its arrival, and sent by way of Burntisland, Kirkaldy, and Cupar Fife, it might arrive in Dundee at seven o'clock P. M., and the letters and newspapers be delivered that evening, in place of being kept up till next morning.

Again, the mail which leaves London in the evening arrives in Edinburgh at twelve midnight, but it is not dispatched to the north till half-past five A.M., being detained five and a half hours in Edinburgh. Were it dispatched from Edinburgh at one A.M. either by way of Perth or Cupar Fife, the letters and newspapers might be given out in Dundee by eight o'clock in the morning, in place of half-past ten as at present, thereby affording much greater facilities to merchants and others, to whom it is of the greatest consequence to have their letters early in the morning.

May it therefore please your honourable House to take this matter into your consideration, and do therein as to your honourable house shall appear right.

And your Petitioners will ever pray. Signed in name and by authority of the Magistrates and Town Council of the royal burgh of Dundee, and the common seal of the burgh hereunto affixed, at Dundee, the fifth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and forty-five (say fifth of July, one thousand eight hundred and forty-five),

JOHN ANDERSON, Acting Chief Magistrate of the burgh of Dundee, in absence of the Provost.

App. 837. Mr. Morgan John O'Connell. Sig. 1.

16,234. The humble Petition of Richard Sealy Grannell, late an officer of Her Majesty's Customs in the port of London,

Humbly and respectfully sheweth, That your Petitioner approaches your honourable House with the highest feelings of respect.

Your Petitioner most humbly begs to state to your honourable House that he has served his country in the department of the Customs for about twenty-three years of arduous duty, with a character unblemished; that, upon the consolidation of the English and Irish Exchequer, in one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, your Petitioner was one of fiftyeight officers transferred from Ireland to the port of London, from which period your Petitioner dates all his misfortunes; that having been placed upon a less salary here (where provisions, &c., were at least one-third dearer than in Ireland) than that enjoyed at home, your

in

Petitioner felt the hardship very sensibly, common with other transferred officers; that your Petitioner endeavoured to get something like an equivalent to what he had had on the Irish establishment, or a removal to an Irish port, neither of which he could obtain from the honourable Commissioners of Customs; therefore your Petitioner, in company with about forty-four other officers, and headed by their then superior officer, Mr. Hungerford, surveyor, petitioned your honourable House; and for thus presuming so to do fairly and openly your Petitioner was immediately placed under a strict surveillance, and thereby deprived of the privilege of a British subject; and from that period (in one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine) your Petitioner was proscribed, contrary to the fundamental principles of your honourable House, and finally

superseded, in one thousand eight hundred and Grannell (R. thirty-eight, upon an alleged charge of temporary absence from duty.

Thus has your Petitioner briefly made known his case to your honourable House, and now most humbly prays your honourable House will order him to have an investigation before the right honourable the Lords Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry, where only he can expect a fair trial, and allow your Petitioner to be present at the said inquiry, or grant him such other redress as the hardships of his case will appear to your honourable House to merit. Upon justice alone your Petitioner rests his claim, feeling assured that the honourable House, upon due investigation, will not only find his aggrievances justly exhibited, but most satisfactorily substantiated; and that your honourable House will order the above investigation or restoration to his former office, with all arrears due to him, or superannuation for his long services performed.

And your humble Petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

RICHARD SEALY GRANNELL, late a
First Class Tidewaiter.
No. 1, Laxton-street, Long-lane, Borough,
London, July, one thousand eight hundred and
forty-five.

App. 838. Mr. Escott. Sig. 1.
16,235. The humble Petition of William
Hollis, late a Lieutenant in the Thirty-sixth
Regiment, Madras Native Infantry,

Sheweth,

That your Petitioner entered the military service of the East India Company, on their Madras establishment, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six.

That, in one thousand eight hundred and forty, your Petitioner, on his return to India (having come to England for the benefit of his health), did duty, by order of the Court of Directors, with a detachment of recruits, proceeding to Bombay in the ship "Inglis," under the command of Captain Robert Mignan, of the Bombay army.

