequented by beggars, resolved to establish a test for discriminating between the idle and the industrious, and also to obtain some small return for the alms he was in the habit of bestowing. He accordingly added to the pump, by which the upper part of his house was supplied with water, a piece of mechanism so contrived, that at the end of a certain number of strokes of the pump-handle, a penny fell out from an aperture to repay the labourer for his work. This was so arranged, that labourers who continued at the work obtained very nearly the usual daily wages of labour in that part of the country. The idlest of the vagabonds of course refused this new labour-test; but the greater part of the beggars, whose constant tale was that “they could not earn a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work,” after earning a few pence, usually went away cursing the hardness of their taskmaster.
Never sign an Accommodation Bill.
Nothing is more deceptive than imaginary wealth. “We are apt,” says Sir E. B. Lytton, “to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. We outrun our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of some future place, project, or reversion we have in view.”
By no means is this artificial state of living more nourished than what are familiarly called “bill transactions.” This has been illustrated in novels and tales, but never more to the purpose than in the following passage in Pisistratus Caxton. “To sign an Accommodation Bill, and still more, to renew one when due, is opening an account with ruin. One always begins by being security for a friend. The discredit of the thing is familiarized to one’s mind by the false show of generous confidence in another. Then, what you have done for a friend, a friend should do for you—a hundred or two would be useful now—you are sure to repay it in three months. To youth the future seems safe as the Bank of England, and distant as the peaks of Himalaya. You pledge your honour that in three months you will release your friend. The three months expire. To release one friend, you catch hold of another—the bill is renewed, premium and interest thrown into the next pay-day—soon the amount multiplies, and with it the honour dwindles—your name circulates from hand to hand on the back of doubtful paper,—your name, which, in all money transactions, should grow higher and higher each year you live, falling down every month like the shares in a swindling speculation. You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction—buying him arsenic to clear his complexion,—you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would catch at his own brother.”
A Year’s Wills.
The Registrar-General has drawn from a calendar of the Wills and Administrations of the year 1858, the following interesting calculations. 210,972 adults died in the twelvemonth, and 30,823 persons left personal property behind them; 21,653 had made their Wills; the other 9170 had made none, and letters of administration had to be taken out. 89 persons with more than 10,000l. (one worth 100,000l.) died without making a Will. The aggregate amount of property left by all these persons is estimated at 71,860,792l., averaging 2331l. each. Distinguishing between the men and the women, we find that 102,049 adult men died in the year, and 21,454 left personal property—for one who left any, four leaving none; 108,923 adult women died, and 9369 left personal property. The average amount left by the men was 2751l.; by the women, 1371l. Omitting now any estimate for the first ten days of the year, and dealing only with the actual Wills and administrations of the rest of the twelvemonth, the personal property of those who died leaving any, 29,979 in number, amounted to 69,893,380l., of which 57,396,350l. was left by the men, and 12,497,030l. by women. The stream of wealth flowed thus:—
| Persons. | Dying worth | Left |
| 22,513 | Less than 1000l. | 5,762,880l. |
| 6277 | 1000l. but less than 10,000l. | 20,010,500l. |
| 1020 | 10,000l. but less than 50,000l. | 21,960,000l. |
| 102 | 50,000l. but less than 100,000l. | 7,100,000l. |
| 67 | Above 100,000l. | 15,060,000l. |
| ———— | —————— | |
| 29,979 | 69,893,380l. |
Only one property was sworn as high as 900,000l. and under 1,000,000; 1935 were under 20l. The property divides nearly equally at 20,000l. About 35,000,000l. belonged to 29,392 persons, none having more than 20,000l., and the other 35,000,000l. belonged to 587 persons, fifty times fewer than the former company. Of those who left above 100,000l., 37 were described as esquires, a term which would include men who had made their fortunes by trade or commerce; ten were titled personages, five were bankers, four merchants, three clergymen, one cotton manufacturer, one corn merchant, one hotel-keeper; one was in the navy, one in the Indian army, one in the Indian Civil Service, one was a spinster. Three medical men left more than 50,000l. A person described when he made his will as a commercial clerk left above 30,000l.; 17 “labourers and mechanics” above 1000l. Of 75 lawyers, 15 died without making their Wills. The foregoing statements, which must be taken as approximations rather than an absolute accuracy, relate to England alone. In the year ending March 31, 1859, legacy-duty was paid in the United Kingdom on 62,441,611l., but that does not include property passing from husband to wife or the converse, no legacy-duty being then payable; succession-duty on real property was paid upon 29,242,630l., and, estimating that to be taxed to the next successor at half its saleable value, it will amount to 58,485,260l. On this assumption 123,926,871l. passed by death to another generation of successors. It is certainly a remarkable fact, that (upon an average) on every death, including alike men, women, and children, more than 100l. of property paying legacy-duty, and perhaps 187l. of property of every kind, is left for the benefit of successors in the United Kingdom.—Times.