the administration, and to appoint the best men to | for four votes. 66 There were 2003 proprietors on the company's books in 1825; of these, 1494 were qualified to give single votes; 392, two votes; 69, three votes; and 48, four votes. Upon any special occasion, 9 proprietors, duly qualified by the possession of 10000. stock, may, by a requisition in writing to the court of directors, call a general Under the act 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 85., to which court; which the directors, are required to summon we have alluded above, for continuing the charter within 10 days, or, in default, the proprietors may till 1854, the functions of the East India Com-call such court by notice affixed upon the Royal pany have been rendered wholly political. She Exchange. In all such courts the questions are is to continue to govern India, with the concur- decided by a majority of voices; in case of an rence and under the supervision of the Board of equality, the determination must be by the treaControl, nearly on the plan laid down in Mr. surer drawing a lot. Nine proprietors may, by a Pitt's act, in 1784, by which the Board of Control | requisition in writing, demand a ballot upon any was constituted. All the real and personal pro- question, which shall not be taken within 24 hours perty belonging to the company on the 22d of after the breaking up of the general court. April, 1834, is vested in the crown, and is to be "Court of Directors.-The court of directors is held or managed by the company in trust for the composed of 24 members, chosen from among the same; subject, of course, to all claims, debts, con - proprietors, each of whom must be possessed of tracts, &c. already in existence, or that may here - | 20000. stock; nor can any director, after being after be brought into existence by competent autho- chosen, act longer than while he continues to hold rity. The company's debts and liabilities are all stock. Of these, 6 are chosen on the second Wedcharged on India. The dividend, which is to con-nesday in April in each year, to serve for 4 years, tinne at 10 per cent, is to be paid in England out in the room of 6 who have completed such service. of the revenues of India; and provision is made After an interval of 12 months, those who had gone for the establishment of a security fund for its dis- out by rotation are eligible to be reëlected for the charge. The dividend may be redeemed by par- ensuing 4 years. Formerly, no person who had liament, on payment of 2002. for 1002. stock, any been in the company's civil or military service in time after April, 1874; but it is provided, in the India was eligible to be elected a director, until he event of the company being deprived of the go- had been a resident in England two years after vernment of India in 1854, that they may claim | quitting the service; but this condition no longer redemption of the dividend any time thereafter exists; and all civil or military servants of the upon 3 years' notice. (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 85.) "Company's Stock-forms a capital of 6,000,0007. into which all persons, natives or foreigners, males or females, bodies politic or corporate (the Governor and Company of the bank of England only excepted), are at liberty to purchase, without limitation of amount. Since 1793, the dividends have been 10 per cent, to which they are limited by the late act. company in India, supposing they are otherwise eligible, may be chosen directors immediately on their return to England, provided they have no unsettled accounts with the company; if so, they are ineligible for 2 years after their return, unless their accounts be sooner settled. (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 85. § 28.) The directors choose annually, from amongst themselves, a chairman and a deputychairman. They are required by by-laws to meet “General Courts.—The proprietors in general once in every week at least; but they frequently court assembled are empowered to enact by-laws, meet oftener, as occasion requires. Not less than and in other respects are competent to the com- 13 can form a court. Their determinations are plete investigation, regulation, and control of every guided by a majority. In case of an equality, the branch of the company's concerns; but, for the question must be decided by the drawing of a lot more prompt despatch of business, the executive by the treasurer; upon all questions of importance, detail is vested in a court of directors. A gene- the sense of the court is taken by ballot. The ral court is required to be held once in the months company's officers both at home and abroad, receive of March, June, September, and December, in each year. No one can be present at a general court unless possessed of 5001. stock; nor can any person vote upon the determination of any question who has not been in possession of 1000l. stock for the preceding 12 months, unless such stock have been obtained by bequest or marriage. Persons pos- "Secret Committee.-The principal powers of sessed of 10002. stock are empowered to give a sin- the court of directors are vested in a secret comgle vote ; 30002. are a qualification for two votes; mittee, forming a sort of cabinet or privy council. 