oT 
MONTHLY 
HE 
MAGAZINE. 
No.407.] 
MARCH 1, 1825. 
[Price 2s. 
Torics of the Monru. 
THE difficulty, on the present occasion, 
is not in finding a subject for our periodical 
disquisition, but in selecting from several 
that which may be most fitting for our pur- 
pose. 
Tue CATHOLIC QUESTION, or Bill for the 
Suppression of the Catholic Association, is un- 
doubtedly that which has excited, and ought 
to excite, the largest portion of popular at- 
tention. But this belongs, in all propriety, 
to the Review of Politics, and will find its 
place accordingly. 
Tue Joint-Stock CoMPANIES is a sub- 
ject which, for several successive months, 
we have hung in terrorem over the heads 
of dashing speculators; and relative to 
which, we have repeatedly sounded (we 
hope, not quite in vain) the tocsin of alarm 
to awaken the infatuated dupes of rapacious 
projectors from dreams of anticipated opu- 
lence, which must end, even if they entail 
not national calamity, in individual disap- 
pointment and ruin. 
But this’ involves more considerations, 
humane, moral and political, and requires 
more minute and accurate discriminations, 
than can be comprised in a single essay. 
All Joint-Stock Companies are not neces- 
sarily either injurious monopolies, or nefa- 
rious bubbles. There are some, undoubt- 
edly, which may be productive of national 
advantages ; and some that are grounded 
(though the superstructure of hope may be 
embellished with too flattering an osterta- 
tion) on solid and weil-authorized calcula- 
tion. We would winnow the wheat from 
the chaff. An article of great value, as 
well as labour and research, and extending 
through several pages, will be found in 
another part of our present number, (see p. 
145-152,) which may perhaps be regarded 
‘as the best introduction that can be 
desired, to the purposed investigation, as 
furnishing essential data for the discrimina- 
tion to which we haye alluded. Another 
article will, also, be found, even in our 
critical department (Monthly Report of Do- 
mestic and Foreign Literature,) in which 
one essential line of such discrimination is 
distinctly and judiciously drawn, The &pace 
Montury Mac. No, 407, 
allotted, respectively, to these, is reason suffi- 
cient, on the score of yariety, why our in- 
troductory pages should be devoted. to some 
other subject. 
Mr. Farey’s Paper, alluded to, on the 
Joint-Stock Companies already incorporated, 
from the mass of aceurate information it com- 
presses and brings distinctly into view, we 
are perfectly aware, was entitled to a con- 
spicuous station in the vanward of our cor- 
respondence ; but our arrangements were so 
far advanced, and so considerable a portion 
of our adopted matter was already in type, 
before that valuable document came to 
hand, that nothing but its great importance 
could have procured its insertion, this 
month, at all; and having assigned to it, 
though not exactly the place we could have 
desired, the most conspicuous station which 
circumstances would permit, we shall select, 
for the immediate subject of our prefatory 
animadversions, a topic, as remote as the 
occurrences of the month can present. 
THE MORALS or tur STAGE, 
a AND OF 
THE PUBLIC PRESS. 
MPPGERE is a subject connected with 
Theatrical transactions, which it 
was perhaps expected that we should 
have noticed in our preceding number : 
we allude, of course, to the disturbances 
excited on Mr. Kean’s precipitant re- 
appearance at Drury Lane, on the 24th 
of the month, after the disclosures 
which had taken place on the 17th, in 
the trial, Cox v. Kean, in the Court of 
King’s Bench. But. as! circumstances 
had prevented us from being personally 
present, and as we could not rest with 
a very implicit faith on the accuracy 
of the daily press upon a subject in 
which it had taken so decidedly a 
hostile part, we were not disposed to 
run the hazard of entering facts upon 
our record, before we had ascertained 
their authenticity; or of representing 
to our distant readers as the conduct 
of the metropolitan public, what we 
suspected to have been the contentions 
of two theatrical factions, inflamed by 
instigations scarcely less indecorous than 
the offences. so vehemently: denounced. 
of 
