new roads had been made in order that the rich might drive their carriages on them; but he would ask whether the poorer classes did not derive a considerable benefit from them in the saving of cattle labour, and the wear and tear of their carts." In closing these remarks, we earnestly impress on all parties to keep steadily in view the main point-the imperious necessity that exists for the improvement of the harbour. Let all minor considerations succumb to this grand desideratum ; let every man yield up his prejudices and surrender some part of his preconceived opinions; let all "stoop to conquer," and meet each other in a cordial spirit of co-operation; and, above all, let not the measure itself be thwarted by higgling about the details. The public cannot have a harbour unless they pay for it, and we deem him the worst enemy to his country who throws impediments in the way by any overweening affection for his own peculiar plan. There is no real difficulty in raising the necessary funds: the same outcry has been long raised, and yet, as the bailiff justly observed, we have fine roads, a college, superb markets, Fountain-Street, the Esplanade, and footpaths in the streets, notwithstanding the senseless clamour vented against all these measures.-We quite agree with the Rev. Thomas Brock, that a permanent debt of fifty thousand pounds would be advantageous to the island, and we hope that his advice respecting the amount of deposits in the Savings Bank will be acted upon. It is quite absurd to limit a deposit to £45: it is as much as to say to the careful and industrious, "We prohibit you from being careful and industrious beyond a certain point, and we fix the point of perfection at £45." In England, the sum is £200; but we think any restriction whatever is erroneous in principle; for, surely, if habits of prudence and economy are good, why fetter their expansion? Let, then, the advice of the reverend gentleman be followed, and while on one hand the carefulness and industry of the poor will be augmented, on the other hand a fund will be raised in the island, from which the States may readily borrow money at three per cent. to improve the island and give labour to the poor. COMMUNICATION WITH ENGLAND. THE article in our last number, under this head, (page 309,) having excited the attention of a gentleman of this island, he has, at our request, sketched a more expansive view of the subject. It is pleasing to develop the progress of human ingenuity, which of late years has been most successfully exercised in accelerating the mode of travelling, both by land and water. Indeed, so rapid and certain has the communication between these islands and England become of late years, that many will smile when they are told, that scarcely a century has elapsed since a journey from Guernsey to London was a serious undertaking. Now, we may go there and return in three days, of which one day can be spent in London. The first government packet employed between the Channel Islands and England was a cutter, commanded by Captain Sampson, which, soon after the breaking out of the war with France, in 1778, was removed from the station between Dover and Calais, and plied as often as practicable from Southampton, but when peace took place, in 1783, she returned to Dover. Previously and subsequently to this period, the letters for the islands were addressed to the care of agents at Southampton, who paid the postage, and transmitted them by the traders, small sloops of between forty and fifty tons. And even while the packet ran, the letters were forwarded by her in the same manner by the agents, as there was then no regular post-office in either island. During the two wars with France, commencing in 1778 and 1793, the Southampton traders frequently came under convoy, and the uncertainty and dilatoriness of this mode of communication, both for correspondence and passengers, will be apparent from the fact, that a gentleman now living, a jurat of the Royal Court, was three months on his passage from Southampton to Guernsey. He embarked during the summer of 1793, in a trader commanded by the late Captain Brehaut, and reached Cowes in a few hours, where they were joined the day following by the convoy from Portsmouth. They weighed anchor and sailed several times, but never got beyond Yarmouth, being baffled by contrary winds and calms, and the captain of the convoy being apprehensive of some of the vessels under his charge being captured by French privateers. At length a fair wind came to the great relief of the passengers, and they crossed over in safety! In February, 1794, two post-office packets, both cutters of about eighty tons, commenced running weekly from Weymouth to these islands; their names were the Chesterfield, Captain James Wood, and Rover, Captain Joseph Bennett: they sailed alternately on the Saturday evening, and, with a fair wind, reached this island on a Sunday morning. In 1811, another cutter, the Francis Freeling, was also placed on the station, and from that time the packets have continued to ply twice a week, leaving Weymouth on the Wednesday and Saturday evenings. The sailing packets were frequently from thirty-six to forty-eight hours reaching Guernsey, and in winter two or three mails arriving together was no uncommon occurrence. Indeed, if the writer do not mistake, he has seen as many as four, or a fortnight's, mails brought by the same packet. He also remembers leaving Weymouth in December, 