to the country; and is further encouraged by a consideration that the plan he has to offer promises at least as many advantages to the public and the subscribers, as most of those which have been lately proposed for public sanction.

It is proposed to raise a capital of five millions sterling (with a power of extending the capital, if required), in shares of one pound cach, five per cent, ou each share to be paid at the time of subscribing, and the remainder by such instalments as shall be convenient to the subscribers (no person to be allowed more than ten shares), for the purpose of establishing A GRAND NATIONAL, PHILANTHROPIC CHANDLER'S

SHOP COMPANY.

The principal object the Projector has in view is, to establish a grand depot, or warehouse, in some centrical situation, which, by means of the Company's Agents (who are to be settled in every market-town and sea port in the kingdom), is to be kept constantly supplied with the best sort of those articles usually composing the stock-in-trade of a chandler; that is to say, tea, sugar, bread, butter, candles, tobacco, soap, snuff, pins, wafers, writing-paper, red herrings, pickled herrings, sand, brick dust, and many others too numerous to be mentioned.

of

That there shall be a station in the neighbourhood every populous street, lane, court, and alley, in the metropolis, and in all the large manufacturing

towns.

That the establishment at each of these stations shall consist of a clerk or book-keeper, and a shop man or woman; and, as it is imagined there will not be more than one thousand of these stations requisite, no difficulty is likely to arise in finding persons (friendsand relations of the earliest subscribers will, of course, be best provided for) sufficiently qualified for the undertaking,

P 6

dertaking, nothing more being deemed necessary than a fair character, and a knowledge of book-keeping by double entry. The salary of the book-keeper or clerk should not exceed 200l. per annum; the others in proportion.

It is recommended that the grand depot or ware. house should be a building in the most finished style of architectural grandeur, in some very public situa tion: if no place sufficiently magnificent can be immediately met with, no time should be lost in setting about a building of the above description; the good effect of flattering the vanity of the subscribers, in these respects, being well known, and the prospect by these means of soon doubling the original value of the shares sufficiently clear.

There are several other matters of a minor nature, such as the source of profit, the number, duties, and salaries of Directors, Auditors, Trustees, Solicitors, Clerks, Warehousemen, Porters, &c. &c.; but these will be more fully explained at the meeting, which it is intended to hold on the 31st of this present month (November), at the Wild Goose, in Blow Bubble Street, where the attendance of such persons as are willing to become subscribers is earnestly requested. του. 19.

I HAVE long had it in my intention to draw your notice to the growing abuse of Joint Stock Companies. They are rising up every day in such abundance, with so little pretension to public countenance, and are established with such facility, that, as your Correspondent Why-not says, it is only necessary to insert an Advertisement in the Newspapers, to procure a Sub,

a Subscription of a Million for any project whatsoever. I hear at this moment of no fewer than a dozen new Companies which are in the contemplation of SpecuFators. There is to be,

1. A British Fishery Company-which, I think, would be commendable, if the great national object of exploring all our Coasts, and taking full advantage of the abundance with which we are blessed, could be effected by such a Society; but this I doubt.

2. A genuine Milk Society.

3. A National Light and Heat Company--to which the Originator might have added, national Intoxication, for the gas will make us drunk without liquor.

4. A British Coal Company-by which we are assured that we are to have the best mains and Pool

measure.

5. A Grand Shields Coal Company.

6. A London Commission Sale Company-This is a sort of Pawn-broking Scheme on a great scale. 7. The Britannic Wine Company.

8. The London Genuine Wine Company. 9. The Old English Ale Brewery*.

10. The British Distillery Company.

11. Another Fire Assurance, the Eagle, being the thirteenth, under Sir William Rawlins, which is to deal under price.

12. A Surrey Institution, for the Promotion of Literature and the Arts.

Besides these, I have heard of a dozen others, which are in embryo-such as a Butcher's Meat Companygrass fed, and of mature age; a Poultry Companywhere the Capons, Turkies, &c. are to be fattened without gin, laudanum, or any other narcotic; a sharp Vinegar Company, to overthrow the present monopoly; a Tobacco and Snuff Company; à Fresh Butter

There are five New Brewery Companies in all.

Company;

Company; a Foreign Fruit Company, to destroy the combination among the Grocers; a Wax and Tallow Candle Company; a real Oil Company; a genuine Tea Company, by Ladies, in which there is to be a Board of Tasters; a Boot and Shoe Company, to put an end to your right and left shops; a Merchant Taylors' Company, to employ females only in the trade; an Upholder's Company, to supply Egyptian Monsters three hundred per cent. under the fashionable price, &c. &c. &c. For, in every article of consumption, in every species of manufacture, in every line of trade, there are now projects of Joint Stock Companies going on. And you will observe, that I have not in the above list enumerated any of those that are already established; though, if I had given you a list of all the Hopes, the Providents, the Philanthropies, and the Fill-pockets of all kinds that have been lately established, I should more forcibly open the eyes of the public to the growing nuisance. It is not confined to the metropolis; for every county, every town, has now its Joint Stock scheme; every Provincial Paper is filled with their plans; every Country Banking Shop has its prospectus; and every where the Treasurers, the Solicitors, the Secretaries, and a Board of Directors, are provided at adequate salaries; for it is a settled point, that the Originator, to save trouble, forms his own Board. The whole machine is therefore prepared to start, and Subscribers are ready, to be taken in.

It would require more space than, I fear, you can assign to the subject, to lay open all the mischiefs with which this new taste for great Companies is fraught. It is not enough that, one after another, they sink into a state of apathy and insignificance; that they utterly fail of producing the good they profess to have in view; that they are found to be profitable only to the knot of Undertakers; and that though

they

they are unproductive to the body of Proprietors, they. are baneful to the community at large; yet day after day they rise up in succession, and the dupes of last year become the dupes of the present. Of course there are exceptions to this statement, and there are objects which can only be embraced by a numerous proprietary. These objects, however, are capable of a clear definition, and must be obvious to every one. For instance,

1. All public works which require not merely a great capital, but many years to complete, during which there can be no return for the money invested, are proper objects for a Joint Stock Company: such are Bridges, Docks, Harbours, Aqueducts, Canals, Railways, Roads, &c. : and accordingly the Legislature have, with some precautions (but certainly with too much facility), erected Companies into Corporations for accomplishing such objects. We say, with too much facility, because they have in many cases suffered valuable tracts of country to be laid waste, or inundated, and nuisances to be established, without a rational project of solid benefit, either to the undertakers or to the public.

2. Institutions where great risk is to be run, and of long continuance, and for which there ought to be an adequate and permanent security, such as Companies for Assurance of every description, and particularly against the hazard of Fire, and Assurance on Lives, are proper objects. Nothing but a great capital, be yond the means of a few individuals, can be a proper basis of security to the public, particularly in Insti tutions for Life Assurance, where a risk may go on twenty, thirty, or forty years, upon an original compact; and thus of course to the individual it is of essential consequence that the fund should not be subjeet to dilapidation, nor to the changes incident to private affairs. I may, perhaps, some day trouble

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you,