6000. for three votes; and 10,0002. and upwards All communications of a confidential or delicate their appointments immediately from the court, to whom they are responsible for the due and faithful discharge of the trust reposed in them, The patronage is, nevertheless, so arranged, as that each member of the court separately participates therein. vernor and three councillors, the governor of the Bengal presidency being at the same time governor-general of India. In their several presidencies, the governors and their councillors possess the privilege of enacting and enforcing laws; sub nature between the Board of Control and the company are submitted, in the first instance at least, to the consideration of this committee; and the directions of the board, as to political affairs, may be transmitted direct to India, through the committee, without being seen by the other directors.ject, however, in some cases, to the concurrence The secret committee is appointed by the court of directors, and its members are sworn to secrecy. of the supreme court of judicature, and, in all cases, to the approval of the court of directors and the board of control. "We copy the following tables of revenue, &c. from Mr. M'Culloch's Statistics, vol. ii. p. 519. AN ACCOUNT of the Total Annual Revenues and Charges of the British Possessions in India under the East India Company, from 1809-10 to 1829-30; showing also the Nett Charge of Bencoolen, Prince of Wales Island, and St. Helena, the interest paid on account of Debts in India, and the Amount of Territorial Charges paid in England.(Parl. Papers, No. 22. Sess. 1830, and No. 306. Sess. 1833.) ABSTRACT VIEW of the Revenues and Charges of India for the Years 1831-32, 1832-33, 1833-34, and (by estimate,) 1834-35. 740,728 1,076,504 1,817,232 4,856,857 2.484.076 3,250,715 945,275 N. B.-The Company realized in 1834-35 the sum of 10,679.2231. by the sale of commercial assets. The debts of the Company in India on the 30th of April, 1834, amounted to 34,463,4831., bearing an interest of 1,754,545 a year. [Parl. Paper, No. 380, Sess. 1836. We subjoin the following table, exhibiting the extent and population of India, which we copy from the second edition of Mr. Hamilton's Indian Gazetteer. Some later accounts have been published as to the population of particular provinces; but we believe that this is the most accurate statement that has hitherto been framed, embracing the whole country. Under the Bombay presidency 11,000 2,500,000 Territories in the Deccan, &c., acquired since 1815, consisting of the Peishwa's dominions, &c., and since mostly attached to the Bombay presidency Travancore, 6,000; Cochin, 2,000 8,000 1,000,000 Under the Rajas of Jondpour, Jeypoor, Odeypoor, Bicancere, Jesselmere, and other rajpoot chiefs, Holcar, Ameer Khan, the Row of Kutch, Bhurtpoor, Macherry, and numerous other petty chiefs, Seikes, Gonds, Bheels, Coolies, and Catties, all comprehended within the line of British protection INDIA BEYOND THE GANGES.-British Acquisitions in 1824 and 1825. Countries south of Rangoon, consisting of half the province of Martaban, and the provinces of Tavoy, Ye, Tenasserin, and the Mergui isles The province of Arracan Countries from which the Burmese have been expelled, consisting of Assam and the adjacent petty states, occupying a space of about "EXCISE DUTIES, in Revenue and Finance, are | tant articles, and furnishes nearly a third part of duties imposed on articles produced or manufac- the entire public revenue of the kingdom. tured at home, while in the possession of the pro- For the more easy levy of the excise duties, ducers or manufacturers. They were introduced England and Wales are divided into about fifty-six into England by the Long Parliament in 1643, collections, some of which are called by the names being then laid on the makers and venders of ale, of particular counties, others by the names of great beer, cider, and perry. The royalists soon after towns. Where one county is divided into several followed the example of the republicans; both collections, or where a collection comprises the sides declaring that the excise should be continued contiguous parts of several counties, every such no longer than the termination of the war. But collection is subdivided into several districts, within it was found too productive a source of revenue to which there is a supervisor; and each district is be again relinquished; and when the nation had again subdivided into out-rides and foot-walks, been accustomed to it for a few years, the parlia- within each of which there is a surveying officer ment declared, in 1649, that the impost of excise or guager. Some excise duties, that were justly was the most easy and indifferent levy that could objected to, have been repealed within these few be laid upon the people. It was placed on a new years; and with the exception of the duty on footing at the Restoration; and notwithstanding glass, which interferes injuriously with the manuMr. Justice Blackstone says, that 'from its first facture, we are not sure that there is one of the original to the present time, its very name has been existing duties that can be fairly objected to on odions to the people of England' (Com. book i. c. principle, though the rate of duty might, in some 8.), it has continued progressively to gain ground; instances, be advantageously reduced. It has been and is at this moment imposed on several impor-said, that the excise duties greatly raise the cost of subsistence to the laboring classes.' But this [ble, and without any of that verbosity, repetition, assertion has really no foundation. In fact, the and technical jargon that infects acts of parliaonly excise duty that can be said to fall on a neces-ment, and renders them all but incomprehensible to sary of life is that on soap, which produced in ordinary persons. A manufacturer abiding by this 1838 (in Great Britain) 809,0317.; but as the po- abstract should be held to have abided by the law, pulation of Great Britain amounts at present to and should not be further questioned on the subject. about 18,000,000, the soap tax cannot, at an ave- A measure of this sort might be easily carried into rage, impose a burden of 11d. a year on each in-effect. It would be an immense improvement, and dividual. If we estimate its annual pressure on a would go far to obviate the only good objection to laboring family of five persons at from 2s. 6d. to the excise duties." 