But with their imposition all irritating local rates and cesses should cease. They must not be imposed in addition to taxes which exist.

Last of all the municipal incomes require to be strengthened. Here also uniformity is greatly needed. Taxes are levied in different places, under different local Acts, which vary in character to a most extraordinary extent. It is not necessary that such diversities should exist, for they perplex and annoy the people most unnecessarily. The house tax is irritating in all places, and should be abandoned if it be practicable to do so; nor ought there to be any difficulty in abandoning it if the octroi duties can be more generally levied. All municipal taxes in India at least ought to be indirect, for it is these taxes that cause the greatest amount of irritation all over the country. Direct rates, whether on houses, lands, vehicles, or trades, have been received everywhere with groans; do away with them then without hesitation: octroi rates have nowhere been objected to; have them everywhere, and everything will go on smoothly. In Bengal there are no octroi duties at all, and yet there is no doubt, as we have said already, that duties very similar to them are illegally levied by the zemindars; and administrators who are horrified at the idea of an increased salt rate, which would only nominally affect even the poorest peasant, wink very conveniently at these exactions, which are often fifty and a hundred times greater in degree. An octroi duty levied on all articles of luxury would be the fairest taxation for municipal purposes throughout the land, and, we are certain, would not be unacceptable anywhere. Lord Lytton, in his reply to the Manchester deputation, spoke of the octroi as being objectionable in theory.' We trust that his lord

ship while in India will leave theory aside for the nonce, and inaugurate a government of practical useful

ness.

The natives are opposed to all forms of direct taxation, and, if we have suggested the introduction of some at need, we have done so with the greatest reluctance and hesitation. Those who advocate their general adoption assert emphatically that it is time the natives should learn to appreciate them, since indirect taxation only means putting equally heavy burdens on the rich and poor. There are two fallacies involved in this opinion. The time has not arrived in India for the adoption of civilised forms of taxation, any more than the time has arrived for the general adoption of Christianity, or of English habits and manners; and it is incorrect to assume otherwise. The second fallacy consists in the assumed possibility of adopting any form of taxation that will not spread to the

mass.

Taxes always fall on those who cannot escape them. Impose them in any way you choose, and they will diffuse themselves over the whole population, including the poorer classes.

A large increase of taxation in any form is not feasible in India. Indirect taxes in the way we have represented may be raised by taxing articles of luxury, and even of general consumption-such as tobacco and pawn; but the rates of such taxation must necessarily be low, that the poorer classes may not feel them to any extent. Such direct taxes also as are not generally objectionable may be imposed, but with the greatest caution, and provided always that the taxes now objected to are given up. Some wholesale financial change of this sort has become imperative. It is not creditable to the British administration that, even in time of peace, there is no surplus on the balance-sheet, but either a nominal

or a fictitious one. If new taxes must be imposed to remedy the evil, they ought to be imposed at once, but not in the bungling manner hitherto followed, and never without studying the wishes and even the prejudices of the people in respect to the form they should take. The plan followed in the matter up to this time has neither been wise nor honest. Even where the sham of self-government has been conceded, it is the Government members of the Committees who dictate the course to be followed, without any consideration for the feelings and prejudices of the people whom it most concerns. Local taxation means self-government; but what is self-government where the opinions and habits of the people are never consulted? It is no slur on a foreign government that there have been mistakes and imperfections in regulating the finances of the country; but it is bound at all events honestly to try to rectify those mistakes. There are native financiers in the country, real statesmen and accountants, who will, without any difficulty, find out for the Govern

ment the arrangements which would best suit the tax-payers. The English Finance Minister can never become sufficiently acquainted with the habits, wishes, and wants of the people to do justice to this part of his duties. Why not say honestly to the natives then: We must have so much money; it is absolutely necessary for carrying on our form of government properly; tell us how your people would wish to make up the amount?' The real wish of the English people

the people of England-is to do justice to India. This wish ought not to be allowed to be strangled by the governing class in India, who can consider no question apart from class interest, who in all their acts are assiduous to ignore the people of India. Once more we say, take the people honestly into your confidence, and they will cheerfully assist you out of your financial difficulties and blunderings. No man in India is unwilling to pay the fairest quota claimable from him for the stability and prosperity of the British Government in it; and of this the British Government itself ought to be well assured.

