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0g The Leader and Saturday Analyst. ["Ja...
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A PLEA^Oll BKITISH COLUMBIA. TTfR. JOHNS...
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THE EDINBURGH BEVTEW.—TAXATION.* THE pre...
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* Xhe Jmtoiktm/b JUntim* .No, QQX&Y. Xto...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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"Windsor. For All Practical Purposes The...
successful conquest of the-hardest process in the art , one mot to be acquired without years of labour , and a most delicate power of manipulation ; the Fo ^ heegim . process with the dry plate , in which the position can be taken at any time , thus obviating the annoying encumbrance of , a tent . . ' . . ^ Mr . Joubebt ' s permanent process , with the help of which he proposes to illustrate books ( even scientific ones ) , should not be left unnoticed . The best specimen , perhaps , is one without a number , but hung on the end of the third screen , on the right of the secretary's chair . Mr . Smith has not been so successful in his " View of Knaresborougb . " The impression this gloomy picture gives is that of evening-, and late evening : yet the shadows are strong , and not more than half the length of the posts that cast them . It is hard upon the sun to employ him to put himself out so completely .
Messrs . Bissow Freres , in " The Sources of the Aveyron ( 143 ) ; "Mont Blanc" ( 299 ); "Les Serais" ( 300 ); and " Les Grandes Jorasses , " ( 301 ) are as good as ever ; and are , indeed , real benefactors iii bringing under the eyes of people who will never even see Alpine scenery , very truthful representations of its beauLy and grandeur . A large photograph of Niagara arrived after the exhibition opened . "Everything but the rushing swirls of water just above the fall was admirably represented—foam , spray , clouds , distance , rocks . But the water was like maccaroni , and Niagara unfortunately consists largely of water . There are several examples , as ( 140 ) , if we remember rightly j of the error of photographing ; a view beyond water . The reflections in the foreground water are so black and deep as to overpower everything , else , and to give an unpleasant topsy-turvy feeling to the whole'composition . The result produced on our own mind by the whole exhibition * is ^—after admitting the wonderful manual and chemical skill displayedthat painting , whether of landscape , portrait , or figure , stands in no danger from the gloomy accuracy of the photograph , which bears the same relation to it as the skeleton to the living being ; but that in accurate copying of prints arid drawings , as we have noticed , or of the minuter inanimate objects , ' as the mediaeval Jocks , keys , and spoons ( No .. 9 ) ., or tlie piece of music on the end of the second screen , it is unrivalled indelicacy , and is almost reduced to perfection by the able artists who now practise iti ~ . .. ¦'" - ¦ /
0g The Leader And Saturday Analyst. ["Ja...
0 g The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ "Jan . 21 , 1860 .
A Plea^Oll Bkitish Columbia. Ttfr. Johns...
A PLEA ^ Oll BKITISH COLUMBIA . TTfR . JOHNSON has ren . rrked in the " Rambler , " with , "" -L- * think , somewhat less than his usual acuteriess , that " no word is naturally or intrinsically meaner than another ; our opinion therefore of words , as of other things , arbitrarily and capriciously established , depends wholly upon accident and custom . " The associations which make a word mean and disagreeable , or the reverse , may indeed be both accidental and partial ; : but the Doctor appears to put entirely out of the question the melody of words—according to our opinion , no unimportant part of them . Melody and association are both concerned , however , in the few remarks that follow .
We conquer , we clear , we colonize ; we subdue wild men , and subjugate wilder nature—and to make acquisitions is certainly a far more important matter than to name them . In this latter point the Anglo-Saxon settler vulgarizes most energetically . We might excuse convicts , and those who first push forward discovery and settlement , but unfortunately there seems often to bean aftergrowth of vulgarity in the choice of names for things and places which is not so pardonable . Now at the best the sounds of the English language , glorious as it is , are far from being the most melodious in the world . . Translate the jinnies of a few of the French and Italian streets , for instance , into English , and see JRue de la Croix JZotiffe , Sfrada delta Croco jRossa , certainly gain no grandeur by being translated into " lied Cross Street , " and were we to try the next
here worth noting : "As to such names as Jerry ' s Plains , Patrick ' s Plains , or Paddy ' s River , it seems a cruelty to inflict them on a new country . " We think so indeed . They . are nearly , as bad as the worst native terms—Wog-Wog and Bong-Bong—and not nearly so desirable as the best—Taraiga , Hawarra , and Marulau . May British Columbia escape the fate of Australia , and may its localities be Christianly christened ! Where a country is subject to a survey , it might be as well for those who take the survey , to make at least an effort to save from the kind of desecration we have been describing its more interesting localities . Certainly , if we have saved by these few words of ours some grand ravine from the sobriquet of "Bobby ' s Gully "some snow-crowned and cloud-capped height from the denomination of the " Buffer ' s Bump , " this little labour of love to nature and admonition to man will not have been altogether in vain .
