9(5 'Note* of the Month Juz,i% 



the advantage of having three or four newspapers to the present one in 

 our country towns. Too great facility in setting up newspapers is as 

 great a nuisance as a neighbourhood can conceive. In America there is 

 that facility. Every fellow who can command the price of a printing 

 machine sets up a newspaper ; and as his object is to make money, money 

 is hunted after by every insolence and art of low-cunning and privileged 

 dexterity. Libel, as being the boldest display, and scandal, as being the 

 most poignant, are always the first distinctions of the rising paper ; and 

 by this system, private character is perpetually on the rack. 



We hate monopoly and taxes as much as the freest Yankee that ever 

 squatted in the Illinois, and defied the armies of the earth to lay hold on 

 his naked hide. But we are fully satisfied that excessive ease in excori- 

 ating our neighbour's character, or the magnificent privilege of libelling 

 religion, law, and government, are not to be reckoned among the advan- 

 tages of society ; and so far we have no objection to see the Press retained 

 in hands that, if not altogether perfect, are yet not completely trained to 

 dip for lucre into offence and insult to every name, honest or honourable 

 in the empire." 



" New Power of the Moral Licenser It is said that a bill is to be 

 brought into Parliament by Lord Ellenborough, enacting that in future 

 the length of the petticoats worn by the Italian Opera- dancers, is to be 

 sent to George Colman, previously to his licensing any ballet at the 

 King's Theatre." 



George Colman may be fairly laughed at on this occasion, or on any 

 other. He has made too many people laugh, in another place, as the 

 parliamentary orators say, to object to the broadest visitation of ridicule. 

 Lord Ellenborough is pretty much in the same condition, and notwith- 

 standing his official five thousand pounds a year, his carmine and his 

 curls, he is a very laughable personage. But, for all that, the Opera 

 costumes might, not indecorously, undergo some regulation. If complete 

 exposure of the figure in flesh-coloured silk be meritorious, the Opera 

 ladies have all the merit of the most utter absence of disguise. Yet 

 George Colman must, we fear, content himself with nibbling at love 

 speeches, and " angelic" interjections in melodrames, at least until 

 his powers as licenser are enlarged, and the morals of the opera cou- 

 lisses can be entrusted to the writer, who has, for the last forty years, 

 done such wonders for the morals of the Green Room. 



" Steam Boats. In 1814, the United Kingdom boasted 1 1 steam-boats, 

 averaging 50 tons each, and manned by 65 men. In 1829, the port of 

 London alone had 167, averaging 100 tons each ; and the whole number 

 in England amounted to 342; the tonnage to 31,108 ; and the crews to 

 2,745. 



" The number of steam-boats in France is thirty-five. The first boat 

 possessed by the French (in 1819) was an old vessel named the Rob 

 Roy, that used to ply in the Firth of Forth. It has been rebaptized 

 the " Henri Quatre," and is employed at present as mail-boat between 

 Calais and Dover. Five of the French boats are not yet launched 

 they are intended for the service of the expedition to Africa. The 

 Russians have two steam boats. There are six on the Rhine. One 

 plies between Seville, Cadiz, Gibraltar, and Carthagena : it formerly 

 belonged to Sir J. M. Doyle. There are two at Calcutta the Enter- 



