11 DECEMBER 1830, Page 14

SEA-BORNE COALS.

THE New Police costs the public about twenty-five per cent, more than the old—the public pays two hundred thousand pounds for being cal efully, instead of one hundred and fifty thousand for being carelessly looked after; and St. Giles and Marylebone, the base and the noble, are up in arms at the grievous burden. The Government charge the public nearly a penny out of every sixpence worth of coals that they consume—every kettle that is boiled, from Whitechapel to Tyburn, pays tithe to the Exchequer ; and no man cries shame on the extortion. No meeting is held, no speeches are made, no petitions are signed. Even we, who have some twenty times attempted to ding this matter into the ears of our readers, are listened to with apathy. There is no kindling the public to atten- tion towards it—we might as well blow at a cold coal in January, and expect heat from our labours. The people of Westminster pay a penny every time they pass Waterloo Bridge, and every time they pay their penny they grumble at the tax. The people of Lon- don build bridges as fine and as costly as that of Waterloo—they de- molish houses with as little consideration as if they were made of pie-crust—they spend millions, and yet they pay no pennies for passing the Thames—they make the-coal-burners of Westminster pay for them. Yet the coal-burners of-Westminster, who grumble so dolefully at their own tolls, utter not a syllable of complaint at the exemption of their neighbours, though the purchase of it come out of their pockets. We feel that we can only repeat facts when we speak of the heavy, and, had they not been borne until the back has become fitted to the burden, the intolerable abuses of the coal-duties—the taxes of the Govern- ment, and the worse taxes of the Corporation ; but how can we avoid repetition while the evil continues without modification or abatement ? We do not desire—we have not space at present to enter into details ; but we would just for one moment, and in one word, request every householder to whom these presents come, to look at the tables in the pamphlet whose title. we quote.* Some of them have been printed before, but let householders look to them notwithstanding—they are most fitting and useful to be kept in all families. They will there see, that the whole charge of a chaldron of coals, when arrived in the Pool, is 11. 5s. 2d.; that the charge of a chaldron of coals, when arrived in the cellar of the consumer, is 2/. I Os. 4d.! The sum which digs the coals out of .the mine, conveys them to the ship, carries them three hundred miles of sea and sixty miles of river—it requires a sum equal to that which in the hands of free trade does so much, when in the hands of taxgathers, monopolists, corporationists, and one set of harpies and another, to convey the same coals for a couple of miles over the causeway of the metropolis. This is no exaggeration, but a plain' arithmetical truth. How long is it to be so ? Not a month, if the public bestir themselves—a century, if they do not !

* Observations on the Duty on Sea-borne Coal; and on the peculiar Duties and Charges on Coal in the Port of London. Founded on the Reports of Parliamentary Committees, and other Official Documents. Published by Longman and Co.