TAXES upon every thing which is pleasant to See, Hear, Feel, Smell, and Taste; TAXES upon Warmth, Light, and Locomotion; TAXES on every thing on Earth and the Waters under the Earth; on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; TAXES on the raw Material; TAXES on every value that is added to it by the industry of Man; TAXES on the SAUCE which pampers Man’s appetite, and the DRUG that restores him to health; on the ERMINE which decorates the JUDGE, and the ROPE which hangs the CRIMINAL; on the BRASS NAILS of the COFFIN, and the RIBBANDS of the BRIDE. AT BED or AT BOARD, COUCHANT or LEVANT, WE MUST PAY. The School Boy whips his TAXED Top; The Beardless Youth manages his TAXED Horse with a TAXED Bridle on a TAXED Road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his Medicine which has paid 7 PER CENT, into a Spoon which has paid 30 PER CENT, throws himself back upon his CHINTZ BED which has paid 22 PER CENT, MAKES HIS WILL, and expires in the arms of an Apothecary who has paid £100 for the privilege of putting him to death. HIS WHOLE PROPERTY IS THEN TAXED FROM 2 to 10 PER CENT; Besides the Probate, large Fees are demanded for burying him in the Chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on TAXED MARBLE; and he is then gathered to his Fathers to be TAXED NO MORE. The old broadsides are now represented by the leaflets and posters which so plentifully abound during modern elections. Within the last thirty years election posters have assumed many different developments, though, as a rule, it must be said that they are lacking in the incisive if rather brutal force which characterised the cartoons and caricatures of other days. The attempt once made by the late Mr. Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, to put a tax upon lucifer matches, called forth, I remember, a perfect flood of ephemeral literature, as well as a quantity of derisive illustrations, which no doubt played some part in causing the abandonment of what was regarded as a very unpopular tax. A terra-cotta statuette of Mr. Lowe standing upon a match-box is one of my treasures, and another is a match-box crowned with the bust of the politician in question.