1810, on board the Chesterfield; the weather, for the first twenty-four hours, was fine and moderate, and the packet was within four or five miles of Guernsey, when a violent south-west gale came on, which drove her back to Weymouth, after being out two days and a half, with the loss of boats, bulwarks, &c. A steamer would have reached Jersey some hours before the gale commenced, and so escaped it. In 1828, a few years after the introduction of steamers on the Holyhead, Liverpool, and other stations, our three sailing packets were replaced by three steamers, of about eighty horse power each, the Watersprite, Ivanhoe, and Meteor, and, although not powerful enough for the channel, their commanders deserve great credit for the perseverance they have evinced in crossing over in very bad weather, generally reaching Guernsey, in from nine to twelve hours, unless prevented by severe and adverse gales. The arrival of two mails by the same packet, is now as uncommon an, as it was formerly a common, occurrence. Since the packets commenced running, in 1794, from Weymouth, four have been captured or lost, viz: the Chesterfield, captured about 1811, by a French privateer, and carried into Cherbourg, with some of her passengers and crew killed and wounded; the Rover, wrecked on Alderney, about 1825, crew and passengers saved; the Francis Freeling, supposed to have foundered, in September, 1826, in a violent gale, on her passage from Weymouth to Guernsey; and lastly, the Meteor, steamer, wrecked in a thick fog on Portland, passengers and crew saved. The fare in the Weymouth packets is, and has been for some years, a guinea in the chief cabin. During the greater part of the war with France, from 1803 to 1814, and until the establishment of steamers, the communication between Southampton and Guernsey, was maintained chiefly by three cutters, of about eighty tons each, the Diligent, Eolus, and Brilliant, which had no fixed days for sailing, but crossed as often as their cargoes and the winds permitted. These cutters were fortunate enough to run, during and after the war, without loss or capture.* And now two fine cutters, the Eolus and Princess Charlotte, sail from Southampton and Guernsey every Thursday. In 1823, two steamers of about 80 horse power, the Ariadne and Beresford, commenced running from Southampton to Guernsey and Jersey-the former leaving Southampton on the Tuesday, and the latter on the Friday, and their fares being a guinea and a half, in the main cabin. These vessels, like the Weymouth packets, were not large and powerful enough for the station, but as they only ran from the end of March to the end of October, and as steam navigation was then in its infancy, their insufficiency was the less felt and understood. In fine weather, however, they performed their passages, to Guernsey, in from twelve to fifteen hours. The Beresford was replaced late last year by the Lady De Saumarez, a beautiful vessel of 100 horse power, which ran weekly during the whole winter, being the first steamer which has done so from Southampton. In moderate weather, she completes her voyage to Guernsey in less than eleven hours, and, when the railway from London to Southampton is finished, we doubt not that a journey from the metropolis to Guernsey will be accomplished in about sixteen hours-even now, it is frequently done in twenty-one. The Ariadne is shortly to be also replaced by the Atalanta, represented as a very superior vessel. The fares between Southampton and Guernsey may now be stated at a guinea, which we consider a fair and reasonable charge. The Brilliant was captured in 1813 or 14, on her way to Southampton, by an American priva teer, and dispatched for a French port; but the prize-master, mistaking Alderney for the coast of France, gave charge of the helm to a seaman of the Brilliant, who, happy to escape imprisonment, wisely kept up the deception, and steered the cutter into the harbour of Alderney, where she was immediately retaken. In 1831, the Lord of the Isles, a noble steamer of 120 horse power, commenced plying between London and these islands, calling at Brighton; but the trial proving a losing one, she was soon withdrawn from the station, as was the Liverpool, even a larger vessel, which made a similar attempt last summer, and failed. While on this subject, it may not be deemed irrelevant to add, that sixty years ago, the Guernsey sailor, who had been at Cette and Salou, Santa Cruz, Virginia, and Rotterdam, (the foreign trade of the island being then confined to those places,) thought that he had seen much of the world. Now, our young men visit almost every part of the globe, and there is living here a lad, who is or was, probably, the youngest circumnavigator in existence. He was born in 1828, of Guernsey parents, in the harbour of Rio de Janeiro, on board the ship Wave, which his father commanded, and the infant returned to Rio de Janeiro, round Cape Horn, before he was nine months old, having been at the Cape of Good Hope, Hobart Town, Sydney and Monte-Video. ERRATUM.