Oxford. The rampant proceedings at the latter university on the defeat of the minister sufficiently indicate that political hatred of the most violent kind was the chief motive of the leaders of the opposition, and truly they had a superfluity of ignorance and prejudice at their command, such as does not often glad the feelings of political bigotry. At Oxford, says Archdeacon Coxe, in his 'Life of Walpole,' "the gownsmen joined and encouraged the mob, Jacobinical cries resounded through the town, and three days passed in this disgraceful manner before the Vice-chancellor and proctors could restore tranquillity."

Walpole remained undismayed amidst this political storm, and so far from being disgraced, as was fondly anticipated by his opponents, the king dismissed several persons who had deserted the ministerial ranks. The Earl of Chesterfield was deprived of the office of Lord Steward of the Household two days after the Excise-bill was abandoned, and his dismissal was followed by that of five other peers who held official situations. Lord Cobham and the Duke of Bolton were deprived of their regiments, and the friends of the minister were appointed to several of the vacant posts. The king's speech, on closing the session, alluded to "the wicked endeavours that have lately been made use of to inflame the minds of the people, and, by the most unjust misrepresentation, to raise tumults and disorders that almost threatened the peace of the kingdom." The extravagant ideas of liberty and of their own superiority over all other people which were entertained at this period by the English are quietly satirised by Goldsmith's Chinese Philosopher,' who listened to a conversation carried on between a debtor through the gate of his prison, a porter, and a soldier, the subject being an apprehended invasion from France. The prisoner feared that liberty, the Englishman's prerogative, would be endangered if the French were to conquer. The soldier with an oath exclaims that it would not so much be our liberties as our religion that would suffer, and the porter terms the French a pack of slaves fit only to carry burdens. Andrew Marvell, Blackstone, and Johnson were great vilifiers of the Excise. Marvell describes it as "a hateful tax;" Blackstone, writing in 1765, says that "from its first original to the present time its very name has been odious to the people of England," and the great lexicographer's definition is well known.* The Excise laws have been so injudiciously framed, and in many instances rendered so unnecessarily vexatious, that they have, in consequence, obtained more than their due share of the discredit which attaches generally to all taxes. Above six hundred acts of Parliament for enforcing Excise regulations are a trap to even the fairest trader; and, at the best, it is no light evil to conduct manufacturing processes under a system of interference and regulation enforced by heavy penalties. While the Commissioners of Excise Inquiry give some instances of the prejudicial effects of such a system, they also point out the manner in which they may be diminished.

The Gin Act of 1736, an unwise and futile attempt to put down intemperance by a tax intended to make that liquor too dear for the poor, who solely or chiefly

* Mr. Croker, in his variorum edition of Boswell, shows that there is very good ground for belies ing that Johnson's inveterate hatred of the Excise had its origin in a prosecution against his father for some breach of their laws. Hence the terms in which he speaks of a Commissioner of Excise in the 'Idler,' and the scurrilous definition in the Dictionary. The latter was actually submitted by the Commissioners to counsel for an opinion as to its libellous character. See Croker's Boswell.'