CALCUTTA: July 1876.

Tof recent THE

HE extraordinary development of periodical literature in recent years is a very notable feature of modern civilisation. By some this phenomenon is regarded as an unhealthy symptom of our intellectual condition, indicating an age of superficial culture and much fragmentary and aimless reading. But, whatever may be thought of it, the fact itself is undeniable. At the present time, according to the Newspaper Press Directory, upwards of 630 magazines are in course of publication, representing a most heterogeneous aggregate of thought and opinion, or of what passes for such. All political parties, every sect and section of a sect, every little coterie of opinionists-nay, almost every trade and profession has its special organ in the periodical press. Conservatives and Liberals, Churchmen and Dissenters, engineers and botanists, spiritualists, antiquaries, grocers, milliners, hairdressers, and a hundred other fractions of society are all represented. By the aid of previous numbers of the same Directory we learn that a large proportion of these journals-probably one-half of the whole number-have come into existence during the last twenty years.

It is curious to turn from such a state of things to the prolonged and feeble infancy of magazines. In nearly all respects-in number, in ability, in circulation, in moral tone, and in the general character of the contributions-the two periods afford a remarkable contrast. There were for many years practically only three journals of the magazine species, strictly so called. These were the wellknown Gentleman's Magazine, origi

เ

nated by Cave in 1731, the London Magazine, established the following year, and, after an interval of seven years, the Scots Magazine, begun in 1739. There were other literary ventures, no doubt Monthly Chronicles,' 'Mercuries,' and the like, but, except the three just named, none of them survived beyond a very few years. The professed object of the original promoters of these publications was a very humble and modest one. It appears to have been little else than to give a monthly summary, in a convenient form, of the more important articles (often very unimportant) contributed to the newspapers of the day what would nowadays be called 'the spirit of the press.' In the introductory chapter to the first volume of the Gentleman's Magazine the design is thus rather awkwardly stated:

This may serve to illustrate the Reasonableness of our present Undertaking, which in the first place is to give monthly a View of all the Pieces of Wit, Humour, or Intelli

gence daily offer'd to the Publick in the Newspapers (which of late are so multiply'd as to render it impossible, unless a man makes it a business, to consult them all), and in the next place we shall join there

with some other matters of Use or Amusement that will be communicated to us.

Continual plagues my soul molest,
And magazines disturb my rest;
While scarce a night I steal to bed
Without a couplet in my head;
And in the morning when I stir
Pop comes a devil, Copy, sir!'

Southey adds: 'During eighteen months he had continued to fulfil his monthly task, though at length in such exhaustion of means and spirits that he seems to have admitted any communication, how ever worthless or reprehensible in a worse way.' The journal edited by Lloyd was called the St. James' Magazine.

As time rolled on, however, and the undertakings prospered, one or two regular contributors became attached to the respective staffs. Chief among those- a host indeed in himself-was Dr. Johnson, whose engagement by Cave for his publication proved a valuable accession. So early as the close of 1734 we find him writing to the publisher suggest ing improvements in the poetical department of the Magazine. From his remarks it may be inferred that the quality of the contributions was then very poor.

'By this method,' he says, after describing his own plan, 'your literary article for so it might be called-will be better recomiended to the public than by low jests, awkward buffoonery, or the dull scurrilities of either party.'

It was not, however, till four years afterwards, in 1738, that Johnson's connection with the journal formally began. At this time the largest portion of each issue was occupied by the summaries of the borrowed articles referred to, known as the 'Weekly Essays and Disputes.' Many-indeed, most of these communications were ridiculously short, seldom exceeding a page, and sometimes not more than a column or half a page. In one number of the London Magazine we counted in the

table of contents sixty-four articles in thirty-seven pages.