3s., we shall not be within but beyond the mark. A GALLOP AMONG AMERICAN SCENERY.* This very handsome volume does credit to the New-York press, from its clear type and beautiful proportions. Its descriptions, particularly those relating to military adventure, are thrilling. in "The only taxes, in the various departments of the revenue, that can be truly said to fall on articles necessary to the laborer, are, besides soap, principally those on tea and sugar. We incline to think that the duties on these articles might be very materially reduced without affecting the revenue; but, however that may be, it cannot be truly affirmed that they entail any grievous burden on the laboring classes. The entire nett produce of The poetical conceptions are wrought up with the excise duties in Great Britain in 1838 amount- some of life's severest realities, while the moral ed to 12,775,955l., of which the duties on spirits tinge spread over the whole, is a kind of halo or and malt, that is, on spirits and beer, produced no looming, bringing the objects and principles nearer, less than 8,604,1157. In Ireland, during the same a softened and picturesque light. year, the excise duties amounted to 1,974,5667., It is not our intention to enter upon a review of of which the spirit and malt duties furnished this work, in the ordinary fashion of criticismabove four-fifths, or 1,795,165/. The rate at showing our ingenuity by discovering faults; but which this revenue was collected was nearly 63 briefly to point to a few of the many passages per cent. in Great Britain, and 9 per cent. in Ire- marked by deep pathos and moral feeling! and land. Now, we are bold to say, that no equal leave the reader of the book to form his estimate amount of revenue was ever raised with so little of the whole, as we have done ours. inconvenience or injury to the contributors. Even though they were not required by the public exigencies, the duties on spirits obstruct a pernicious habit, and should not be given up. They are the best of all possible duties; and the only thing to be attended to in their imposition, is not to carry them to such a height as to defeat their object by encouraging smuggling. We have yet to learn, supposing they are not carried beyond this limit, that a single good objection can be made to these duties. We pass the beautiful descriptions, views, scenes, and incidents on the Potomac, and at Mount Vernon; and the naval stories of Old Kennedy the Quarter-Master, except to pause one moment, where Captain Hull gives orders for the fire of the Constitution, when she captured the Guerriere, and the account of Captain Perry's leaving the wrecked Lawrence at the victory of Lake Erie: which cannot be read without feelings of patriotic enthusiasm. So, in the stirring scenes in the attack on Fort Erie, and the battle of Lundy's Lane, we can scarcely quote passages without marring their symmetry, so rapid and interwoven are the details. But, as an example of elevated thought and true feeling, we extract the closing page, and the apos trophe to those who fell in the battle of Lundy's Lane. After reading a simple epitaph inscribed on a board, by some kind and unknown hand, to the memory of an officer, which the writer found moul dering on the battle-ground, he exclaims: "The obscurity and complexity of the excise laws has been justly complained of. It is needless to say, that they ought to be brief, clear, and level to the apprehension of every one. But, so far from this being the case, they are in most instances lengthened, contradictory, and unintelligible. There were at no distant period some 40 or 50 acts in existence having reference to the glass duties, and at this moment from 25 to 30 have reference to the paper duties, and so for the others. It is, in fact, all but impossible for any one to tell what the law really is on many points; so that the trader is "And this is honor! This is fame! Why, brave left at the mercy of the officers, and a wide door is man! even now, I read the tribute to thy bravery opened to favoritism and fraud. This disgraceful in the bulletin of the action. Thou hast comradesstate of things might, however, be easily remedied father, mother, sisters to mourn thy loss—and now, by getting the treasury or the excise to prepare a short abstract of the law as to each duty, drawn up in the clearest and least ambiguous manner possi A Gallop among American Scenery; or, Sketches of American Scenes and Military Adventure. By Augustus E. Silliman: D Appleton & Co., New-York. the stranger's foot carelessly spurns thy frail me- | make her fast to this dead log. We'll steal gently mento; nor