418 
particular, the same plan in the forma- 
tion of the rails and vehicles, the natu- 
ral results will be confusion, unneces- 
sary expense, delay, and all the con- 
comitant evils peculiar to unorganized 
plans; in illustration whereof, I refer 
my readers to the present scientific ma- 
nagement of roads, canals, and coasting 
vessels. 
In order to fix upon one uniform 
plan forthe whole country (and I rely 
upon thé interest .of each company to 
support my proposition), it is essen- 
tially necessary to obtain the decision 
of a National Rail-way Board, duly 
authorized by Parliament, to give every 
assistance to the introduction of this 
new system of general internal commu- 
nication, and empowered to fix upon 
the different models, after examining 
the competent persons, in order to de- 
velope the most eligible plan. This 
once ascertained, the necessary dupli- 
cates and models might be transmitted, 
by each company, to the respective con- 
tractors for the work; and as the mo- 
del of one would be that of all, no want 
of materials or ‘carriages could be felt 
in any part of the country. This uni- 
formity in the construction of rails and 
yehicles will enable the manufacturers 
of the different articles to keep an 
abundant supply, in all parts wherever 
this plan may be introduced. The 
wheels and axles will be the only parts 
of the vehicles confined to the model : 
the body may be made after any shape, 
or to particular fancy. 
X 
With what persevering industry and 
partial favour do our Ministers devote 
their time and talents to improve our 
colonial affairs, and how blindly do the 
public magnify the importance of such 
measures, whilst this scheme of per- 
manent wealth at home appears a 
matter of secondary consideration! 
This combines every advantage—com- 
mercial, agricultural and social; the 
other is merely of a speculative and 
very uncertain nature. By a compari- 
son of our home and colonial trade, a 
more correct idea would be formed of 
the vast utility of this measure; and it 
may further be remarked, that this 
scheme would not only add fresh trea- 
sures to our home resources, but give 
the greatest impulse to every branch of 
our foreign trade throughout the united 
kingdom. We have no institution in 
England so worthy of the attention of 
the statesman and financier as this, and 
there is no branch of our revenue 
New Wants. 
[Dee. I, 
which could be so productive and 
equitable. 
Your’s, &c. Tuomas Gray. 
Nottingham, 1st Oct. 1825. 
a 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
New Wants. 
HE great improvements that have 
been made, and are still in pro- 
gress, in this country, by means of 
steam-engines, joint-stock companies, 
rail-roads,, and aérial navigation, go 
far towards providing for ail the wants 
of all the human race—at least, to- 
wards reducing all their wants to one, 
which may be summed up in one little 
insignificant word of two short syl- 
lables—Money : or, as a gentleman of 
our acquaintance, fond of the mystic 
number, with Demosthenean energy, 
tripartized it, Money! Money! Money!. 
But total exemption from want—every 
wish gratified—every object of enjoy- 
ment purchased—presents an image 
too horrible to be steadfastly contem- 
plated. To have no want unsatisfied 
were, in fact, to want every thing: and 
perfect plenum would be commensurate 
with absolute privation. The mind 
would have no room—no motive for 
enjoyment—no sphere of action ; the 
current of- intellectual life would be 
lost in the stagnant pool of apathy and 
ennui. In other words, the power— 
the necessity of entertaining unaccom- 
plished desires once superseded, the 
great charm’ of mundane existence is 
lost—is extinguished for ever. In Vol- 
taire’s Zadig, the Assyrian grandee, 
who has attained to the fruition of 
every outrageous desire, finds life be- 
come an insupportable burthen; and a 
poet of our own, more epigrammatically 
perhaps, than accurately, sings 
‘* Man never is, but always to be blest,” 
for the expectation is, in reality, the 
bliss. We may safely, then, conclude 
that, while wants are necessary to plea- 
sure, the extinction of them would not 
increase the sum of human happiness : 
and it becomes a duty, on the score of 
prudence (since projectors and inven- 
tors are in such mighty haste to super- 
sede and anticipate all our wants), con- 
fidently to stare the danger in theface, and 
before the evil come too close, to devise, 
if by any manner of means we can, an 
adequate and precautionary remedy : 
oneimmediately presentsitself—itis that 
of granting patents and premiums to all 
good subjects and friends of humanity, 
who shall exercise their ingenuity in 
the 