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used it, is, at least, an instructive chapter in the history of Excise laws. Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the Rolls, was the author of this Act, which raised the duty on gin and other spirituous liquors to twenty shillings the gallon, and required that only licensed dealers paying fifty pounds per annum for a license should be allowed to retail spirits. "No man could," says Lord Cholmondeley, "no man would observe the law; and it gave such a turn to the spirit of the people, that no man could, with safety, venture to become an informer.” The Jacobites endeavoured, as usual, to turn the discontent of the people at this measure to their own profit, and serious fears were for a time entertained of an insurrection of the populace of London. Sir Robert Walpole, writing to his brother Horace on the 30th September, 1736, gives an account of these machinations. 'The scheme that was laid was, for all the distillers that were able, to give away gratis, to all that should ask for it, as much gin and strong waters as they should desire, and the great distillers were to supply all the retailers and small shops with as much as they should want, to be distributed and given away in like manner. The shops were to begin to be opened on Tuesday evening, the eve of Michaelmas Day, and to be continued and repeated on Wednesday night, that the mob, being made thus drunk, might be prepared and ready to commit any sort of mischief; and in order to this, anonymous letters were sent to the distillers and town retailers in all parts of the town, to instruct them and incite them to rise and join their friends and do as their neighbours did." Several of these letters were placed in the hands of the government by the officers of Excise. As a means of prevention troops were paraded in the several places where the mob were likely to assemble. What follows is taken from the newspapers of the day. On Tuesday a large party of the Life Guards and Horse Grenadiers remained all night under arms in Covent Garden, and troops were stationed at the house of Sir Joseph Jekyll, the author of the obnoxious bill. On Wednesday various parts of London and Westminster were patrolled by the troops. Several persons were taken into custody for shouting "No gin, no king," and many others were lying about the streets dead drunk with "taking leave of Geneva." The Craftsman' of October 9th says, that " Mɔther Gin died very quietly;" but the real struggle against the law was of a nature not to be put down by an armed force, and in the above paper of the same day it is remarked, "but though the common people are deprived of gin, there are various drams invented and sold at the gin-shops in lieu thereof, as sangarec, tow-row, cyder boiled with Jamaica pepper, &c." At several brandy-shops in High Holborn, St. Giles's, Thieving Lane, Tothill Street, Rosemary Lane, Whitechapel, Shoreditch, the Mint, and Kent Street, drams were sold under the following names :-Sangaree, tow-row, cuckold's comfort, parliament-gin, make-shift, the last shift, the ladies' delight, the baulk, King Theodore, or Corsica, and cholic and gripe waters. People carried spirits about the streets for sale in barrows, baskets, litters, &c. The apothecaries were allowed to sell spirits to sick persons; and on the first Saturday after the new act came into operation, the newspapers state that "several apothecaries' shops had so large a call for gripe and cholic waters, &c., by the poor sort of people, the masters were obliged to employ an additional number of hands in serving them." A person in St. James's Market sold dramas coloured red in

bottles, and a paper about them with the following directions :-"Take two or three spoonsful of this four or five times a-day, or as often as the fit takes you." In a number of the Old Whig' for Nov. 4, when the Act had been in operation about a month, it is stated that, " since the suppression of gin, the coarse pieces of beef, &c. have sold much better at the several markets about town than before; the lower class of people, being deprived of that liquor, have now good stomachs ;" and the writer observes that "this must make meat cheaper generally, for if the coarse pieces fetch a price, the best pieces must be lowered." Some temporary effect of this kind might be produced at first, but the evasion of the Act soon became so extensive as to render its restrictions worse than useless. The number of offenders against the law was so great, that there were presently a number of informers, in spite of the personal hazard attending the occupation. They were pelted in the streets, and one of them was actually murdered by the populace. The newspapers of October 23rd announced that several apothecaries and chemists had been convicted, and had paid the penalty of 100l. for evading the Act. According to Lord Cholmondeley's speech, it appears that even magistrates endangered their safety in the execution of this law; and between intimidation and the expenses of prosecution, it became a dead letter, while the people were more than ever addicted to the use of ardent spirits. Before the Act was put in force, eight of the justices at Hicks' Hall made a report, which showed that within Westminster, Holborn, the Tower and Finsbury divisions, exclusive of London and Southwark, there were 7044 houses and shops in which spirituous liquors were sold, and this they believed to be short of the true number: they computed that there were not fewer than 20,000 such houses within the bills of mortality. At present the number of gin-shops in the metropolis, taking its limits in their widest sense, is under 6000, though the population has increased threefold. In 1742 the Gin Act was modified, after six years of vexatious and unprofitable trial, during two years of which period 2000 persons were convicted of offences against the law.

In

Above half a century elapsed after the defeat of Sir Robert Walpole's Excise scheme before any minister ventured again to enter upon the consideration of new Excise duties. Two at least of Mr. Pitt's predecessors had been afraid of proposing any fresh taxes of this nature; but he successfully carried measures of the very same nature as those which Walpole was compelled to abandon. 1784 he imposed an Excise duty on bricks, and several classes of traders were compelled to take out licences; and in 1786 he proposed to transfer the greater part of the duty on foreign wines from the Customs to the Excise, as a means of preventing extensive frauds upon the revenue: for even allowing the consumption to have been only equal to what it was in 1750, the revenue suffered an annual loss of 280,000l. Walpole's scheme relating to tobacco would have rendered necessary an "army" of 126 additional excisemen: Mr. Pitt's plan respecting the wine-duty required an addition of 167 officers to the Excise establishment. The wine-merchants of London and their brethren in the country represented the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of subjecting wine to the Excise laws, and the danger of extending those laws; but a great change had taken place in the public mind in the course of half a century, and the people remained per