That the vessel finally sailed from Falmouth on January sixth, and on March tenth and April second respectively, your Petitioner was "ordered in arrest at large," and "under close arrest," "on grounds unconnected with his military duty" [Recommendation of the court martial], and otherwise subjected to oppression and a system of irritation, in every way calculated to drive a man to commit himself; in which object Captain Mignan at length succeeded, and for which he ultimately received a severe reprimand in general orders. His conduct has likewise been forcibly described in the following testimonial, which your Petitioner had the honour and satisfaction to receive from his former highly respected Commanding Officer, Major-General Wilson, C.B.

"39, Dorset Square, 8th February, 1841. "Having, since the letter I wrote to Mr. Hollis, at Bombay, in August last, giving my testimonial of his conduct and character, from my knowledge of both as his commanding officer, given further attention to his case in respect to the matter in which he was involved on his passage from England, I can declare it as my opinion, founded on my own knowledge of him, and the general sentiments of his brother officers, and those who have long known him, that nothing but the ignominy and suffering, accompanied with the frequent provocations—all of them together perhaps un

S.) (for Inquiry).

Hollis (Wil

Inquiry).

Wm. Hollis.

respectfully prays, that your honourable House institute such an inquiry into the merits may of his case as will, he trusts, lead to the annulment of the proceedings and sentence of a court martial, holden in a manner contrary to the express provisions of an Act of Parliament; and so make manifest, that the rights and privileges of British subjects, of British soldiers, whether in the service of Her Majesty or the East India Company, whether at home or abroad, are sure to be protected.

And your Petitioner will ever pray.

WM. HOLLIS.

That the restrictions thereby imposed on trade injure the value of property within the burgh by preventing non-freemen from occupying the same.

That, while property is often from want of occupation falling into decay, and members of incorporations gradually decreasing in numbers, they yet retain, and several of them enforce, these exclusive privileges, by oppressively fining those who venture to follow their calling within the limits of their jurisdiction.

That, although parties thus dealt with submit to pay the fine demanded, they establish thereby no right, and are only allowed to carry on their trade by sufferance, and may at any time, and on the slightest pretext, be dragged before a court of law, and subjected to heavy penalties or compelled to relinquish their business altogether.

That the population situated within the Parliamentary boundaries of the city of Glasgow amounts to about three hundred and twelve thousand persons, and that they are obliged to submit to pay the prices for bread and butcher's meat as fixed by the incorporations of bakers and fleshers of the burgh of Glasgow, although the same are generally, if not at all times, much higher than prices paid in the neighbouring city of Edinburgh, and other towns, for the same articles.

That were the said exclusive privileges abolished, your Petitioners and the other inhabitants of the burghs in Scotland would not only be better supplied with the necessary food for their subsistence, but also opportunities would be afforded whereby every British subject might exercise his vocation and earn his living wherever a market for his skill could be obtained, a privilege at present unjustly denied to the majority of the community.

That no just cause exists for continuing the exclusive privileges of the incorporated trades, which were originally granted to the burgesses as a reward or consideration for the service of watching and warding, and others exigible of old from them by the kings of Scotland; and the said trades do not perform any public duty

or pay any public tax not exigible from non- Incorporated Trades (Scot. freemen. land) (for That an Act was passed in Session 5 and 6 Abolition of of his Majesty King William IV. abolishing all Privileges). exclusive trading in England.

That the commissioners for inquiring into the condition of the burghs in Scotland reported against the continuance of the exclusive privileges of incorporations, in consequence of which report the late Government on three several occasions brought a Bill into Parliament for their total abolition; but from these bills being encumbered with other matters of more doubtful propriety they were not passed into a law.

That your Petitioners understand it is the anxious wish of many members of these incorporations that their exclusive privileges should be abolished, and the matter set at rest by legislative enactment.