half-dozen that might occur to us the result would be the same . Or take , "gain , a few of the names of well-known artists , and English them ; what does the reader think of Poussui , Bourdon , and Moucheron , transmuted intp Messrs . Chicken , Drone , and Gnat . Or the great masters of the Ferrarese School : Gurbfulo and Muzzolinp metamorphosed into Messrs . Pink and Nosegay ? So fur perhaps we cannot help ourselves ; we must tako our language ^ as fur as regards its sounds , as we find it . But to show the Anglo-Saxon tendency to vulgurivse . intensely , wilfully to prefer the unpleasant to the pleasant association , we have but to look to oi \ r Transatlantic kinsmen . Rice may not be a word of very pleasant sound , but why vulgarise it into the roundabout slangy rattle of "swamp seed P' * " Corn " ia better in sound ; it , is the word of Scripture—the
old English word , hallowed by a thousand poetical associations . What wanton coarseness to knead up all descriptions of-it into the utilitarian " bread etui ^ l" In some parts of America , owing to an ingenious preference for the disgusting , all the stores of the entomologiHt come under the all-inohuavo genus of " bug-is ; " and that olegant creature the fire-fly iH , par emphasis , the " lightning-bug . " We admit the general superiority of the men of Boston in matters oftante , and a sheet of water six miles long * is certainly not . * to be comjpiM'Cicl to JUurotfyU ^ d ' Ontario , ; , lu » jb why . do tfiey eUllp ^ iwiat Jn ewUing 1 ^ Vsaawuinpset . lak e txjpptti ^ , in ( preference ( 6 ( the mono # ignwfie 4 term to which kt niij ^ Kt iwirJy wy eJuim P Every youi ^ jnntipju . fiejain s destined to hav » some of' thej nwJU « which ahu * . ncterj < 4 e , tUfi yputAUnl iltmnan iudjivJd 4 uU , hut it in time -for America io quat off this alPM # h , « f £ l » n # . . ' ¦ , A r . ejuurik of Hmg $ rtli \ in hia " Bush Life in Australia / ' is
The Edinburgh Bevtew.—Taxation.* The Pre...
THE EDINBURGH BEVTEW . —TAXATION . * THE present number of the " Edinburgh Review" has two political articles , one on the progress of Law Reform , the other on British Taxation . The latter refers to a " subject of great interest and iinirersal concern , " and we shall best consult the advantage of our readers by concentrating attention on it . An elaborate article on the Mortality in Trades and Professions , an interesting commentary on JSmvIinson ' s Herodotus , a descriptive account of the Coal Fields of Nortli America and Great Britain , an abridgment of Mr . Oliphant's narrative of Lord Elgin ' s Mission to China and Japan , an exposure in detail of many errors in Alison s History of Europe , an instructive paper on the Acclimatisation of Animals , and a p leasant notice of M-adamc JRecdmier , which includes a description of the manners of the . Parisians under Napoleon , make up the number and are worthy of perusal . It has no light article ; it is solid throughout , and will be read more for instruction than amusement . ' : ' . '•¦
The article on taxation is . meant to smash all discontent with and all opposition to the present system . The Reviewer shows that taxation per head has been steadily diminishing ever since : the termination of the great , war ; that taxatioii . in proportion to wealth is only half what it was at that period ; that our fiscal- burdens arE * lighter thaii . those of the French ; that even as compared with America , we are not discreditably taxed ; that it is quite an error to describe our present , system as expensive , —it is '' much .. more economical than that of either France or America , and does not press with unfair severity
on the working classes . - . All these points are worked put with much minuteness , considerable care , great array of facts and figures , and the whole is stated with a studied appearance of candour . If all the facts and all the figures of the whole problem were really collected , to refute the author's conclusions might be difficult , but he warns us that they are only approximations , and lie does not affirm their unassailable accuracy . We beg to call his attention to one palpable error which runs through the bulk of the article , and vitiates alike his comparisons between the present and the past , and between Englmid and other countries .
All his statements turn on the amount of property in this country now and formerly and in other countries , and he gets at the amount of personal property by the sum annually paid for the legacy and probate duties . Now funded 2 M'operty is , like other personal property , subjected to these duties;—consequently funded property is included in the Reviewer ' s estimate of personal property . Funded property , however , is nothing more than a right to receive £ 28 , 700 , 000 per annum of the public taxes . A sum to that amount is annually taken from the tax payers , and handed over to the tax receivers . The personal property has no other existence . To the individuals who receive the dividends they are undoubtedly personal property , but now to reckon amongst the assets of the Nation , £ 800 , 000 , 000 of debt is as gross a blunder as ever was committed by u self-deceiving bankrupt .
Moreover , real property is estimated by the annual income it yields . Now the tax on corn , and the taxes on , butter , cheese , fruit , etc ., keep up tho price of the produce of our own noil equal to the rate of duty . This enhances pro tanio the rent of land ; and so the nominal value of real property is also increased by taxation . We are by no means sure that a similar effect is not the result of excise and other duties , which compel the consumer to hand over a part of his property to enrich the distiller , the papeivmuHer , the maltster , tho barley grower , and tho landowner ,- —am additional sum which ought to be transferred from tho creditor to tho debtor side of the accoiuit in considering 1 the burdens of the pepplo . Much of the personal property which tho Reviewer represents as bearing
taxation ia taxation itself . In making a comparison between the revenue and expenditure of England and other countries , tho sorviccs of the different Governments must be considered . Now , tho French budget , and the budgets of tho several states of tho Union , provide for the e ' ooloHiastioul establishments so far as they are state endowments , and for all the estnblishniontH for educution ; while our church establishment ia paid for by what is culled church property , which is in reality a tnx on the people , enforced by the State through the instrumentality of tine fipil j ^ nd tho expense of cdupntion ia defrayed , by tho people , apart from their corttrwutionstotlie-Shtato . In the year jiu >» t expired 8 , G 64 , ; GJ , 7 do / Harp ^ npqarH in the budget , of * ho 'State of New Tork neDhe djarg-e for . edruKution , being 1 onofiftih pnrt of the total Stitto expenditure . Sflar thiB , Hchools wore . proviflod for nil tlie yomfcliB of
* Xhe Jmtoiktm/B Juntim* .No, Qqx&Y. Xto...
* Xhe Jmtoiktm / b JUntim * . No , QQX & Y . Xtonfamr . SUongwtxn is Co . ja dlubwrfih ; A . . ^ . a iBlftflfc ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 21, 1860, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21011860/page/14/
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