fectly quiescent. Six divisions took place on the bill, but the minority never exceeded 38. In order to put an end to the smuggling of tobacco, by which the revenue sustained a loss of 300,000l. a-year (out of 12 million lbs. consumed 5 millions were smuggled), the same minister proposed in 1789 to transfer the greater part of the duty from the Customs to the Excise, and, of course, to subject the manufacturer to the survey of the exciseman. On this occasion he alluded to the success of the transfer of duties in regard to wine; and although a few members expressed their disapprobation of the extension of the Excise system, the measure was carried through both Houses with great ease. In the following year a motion for the repeal of the Excise duty on tobacco was brought forward, and was supported by 147 votes; but it was resisted by the minister, who had a majority of 41. He showed that the change effected in the previous session was already benefitting the country at the rate of 300,000. a-year.

Pitt could now carry any fiscal measures which he seriously thought neccssary; and in 1793 not fewer than twenty-nine articles were subject to the Excise laws, and the gross amount of this branch of revenue was about ten millions and a half. In 1797 the number of officers employed in England was 4777. The highest amount which the Excise produced in any one year, for England, was 27,400,300l. in 1821; and the largest number of officers in this department, for the United Kingdom, was 7986 in 1815, their salaries amounting to 904,9227. Between 1824 and 1835 duties were transferred to the Customs, which yielded 11,238,3007. a-year, and others were entirely repealed, amounting to 6,782,000l., making together 18,020,300%. The duty on several articles has also been reduced. The amount of duty paid into the chief office, in 1829, for the London Collection,' was 6,013,1597., and in 1835 only 1,462,9197. In 1841 the gross Excise revenue for the United Kingdom was 15,477,6747., and the charges of collection amounted to 1.047,360., or 6l. 15s. 3d. per cent. At present only ten articles are subject to the Excise Duty, namely, auctions, bricks, glass, hops, licences, malt, paper, soap, British spirits, and vinegar.

In 1835 the number of traders in England, Ireland, and Scotland, who were surveyed periodically by Excise officers, was 588,000, divided into five classes. Firstly, persons visited for the purpose of charging the "growing" duties, as maltsters, soap-makers, brick-makers, paper-makers, &c. Secondly, persons who paid a licence according to the extent of their business, as brewers and tobacconists. Thirdly, innkeepers and retailers of beer, and others who dealt in articles upon which an Excise duty was levied. Fourthly, persons who dealt in tea, coffee, pepper, tobacco, and other articles which paid Customs duties; and, lastly, there were others who paid no duty, but were subject to a cautionary survey-tallow-melters, for example, as a check upon soap-makers. The cost of these surveys amounted to 533,9027. for the English country Collections, and to 41,3907. for the London Collection. The duty on spirits in the London Collection amounted to 928,556/., and on soap to 208,2667. The limits of the district in which the chief office is situated excludes parts of the metropolis, so that the above statements do not afford a correct notion of its relative importance. Some traders who live in London go out of London to pay their duties, those who

reside just beyond the extremity of Southwark paying at Greenwich in the Rochester Collection; and those in a part of St. Pancras parish are in the Hertford Collection, while a trader living near Croydon pays his duties in Broad Street. In 1835 three distilleries at Bromley, Whitechapel, and Thames Bank contributed 622,000l., and two soap-manufacturers in the metropolitan district paid 150,000l., but not all of them at the chief office. Since 1835 several of the surveys have been abolished either by acts of Parliament or by direction. of the Treasury. Thus, above 310,000 dealers in tea, wine, tobacco, and brewers have been exempted from Excise control. The number of surveys in one year of tea, wine, and tobacco dealers was about fifteen millions; 1,657,959 permits were annually required before goods in certain quantities could leave their premises; and 778,988 stock-books were supplied to them to keep an account of their stock and sales. These administrative improvements are of real practical value, and the restrictions so long insisted upon are proved on the whole to have been useless

We have now to speak of the establishment in Broad Street, which is charged with the collection and management of the Excise revenue. Before 1823 the Excise revenue in Scotland and Ireland was managed by separate boards, consisting all together of twelve commissioners, each board being independent of the English board.

The business is now better conducted by seven instead of

twenty-one commissioners. The Chairman has a salary of 20001. a year; the Deputy-Chairman has 1500/., and the other Commissioners have 12007. per annum each. The Commissioners hold courts, and decide summarily in cases of infraction of the Excise laws. Formerly the Board never had any communication with traders, except by verbal messages through their officers, but since 1838 they have adopted the plan of giving written answers. The number