That for these and other reasons it appears to your Petitioners that a great boon would be conferred on the trading community of Scotland were a Bill passed through Parliament during the present Session, or a clause inserted in the first public Bill for Scotland, having for its object the total abolition of these privileges.

May it therefore please your honourable House to take the premises into consideration, and to do therein as may seem best for effecting the abolition of the exclusive privileges of the incorporated trades throughout the burghs of Scotland.

And your Petitioners shall ever pray.
ALEX. GRAHAM.

CHARLES TENNANT & Co.
JAMES LUMSDEN, Provost,
&c. &c. &c.

That from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of Her present Majesty all visible parochial property was made assessable to the relief of the poor according to its net value or yearly produce.

That a recent enactment, by exempting stock in trade and profits from being made assessable to the relief of the poor, has entirely changed the proportion of liability in which all property has been heretofore chargeable, and, to the great injury of your Petitioners and other tithe-owners, has thrown an unequal share of the burden on them.

That many of your Petitioners entered into a commutation of their tithes without contemplating any such change of liability, confiding in a protective clause of the Parochial Assessments Act, which appeared fully to recognise former proportions of liability to rating.

That the outgoings of your Petitioners' income derived from tithes are most seriously increased, and in many instances doubled, by the operation of the present law of assessment, and that the proportion now levied on the tithe frequently exceeds a tenth, an eighth, and even a seventh of the whole parochial rate.

That Petitioners have forborne during these last two years from urging their complaints on the Legislature under an impression that Her Majesty's Ministers intended to revise the

Deanery of Powder.

whole question of general rating, and introduce a Bill for the equitable adjustment thereof.

That, being disappointed in this expectation, they humbly and earnestly pray your honourable House to take this whole subject of rating into immediate consideration, and grant your Petitioners relief proportionate to that of other propriecors of assessable property.

And your Petitioners will ever pray, &c.
ROBERT LAMPEN, Dean Rural and Vicar.
CHARLES LYNE, Incumbent.

CUTH. E. HOSKEN, Incumbent.
&c. &c. &c.

App. 841. Mr. Morgan John O'Connell. Sig. 2. 16,247. The Petition of the Loyal National Repeal Association of Ireland,

Humbly sheweth,

That your Petitioners have learned with deep feelings of regret that there has been introduced into your honourable House a Bill for the renewal of the Acts for the removal from England of poor persons born in Scotland or Ireland who become chargeable to parishes in England.

'That, under the operation of those laws, many thousands annually of poor persons, Irish born, but who had spent the greater part of their lives in England, engaged there in industrial pursuits, have been, because they become temporarily in want of relief, removed by force and against their desires from their residence in England, and transferred on the decks of the steam ships to the Irish port nearest the port of embarkation, and there put on shore.

That those persons thus landed in a place and among people generally strange to them, and without provision for their further conveyance to their places of birth, have been necessarily subject to the severest suffering.

That in the year ending September one thousand eight hundred and forty-one it appears from the Ninth Poor Law Report seven thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight persons were then removed from Lancashire alone.

That it is worthy the consideration of your honourable House that the laws under which those Acts of enormous injustice, as well to the individuals as to the Irish nation, were perpetrated have been all enacted since the passing of the so-called "Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland."

That the contemptuous injustice with which the Irish labourer is thus treated in England is the less justifiable whilst Irish landlords are spending large incomes in England, and Englishmen enjoy in such numbers lucrative public offices in Ireland.

May it therefore please your honourable House not to sanction the Bill above named, nor any measure for the removal from England of Irish permanently resident there, merely because of being temporarily in want of relief, or generally any law on the subject, until a law of settlement by residence and industrial labour shall have been first past, at once protective of the rights of the Irish labourers who have resided in and contributed to enrich England by their labour and promotion of friendly intercourse between the two countries.

And your Petitioners will ever pray.

THOS. DEVITT, Chairman.