The papers themselves-and the remark is also applicable to many of their own early articles-were, in the main, poor and ineffective. Little discussions on manners or the minor morals, on dress, fashion, and the relations of the sexes, recipes for various ailments, hints on household management, moral essays of the debating society kind; these, with the interchange of personalities between political writers, include the bulk of the articles then thought worthy of reprinting. They are, it need scarcely be said, infinitely inferior to that series of essays which has delighted many generations of English readers, of which the Spectator is the best known type and representative. There was one important and obvious difference. In the latter case the writers were essayists proper, not newsmongers, and, further, the contributions were throughout or nearly so, in the Spectator class of journals, the work of a few hands, authors of eminence and genius. Such men as Steele, Johnson, Addison, and Savage were certainly not to be compared with the mob of hack writers who then flooded the newspapers with their puerilities and personalities.

Of the remaining available space three or four pages were generally devoted to poetry, or what passed as such in that age. There are many love-sick and monotonous epistles to Celia, Lavinia, and other fair ones; sundry imitations and translations of the classics, decidedly better in quality; odes to envy, melancholy, and the rest, varied occasionally by an apostrophe to a bee, or a favourite spaniel, or the month of May; and much other mediocre versification. The debates in Par liament formed also an important item in the list of contents. The series of articles of this description furnished to the Gentleman's Maga

zine under the title of The Senate of Lilliput was Johnson's best known contribution to that journal. His reproductions of the speeches must have been often very free versions, for Boswell remarks that 'sometimes he had nothing more communicated to him than the names of the several speakers, and the part which they had taken in the debate. Generally, however, the monthly Parliamentary article was founded on the notes of Guthrie and others. Some readers may possibly not be aware of the obstacles existing at this period to the publication of the discussions in Parliament, when fictitious names and other expedients were resorted to in order to avoid prosecution. The disguises were of various kinds, often of an anagrammatic character. In the Gentleman's Magazine, for example, hurgo stood for lord, and Hurgoes Hickrad, Castroflet, and Brustath, represented Lords Hard wick, Chesterfield, and Bathurst, while in the Clinabs, or Commons, we have such barbarous disguises as Snadsy, Gamdahm, Feauks, Pulnub, for Sandys, Windham, Fox, and Pulteney. Degulia did duty for Europe, Blefuscu for France, Dancram for Denmark, and London and Westminster were known as Mildendo and Belfaborac. In the Scots Magazine the names of the speakers took a classical form. Sir R. Walpole was M. Tullius Cicero, the Earl of Halifax M. Horatius Barbatus, and so on. Afterwards, when Johnson found that people believed the speeches to be genuine, he resolved to write no more of them, considering that he was thereby being accessory to the propagation of falsehood.

A chapter of casualties is usually added, and notices of the preferments and promotions for the month, ecclesiastical, civil, and military. There is also a page or more of births, marriages, and deaths, with lists of

new books, bankrupts, and (strange to modern ears) captures at sea, prices of grain (not at Mark Lane, but at Bear Key, the then market) and stocks, bills of mortality, &c. &c.

From this brief inventory of contents it is obvious that to many readers, especially in the country (and the circulation was large in the provinces), these journals would serve very much the purposes of the modern newspaper. In many cases, probably, the monthly number would be the chief medium of communication with the outer world. And the change is worth remarking that not only have magazines now ceased to supply news, but some newspapers even, so-called, confine themselves to criticism and discussion.

The

In looking over these records of our grandfathers' time many curious peculiarities come to light. In matters of taste and public interest, in the use and meaning of words, in the spelling of many words and places, and in various other literary fashions, there are things worth a passing notice, and often suggestive of the social changes which have since passed over society. Orthography, to begin with, presents many variations from the present practice. following are examples taken at random: ambergreece, head ach, grainery, conveeners, goal always for gaol, rhadishes, hypocacuanae, tyger, burrows for boroughs, or, as the Scotch have it, burghs, waste instead of waist. A whole series of words have double l's, besides other peculiarities, such as sollicitors, sallad, sellery, collyflower, and the like. In the names of places there are also numerous differences-Air for Ayr, Eaton for Eton, Killichranky, Petersburgh always without the prefix 'St.'; Turky, Paisly, and such words without the penultimate letter; Ilfordcomb, Spittle