A Scotch deputation waited on Sir Stafford Northcote yester- day
week, to represent to him the grievances of the Scotch farmers in respect of the dog and gun tax. The dog tax was a griev- ance to all who kept sheep, and were therefore compelled to keep sheep-dogs for the purposes of business,—and it was the greater grievance, in the absence of any class of exemptions, because the tax is not properly paid by the owners of dogs kept not for business, but for pleasure. To remedy this abuse, a very original suggestion was made by a Scotchman, who, we should suppose, keeps no dog himself, and is not very intimate with those who do. He was anxious that all who pay the tax should receive a Government collar as evidence of payment, which collar the dog should be compelled to wear. This proposal much alarmed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who asked what sort of collar would satisfy, for instance, ladies' aesthetic standards for their pet dogs, and what degree of enthusiastic dis- loyalty he might not excite, if he were to outrage the affections of their mistresses by insisting that any dog who did not wear the Government stamp should be liable to be taxed again or destroyed, or if he were to compel the masters of fox-hounds to run all their packs in Government collars. Tonnage and poundage or the lucifer-box stamp would be nothing in unpopularity to that. Mr. Disraeli would soon have an opportunity of treading in the steps of his own imaginary Charles I., as "the holocaust of direct taxation." Before the collars had got to the dogs, the Administration, we suspect, would have followed the collars.
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