The Pall Mall Gazette from London, Greater London, England • 5

21, 1876. PALL MALL GAZETTE. 1 July the battle smoke around the quiet house." The same old house has had more peaceable international associations also referred to by Hawthorne, when he says "It was here that Emerson wrote who, residing, as he still does, within sight of the first battle-field on which Englishmen and Americans were enemies, taught both countries, in his English Traits," how most surely and most speedily to heal the scars which have been left by war and other causes. He was the first writer among either people to study the character of the other for the purpose of discovering its good qualities instead of its bad qualities. j- "0f Domesday Book, which embraces buildings as well as lands, we may take therefore .3,239,000 to be the valua-f: of "the buildings, Roughly stated, the "lands" constitute free-fourths of the valuation and the buildings one-fourth.

It should Qt however, be forgotten that the Irish valuations, all round, are under-estimated. Approximately we can say, on collating the gp.i,rn with the book, that 19,547 owners hold 20,046,000 acres, and tl it the remaining 49,211 owners divide the comparatively insignificant nreaof 1:3,496 acres between them. The immediate object of Mr. P. myth's return was seemingly to ascertain how far Irish landowners mired as absentees.

The summary result was this 5,589 were resident Pn or near their property; 377 were usually resident in Ireland, and occasionally on their property 4,465 were resident in Ireland, but not on their property 180 were usually resident out of Ireland, but occasionally on their property 1,443 were rarely or never resident in Ireland. Thee genuine absentees possessed 3,146,000 acres, with a rent roll of -j -38 000. Corporate bodies numbered 161. The whereabouts of 1,350 oprietors was not ascertained, and 5,982 were described as "proprietors of properties under 100 acres, unclassed." MUNICIPAL BOROUGH RATES. Borough rates and borough funds are applicable to the same purposes in corporate towns that county rates subserve for all other parts of England the maintenance of a police force, criminal prosecutions, the maintenance of prisoners and of borough lunatics, the erection and repair of town halls, the payment of the salaries of municipal officers, and other similar objects.

But town councils, with one or two exceptions, are, in addition to their merely municipal functions, now invested with large powers as urban sanitary authorities. In their latter capacity they properly make to the Local Government Board a separate account of their annual receipts and disbursements. There is, however, one conspicuous exception to this sound rule. Birmingham, with an expenditure of more than ,400,000, so blends its accounts that it is impossible to discern from the parliamentary returns what that model town spends in municipal objects and what it devotes to purposes of the public health. The desire of towns to obtain charters of incorporation is slowly progressive.

Not counting in the City of London, which is exempted from making a return to Parliament, there were 22 boroughs under the provisions of the Municipal Reform Acts in 187 1, and now the full number set out in the last statement is 226. This is exclusive of the two new-incorporations of Royal Leamington Spa and Jariw. The following statement shows what has been raised by borough rates and what has been afforded by imperial grants in aid of local taxation during the past five years Local Taxation. Total. Number of Boroughs.

Imperial Grants. Year ended August 31. 221 1,649,456 163,029 1,812,455 222 1,795.334 166,730 1,962,064 223 1,940,764 168,348 2, 109,112 224 2,161,495 176,577 2,338,072 226 256,319 2,157,735 1872., I87S- The next table details the principal items of receipt and expenditure in 1875 as against 1874. The decrease noticeable is ascribed to the transfer in 1875 certain sums from the ordinary municipal accounts to the accounts of town councils acting in their sanitary capacity. Difference in 1875.

Years ended August 31. Receipt Local Taxation Borough Rates Other Rates Tolls and Dues Rents and Fines on Renewal of Leases Imperial Taxation Grants for Police A SIGNIFICANT AMERICAN RELIC. Philadelphia, 23. The American Centennial year abounds in contrasts, all of which, perhaps are summed up in the figures 1776 1876," which one sees at ivery turn in Philadelphia and everywhere else, indeed, in the United States. In the Exhibition this contrast of dates is made peculiarly emphatic in many ways in the difference, for instance, between the little log house illustrating frontier life in the olden time and the solid granite bui'ding erected as a mere ornamental memorial.

I have already mentioned the disused spinning-wheels exhibited in this small log-house. The contrast between these and the great looms in motion in Machinery Hall nffords a very startling contrast suggestive of changes within a hundred years which amount in their importance to a social revolution. But I have at no time been so deeply impressed with the difference between the two extremes of the past century as when standing with an English friend before a rusty old sword in the New England kitchen. The British Empire has entered into the peaceful contest of industry, by which we are celebrating our Declaration of Independence, with a spirit hardly equalled by that shown in any part of the United States. The old sword in question is the one which was worn by the American officer who actually opened the revolutionary war in 1775 Colonel James Barrett.