T. M. RAY, Secretary.

App. 842. Mr. George Hamilton. Sig. 3. Taxing Master 16,248. The humble Petition of Josias (Court of Chancery) Dunn, William Goddard, and Richard John (Ireland) Bill Theodore Orpen, solicitors of the High Court (Against). of Chancery in Ireland, and who are also the J. Dunn and president and vice-president of the Society of others. the Attorneys and Solicitors of Ireland, on behalf of themselves and the other solicitors of said Court of Chancery in Ireland, Sheweth,

That a Bill has lately been introduced inte your honourable House, intituled "A Bill for the Appointment of a Taxing-Master of the High Court of Chancery in Ireland," whereby it is proposed to be enacted, that from and after the first day of November, one thousand eight hundred and forty-five, the taxing of costs in the said Court shall be conducted by an officer to be denominated "the Taxing Master," who shall hold his office during good behaviour; and that the Lord Chancellor of Ireland shall have a power to appoint some fit and competent person to be the first taxingmaster under said Bill, and also to appoint a taxing-master in the room of the taxing-master who should die, resign, or be removed from his office, and that every such taxing-master shall be entitled to an annual salary not exceeding one thousand pounds.

That, by an Act passed in the 5th and 6th years of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, intituled "An Act for Abolishing certain Offices of the High Court of Chancery in England," it is provided that the taxing of costs in the said Court of Chancery in England shall be conducted by taxing-masters; that every such taxing-master shall have been a sworn clerk of said court, or shall for twelve years or upwards have practised as a solicitor of said court, and that said taxing-master shall be entitled to a salary of two thousand pounds per annum; and by the fourth section of said Act six persons therein specially named were appointed the first taxing-masters.

That the said Bill for appointing a taxingmaster in Ireland does not prescribe any qualification of the person so to be appointed, as is done by the said Act referred to of the 5th and 6th Victoria, chap. 103, with respect to the appointment of taxing-masters of the Court of Chancery in England.

That the taxing of solicitors' costs is a business which solicitors are peculiarly and alone properly qualified to perform, from their intimate and practical knowledge of the details of the proceedings charged for in bills of costs. And your Petitioners therefore submit that the persons to be appointed taxing masters under said Bill should be solicitors of twelve years' standing, as is the case in England.

Your Petitioners also respectfully submit that there is not any reason why in this particular a different mode of legislation should be adopted for Ireland from that pursued with respect to England.

Your Petitioners further submit that the taxation of Chancery costs in Ireland cannot, from the quantity of business to be done, be efficiently discharged by one taxing master, in which view your Petitioners are supported by the opinions of the masters in ordinary of said

court.

Your Petitioners therefore submit that two such taxing masters at the least should be

charge of the duty, and to prevent delay and

Taxing Master an accumulation of business, and also to pre(Court of vent the taxation being in fact performed by Chancery) (Ireland) Bill the clerks to be appointed under said Bill, as (Against). must be the case if only one such taxing master shall be appointed; a system which your Petitioners submit would be highly objectionable, and which your Petitioners feel confident will not be sanctioned by your honourable House.

Turnpike Roads (Scotland) Bill (Against).

Roxburghshire.

Your Petitioners also submit that the office of the taxing masters should be held at the Four Courts Dublin, and not elsewhere.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the said Bill may not pass into a law in its present form, but that it may be enacted that two taxing masters shall be appointed instead of one, and that the persons to be appointed taxing masters of said Court of Chancery in Ireland shall for twelve years or upwards have practised as solicitors of said court, as is provided by said Act of 5 and 6 Vic. c. 103 with respect to the appointment of taxing master of the Court of Chancery in England, and that the offices of such taxing masters shall be held at the Four Courts Dublin, and not elsewhere. And Petitioners will ever pray,

your

Jos. DUNN, President of the Society of the Attorneys and Solicitors of Ireland. WILLIAM GODDARD,

RICHARD J. THEO. ORPEN, of said Society. Solicitors' Buildings, Four Courts, Dublin, nineteenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and forty-five.