-In our last number, we mentioned that a letter to London was sure to be answered in eight days, and that the London newspapers arrived here in forty-eight hours, and sometimes in less time. Instead of eight, we should have said five days, and now an answer can be received from London in three days, to a letter forwarded by the Lady De Saumarez, on the Monday and Thursday mornings. The London evening newspapers are received here in thirty-six hours by Weymouth, and the morning newspapers in twenty-four hours, by Southampton. RELATIVE TAXATION OF GUERNSEY AND JERSEY. TO THE EDITOR OF THE GUERNSEY AND JERSEY MAGAZINE. SIR,-You who have a knowledge of the laws, representative system, mode of taxation, and general internal management of the affairs of Jersey and Guernsey, can hardly imagine how little they are known out of either island: that they should be better known to the inhabitants of each other, that they might be compared, discussed, and better plans adopted, (for surely there is room,) has long been my desire, and it is with that intention that I avail myself of your excellent periodical, forming as it does a link between the Channel Islands, to attempt to show forth a few of the evils in each island, and how they might be remedied by borrowing a little and amending from each other. I will begin with the mode of taxation in Jersey. From their bad system of rating the people, springs, in my opinion, the major part of their grievances. What has kept St. Ouen for seventeen years without its chief municipal officer, and also keeps St. Pierre without its representative, although elected by a majority of above an hundred votes? what, but the partial and very uncertain way in taxing individuals, giving cause of over, or under, taxation, and recrimination of party spirit in those at the head of affairs, in making electors to suit their purposes, and causing endless lawsuits. Let not Jerseymen be offended, if I hold up our own mode, as an example to them in this affair, but let them rather institute a spirit of inquiry, and what they find good, adopt. In Guernsey there are in each parish, twelve Douzainiers, (in the Vale sixteen, and in the town twenty,) with the Constables, who, besides voting in the States, overlooking their roads, &c., have the management of rates, something, I believe, like the "assemblée des principaux" in Jersey: when they hear or find that a parishioner is doing well, and getting on in the world, they examine his estate, taking into consideration what rents are due, and what may be owed to him, and if a sufficient amount of clear property be found, they tax him at once, at the minimum established in each parish-in the poorest, it is fixed at five quarters, in others, at six and seven, and in the richest, ten-they never trouble themselves at rating a man at half, or the sixth part, of his property, a subject on which there is at present great difference of opinion in Jersey. When they have to tax a new inhabitant of their parish, if he comes from another, they find means to know at what amount he was rated, and act accordingly. If a stranger,* they send a deputation of their body to explain matters, and ask at how much he will be taxed; if afterwards it be presumed that, by his money transactions, buying rents, or style of living, he be worth a great deal more, he is sometimes what we call taté, that is, put to a higher rate without asking him; if he refuses to pay, he is produced, often amicably, before the Court and put to his oath where the matter rests. This * We are never hard on residents, in town, I believe, particularly. course is also taken with parishioners of longer standing, who are thought underrated, though this is seldom wanted, they of themselves making it a point of honour and honesty to declare the amount of the increase of their property. I must here observe that the rich, as well as the poor, are rated to the amount of ALL they possess, except property taxed elsewhere,-Jerseymen, I am sorry to see, will as yet have none of it, although once carried in their States; but, I am sure, could they but know how well the system works here, and the general satisfaction it gives, (let them not take into account the half dozen individuals, with great funded property, who attempted to relieve themselves of an even share of the public burdens, to make it fall heavier on poorer people, whose whole property is in the island-they have justly been defeated); did Jerseymen, I say, know these things, their rich men could hardly have the heart to gull thousands of poor people to petition for the maintenance of the privilege of paying five or six shillings in the pound, per annum, (about sixpence in the pound is paid in Guernsey,) for the mighty advantage forsooth, of electorship; that is to gormandize and get drunk at elections. I have been thus explicit in this account of our taxation, presuming that the generality of our neighbours are not better informed of our customs than we are of theirs; for example, nine-tenths, I will not say of the population, but of the rate-payers here, do not know, that in Jersey a rich man who wants but a stroke of the pen to touch what monies he pleases, pays no more towards the public wants, than his poor neighbour, if their landed estates are equal, although that is the only fortune of the latter, who must toil on it late and early. I would also mention the States of deliberation, if your space permits me; there the medal is reversed; in Jersey, the system is not perfect, yet the responsible representatives of the people can, at least, propose such projects as they think good, and discuss those which are brought before them. As to the ten representative members of the States in Guernsey, a Billet d'Etat, perhaps of the highest importance, is sent on a Wednesday or Thursday, to convene a meeting for the same day the week after, to the