An Englishman and an American standing before this relic, in an Exhibition which is almost as much English as it is American, and in which the English-speaking race shows material resources which throw all other races into the shade, can hardly fail to be impressed by the contrast which it suggests. There is probably no relic in either country which could bring the bitterness of the past so sharply and vividly before the mind, in the midst of the good feeling so abundantly typified in every other part of this Exhibition. It is well to have it here, for it gives a peculiar emphasis to our present kindly relations. Though the "first blood" was shed at Lexington, the so-called battle at that place was simply a conflict of regular troops with an armed mob, the latter retreating at the first fire and merely returning a few desultory shots. At Concord on the following day, Colonel Barrett, in command of hastily gathered militia and minute-men," gave the first official military order issued by any colonial officer in the contest with Great Britain.

He ordered his troops to advance for the protection of the "north bridge" over Concord River, and with that command the revolutionary war opened. This old sword probably hung quietly by his side at the time he issued the order. Colonel Barrett, of course, had no conception of the momentous century of national life which he, rather than those who signed the Declaration in the following year, ushered in. But with the British troops advancing on the opposite side of the river he probably felt too much present responsibility to indulge in any ornamental flourishes. He faced his responsibility, however, without flinching, and his sword is to-day the most significant relic of the war extant.

The village of Concord has always been a centre of interest for both the American and English people. The three American writers best known in England are Washington Irving, Hawthorne, and Emerson. Two of these names, the latter two, are identified with Concord, as well as those of Thoreau, the poet naturalist," and the younger Ellery Channing. Every English reader is familiar with Hawthorne's charming sketches, Mosses from an Old Manse." The old manse," it will be remembered, was at Concord. Hawthorne resided in it three years it was there he first lived after his marriage, so poor that he had chosen it because the fruit upon the place would pay the small rental.

From the middle of the revolutionary war, in 1778, the village pastor, Rev. Ezra Ripley, had resided there until 1842, the year before Hawthorne made it his home. The latter describes the wheel-marks leading from the door, left by the old clergyman's funeral cortege a twelvemonth before, still visible when he first enters it. In describing the charming little back study in which the mosses were gathered, he speaks of Colonel Barrett's battle and of the pastor who resided at the manse in the year 1775. The study," he says, had three windows.

The third, facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was at this window that the clergyman, who then dwelt in the manse, stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two nations he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side of the river, and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank he awaited in an agony of suspense the rattle of the musketry. It came and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep Grants for Prosecutions and Prisoners Grants for Borough Lunatics Total of Local and Imperial Taxation Sale of Properly Loans effected during the Year Other Receipts 1874, 1875. More. Less.

I 1,012,026 1,038,695 26,070 455,753 345,807 109,946 221,395 33,998 472,321 i 142,805 124,236 198,281 74,045 52,341 57,840 5,499 198 19S 1 2,338,072 2,157,735 180,337 117,016 97,449 9.567 1,054,572 844,145 210,427 453,199 317,984 1 135,215 3,962,859 545,546 1,270,146 937,226 332,920 613,989 649,133 35,144 54,956 57,627 2,671 124,705 125,166 461 14,667 2,341 170,040 206,151 36,111 612,871 390,060 222,811 223,847 191,555 1 32,292 658,252 535,468 I 122,784 3,743,473 I 1 634,079 Total Receipt Expenditure Public Works Police Prosecutions Prisons Lunatics School Boards Loans and Interest Salaries and Poundage. All other Expenses Total The same transfers have affected the loan indebtedness of the municipal boroughs as such. Last year the loans outstanding were returned as 980,559 this year (1875) as It is not that the town councils owe for loans 2,200,000 or so less than they did in 1874, but that under the requirements of the Local Government Board they have added that much to their liabilities as the urban sanitary authority. A municipal expenditure which in the aggregate is more than a million is made up by six boroughs. Liverpool contributed to that sura during the year Manchester, .286,034 Salford, Bradford, Leeds, and Bristol, in all .1,023,805.

The population and the rateable value of each borough is appended to the return. The population (census 1871) of the 226 boroughs is the rateable value .25,713,385. This, after making allowance for Peterborough and St. Ives (Hunts), which appear for the first time in the return of 1875, shows an increase of iQ35323, Or 4.3 per over the valuation of 1874. L77.