In further confirmation and illustration of the increased and increasing pressure of the public debt, and the large proportion of the general revenue which it is gradually absorbing, the following table is submitted. As a convenient and easily understood arrangement, the receipts of the improvement rate only are furnished, that being the chief and most legitimate source of income; but the payments on account of the debt comprehend the whole of the charges thereon, that is to say, those of the municipal and street improvement rates are also included, and the same principle is observed throughout the calculation. As a collateral branch of this subject, it may not be inappropriate to furnish a table of the amounts levied by the overseers of the poor, and also of the proportion of them absorbed by the borough rate for municipal purposes, and which is entirely under the control of the corporation. It is much to be desired that this singular anomaly should be speedily abolished, that the corporation should be authorised to collect the whole of its own rates, and that the entire system of municipal taxation should be simplified and consolidated. TABLE J.-Showing the Rateable Value of the Property of the Borough, The annexed Table K describes the amounts assessed to property and income tax, and will probably excite considerable interest, as affording information of the progress of the town in wealth and prosperity : The amount of national taxation does not necessarily form any part of this inquiry, but it may nevertheless be instructive to notice it, and the following tables are therefore subjoined, which have been taken from a valuable article contributed by Professor Leone Levi to the Journal of the Statistical Society.* TABLE L.-United Kingdom, Population and Taxes, 1801 to 1858. * Vol. xxiii, pp. 37, et seq. The sums entered in Table M as " Wealth," and in Table N as "Income," are only estimates.-ED. S. J. In examining the figures of the three latter tables, we discern one of the chief causes of the public tranquillity and contentment which now so happily prevail. Associated with this marvellous development of national wealth there is a diminished taxation, in other words, there is less to pay and more to pay it with; so that the burthen of it is therefore easily supportable, as compared with the pressure of former years, and it is much to be desired that the same results should be sought and achieved by our local municipal govern ment. It has been seen that the expenses of the corporation for 1864 were 108. 10d. per head, and as in addition thereto the cost of relieving the poor in the same year was 6s. 4d., it follows that we have altogether the very serious expenditure of 178. 2d. per head. The introduction of railways and of steam navigation, and the removal of some of the restrictions upon trade, are bringing us more and more into competition with the cheap labour and lightly taxed population of other countries; so that an economical administration of the public affairs of the town, or the absence of it, may therefore exercise an important influence upon the permanent welfare of this busy and industrious community. In bringing this paper to a close, an attentive consideration of the subject appears to lead to the following conclusions: 1. That the progress of the town in wealth and population has been enormous, but that the amount of taxation and of municipal expenditure has increased in still greater proportions. 2. That the public debt, especially, appears to have excessively increased, owing to the rapidity with which public works and various improvements have been executed, thereby imposing heavy burdens upon the present generation of ratepayers. 3. That it would have been desirable to have omitted some of the least important of these undertakings, and to have extended the others over a longer period of time, and that for the future they should either be suspended altogether, or proceeded with more slowly and deliberately. 4. That this increased taxation does not appear to have materially |