father, mother, sisters, nor human through the woods, and come upon him unawares. hand can point to the spot where rest thy ashes. Softly-press those vines away; whist-avoid the Peace to thy manes, brave countrymen, where'er they sleep. rustling of the branches; here, creep through these bushes-tread lightly on the fallen leaves-you'll mire upon that swampy bottom. Hush-hushtread softly-that crackling branch! He lifts his head-he looks uneasily about him-stand quiet. Now he browses again; get a little nearer-we are within distance. I'll try him-click. Back go the autlers--the cocking of the rifle has alarmed "See from this point, how gently and gracefully undulates the battle-field; the woods bowing to the evening breeze, as the soft sunlight pours through their branches, show not the gashes of rude cannonshot-the plain, loaded and bending with the yellow harvest, betrays no human gore-yon hill, scathed, scorched and blackened with cannon-flame, him-he's off! Here goes, hit or miss-crack-he the very resting-place of the deadly battery, shows jumps ten feet in the air. I've missed him-he no relic of the fierce death-struggle, as covered bounds onward-no-yes-by Jove! he's downwith the fragrant clover and wild bluebell; the bee, he's up again--he plunges forward-he falls again— in monotonous hum, banquets over it. Nought he rises-falls-he struggles to his knees-hemars the serenity of nature as she smiles upon us. falls. Hurrah! he's ours,-quick-quick-thy Yet, burnt in common funeral pyre, the ashes of coteau de chasse, we'll make sure of him. Stopthose brave men, of friend and foe, there mingle stop. Poor deer! and I have murdered thee, for in the bosom whence they issued. The frenzied my sport have murdered thee-have taken from passion passed, the furious conflict over, they have thee the precious boon of life-with cruelty have lain down in quiet, and, like young children, sleep broken the silver chord, which the beggar's blunt gently, sweetly, in the lap of that common mother, knife can sever, but not the jewelled fingers of the who shelters with like protection, the little field- monarch, again rejoin. There-there, thou liestmouse from its gambols, and the turbaned Sultan sinking amid his prostrate millions. Shades of my gallant countrymen!-shades of their daring foes-farewell. Ne'er had warriors a more glorious death-couch,-the eternal cataracts roar your requiem." true to the great master's picture, The big round tears, course down thy innocent nose in piteous chase, And thy smooth leathern sides pant almost to bursting.' thy life blood flows apace-e'en now, thy large soft eye dims in the sleep of death--and I have slain The paper on Lake George and Ticonderoga, thee. Thou had'st nought other enemy, than the abounds with fine images. Describing the "steam gaunt coward wolf, or fanged serpent; him, with spirit" which urged the boat over the crystal wa- light leaping bounds, thou laugh'st to scorn, as ters of the lake, he says-"how like Sampson in his long howl struck on thy quick ear; and the the Prison-Mill, struggling, giant like, he again sullen rattler, with many blows of thy tiny polished applies him to his toil. Imprisoned spirit! there hoof thou dash'st to pieces, ere from his deadly is no help for thee. Sweat thou must, and pant, coil, his flattened head, with glistening tongue and and groan, till, like thy fellow-laborer, man, releas- protruded fangs, could reach thee. Oh! I shame ed from fire fetter, as he from earth, resolved to me of my miscreant fellowship. Even the poipure ether, thou shalt float again, free and delighted, sonous serpent, with quick vibrating tail, did give in the clear elements above! thee warning. I stole upon thee unawares. Hun"Ho! brother spirit, tarry, tarry-wait thou a ter-take again thy weapon; for thee--'tis thy volittle 'till I join thee,-then, how gallantly we'll cation-perhaps 'tis well-the game is thine. I ride!-couched on summer-clouds lazily, we'll entreat of thee, let not my innocent victim again float: or, glancing on sun-rays, shoot, swift as reproach my eye-sight." thought, 'mid the bright worlds rolling in sublimity We'll bathe in the moon's cold splendor, fan in the sultry heat of crimson mars, slide upon Saturn's eternal snows, or joyously gambolling along the Milkyway, we'll chase the starry serpent to his den." above us. In the same boat, while cruising among the beautiful islands and shores of that placid lake, a deer is discovered on one of the wooded islands, and the author asking a hunter who was on board for his rifle, gives the following description of killing The delineation of Brenton's reef, is vividly ac curate, and the shipwreck which occurred upon it not many years since, is a true récord, never to be forgotten by the inhabitants of that part of Rhode Island; and, even at this day, it saddens the spirits of many who remember that awful event-that dreary night, and terrific storm. But we are going far beyond our intended brevity, and quote but one more passage, from the chapter on "Long Island Sound," which contains many local descriptions of great truth and beauty, with allusions to its supernatural legends, and antiquated "Launch the canoe. Come, hunter-peace-history. Among other peculiarities, a solitary peace-keep the dogs on board; paddle for yonder Indian, who, it was believed, had strayed from some point-now we shoot upon the pebbly beach-now of the western tribes, lived in a lonely hut on its the deer : |