Constables, who remit it too late for the Douzainiers to enlighten their or others' judgment by means of the press, should they be so inclined: they then decide by a majority on sundry articles, which must be answered with a simple aye or no. With this decision they charge one of the Constables, who, humbly seated at the feet of the high-bred members, neither explains, moves amendments, nor is able to postpone the questions. Out of the remaining twenty-two irresponsible members, fourteen, being the Bailiff, Jurats, and Procureur du Roi, who confer together on the Billets d'Etat, before they are published, necessarily imbibe to a great degree the same sentiments on most subjects. The other eight, are the members of the Clergy, who also seldom differ much in opinion. Our neighbours by this may see, that our boasted Parliament, in miniature of lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, is every thing but representative of the people. Another evil, common to both islands, is the present very unjust proportion,* in which each parish is guarantee to the public or States' debt: I notice it more particularly, as the feeling runs at this moment so strong on this subject in Jersey; whether the town share does not really possess one-third of the property of the island, is what I do not know, yet it surprizes me, that St. Peter-Port, with little more than half the shipping of St. Hellier, should be so vastly richer in proportion, possessing, as it does, 150,000 quarters, three-fourths of the general property of Guernsey. No doubt those rates, when established, were proportionate to the property in each parish, but they are now no more so; there were hamlets, which returned two members to Parliament, whilst first rate towns had not one, before the passing of the Reform Act in England. The fairest way of levying public rates would, in my opinion, be according to the means of individuals generally, as was hinted in the Constitutionnel a few weeks since; what need is there to fix proportions, where they continually vary? surely our communities are not so large but we might support each other, as God has granted us means, without cavilling as to For the Guernsey proportions, I refer to your last February number. The old proportions in Jersey, (1747,) were, St. Hellier, one-fifth; St. Pierre, one-fifth; St. Ouen and St. Sauveur, together, one-fifteenth; St. Lawrence and St. Brelade, one-third; Grouville, St. Martin and Trinité, onetwentieth; St. Marie, one-tenth; and St. Jean and St. Clement, one-twentieth. The new propor. tions, established in March last, are contested by the town; they are as follows: St. Hellier, onethird; St. Pierre, St. Ouen and St. Sauveur, two-ninths, St. Laurence, St. Brelade, Grouville, St. Martin and Trinité, twenty-three-seventy-twos; St. Marie, St. Jean and St. Clement, one-eighth. As a proof that this plan is not perfection, the three last named parishes are subject evenly to one. eighth of the tax, although their present rates are so very different, viz.: St. Marie, 524 quarters; St. Jean, 1564, and St. Clement, 803' who shall save, at the expense of his countrymen. Let it not be said that it is useless to bring forth this subject, that we shall never have to raise money in that way, with the duties on spirits and other revenues; I for one, earnestly hope that such a plan will in time be adopted; perhaps, had it been always so, we should not be burdened, in Guernsey, with so heavy a debt. I own it is much easier for the rulers to vote monies produced by duties, than if they had to consult the people through proper representatives, but it is also much more dangerous; and certainly, the community does not gain by it, as the money must come from its pocket directly or indirectly. In conclusion, Sir, I think, and am sure you will agree with me, for these are the principles your Magazine advocates, that few men will obstinately confine themselves in their private affairs, to the practice of their forefathers, without looking around to examine and profit by the experience of others, so in their public interests ought they to pay attention to what is doing elsewhere, and attempt to meliorate their social conditions accordingly. I am, Sir, A GUERNSEYMAN. SARNIAN MELODIES. No. 1.-ON THE SPRING SHOW OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. COME, ye gentle strangers, all On this sea-surrounded shore, Come, where in yon splendid hall * Flora opes her magic store: Decked in all the charms of Spring, Here her beauties greet the eye, While the lofty arches ring With melodious harmony. All that northern climes can show Of a southern sun are born. Balmy sweets oppress the air, As if the soft enamoured gale Would lingering leave the odours there, That ten thousand plants exhale. Dipped in Nature's matchless dye, Enchant the sense, entrance the eye. Here with native flowers blow Or Japan's forbidden strand. * The exhibition was held in our splendid fish market. No. 2.-ON THE TEMPEST OF THE 28th MARCH, During which two French vessels were wrecked on Glatney beach, and the crew of one totally perished. NIGHT hangs upon the gloomy main, Conceals the bright celestial plain, That seem to darken more and more, But 'tis a calm, so dismal, dread, As fills the soul with awe profound: Stirs aught the dreary scene along : Now whirlwinds sweep the murky seas, Then, 'mid the frightful din, arose 'Tis o'er those shrieks,-those rending throes, *Here taken for the inner roads. |