App. 843. Mr. Francis Scott. Sig. 30. 16,249. The Petition of the undersigned Trustees of the Roxburghshire Turnpikes, Creditors of the said trust, Landed Proprietors of the county of Roxburgh, and others,

Humbly sheweth,

That about the year eighteen hundred and thirty the Roxburghshire turnpike trustees formed the idea of improving and making new several lines of road within the county of Roxburgh, and in particular of making one direct line of road from the Carter Bar, on the borders of England, to the confines of Mid Lothian by way of Leader Water, so as to shorten and improve the direct communication between London, Newcastle, and Edinburgh. The said trustees found it impossible to obtain money in loan upon the security of the tollbars alone, and the project must have been abandoned had not certain noblemen and gentlemen, about ten in number, stood forward to the relief of the trustees, and, by binding themselves personally, obtained a loan to the extent of about twenty-eight thousand pounds, which was expended in the formation and completion of the said improvements, and they were assigned into these funds in security and relief of their engagements.

When these noblemen and gentlemen were applied to for aid in the said undertaking, they were shewn a state of the revenues derived from the tolls from which the annual interest of the said loan would be paid, as well as an annual sinking fund, formed for the gradual liquidation of the principal sum. This state was made up with reference to the rent of the tolls at the time, which were then all let with the privilege of a licence to sell exciseable liquors, and which privilege is still continued to the said tolls. The interest of the debt thus created has been regularly paid out of the toll rents, and a small portion of the principal

Roads (Scot

has been liquidated, but there is still upwards Turnpike of twenty-three thousand pounds of the amount land) Bill remaining unpaid, and for which the obligants (Against). before referred to are liable.

That your Petitioners have observed with no little alarm that a Bill has been introduced into the House of Lords, and will shortly be brought before your honourable House, for the purpose of repealing the laws allowing licences to be granted to tacksmen of tolls, toll-gatherers, and other persons situated at any tollbar, the effect of which will be to decrease to a very considerable extent the revenues hitherto drawn from the toll-bars in this trust, and consequently to injure, and in fact render almost nugatory, the security held by those individuals for the large debt upon the trust before mentioned. That the ostensible reason for introducing such a Bill is, that toll-bars when licensed are injurious to the morals of the people; but your Petitioners are humbly of opinion that less injury arises from the licensing of tollbars, than from granting licences to public houses. In point of fact, toll-bars are always kept by a superior class of persons to those keeping small public-houses, as it is only people who are able to find security to a considerable extent for payment of their rents who can be preferred to the tolls; and moreover, over and above the enactment of the statute for preserving good order in licensed houses, the trustees of this district provide in their articles of set, that any person guilty of a breach of the licence certificate, and convicted thereof, shall not be again permitted to offer for any toll-bar belonging to the trust; and, accordingly, it is matter of fact that no complaint under the licensing act has for many years been preferred against (the) the tacksmen of any of the tolls belonging to this trust, and, with probably a solitary exception, your Petitioners venture to affirm that the tolls in the trust, about twenty in number, are tenanted by most respectable steady people, maintaining irreproachable characters, and whose houses are orderly and regularly kept.

Your Petitioners beg to bring under the notice of your honourable House the fact, that no fewer than six out of the number of tolls belonging to the trust are let at rents under seventy pounds per annum, including the privilege of a licence certificate, and to observe that if the licences are withdrawn it would be quite impossible to find tenants who would give any rent at all for these bars under the burden of attending at the gate; and it would not pay the trust to station persons to collect the rates at said bars, as their wages would swallow up the whole rents derivable therefrom; so that in point of fact the whole of that revenue would be lost to the trust. And, further, your Petitioners are quite certain that the withdrawal of the licences would reduce the rents of all the other tolls to a very considerable amount, and the consequence will be that the various roads to which these funds are at present applicable will fall into disrepair, and the public will thus be the sufferers, whilst at the same time those individuals who have become responsible for the debt will be put to serious loss.

That a number of the toll bars in this trust have been fitted up as inns, with stabling and other conveniences for the use of travellers, and in many situations they are extremely useful, and in fact indispensable for the convenience of travellers, and in some of the