. 
13807.] 
mode of action in the internal structure 
of the organs endowed with it.* 
“< If the laws and properties of vegeta- 
ble irritability, on which we have sup- 
posed the circulation of their juices to de- 
pend, be carefully examined, it will ‘be 
found im many respects to differ from ani- 
mal irritability. [tis a fact, sufficiently 
well known, that many plants revive after 
having been dried for a considerable time, 
and that the drying process may be re- 
peated without wholly destroying the life 
of the plant; but muscular irratibility, on 
the contrary, when long suffered to re- 
main mert, is wholly destroyed; because 
it is well known from the laws of irrita- 
bility, that the muscular fibre loses that 
principle, either by a too prolonged con- 
traction, or by being suttered to remain, 
for a great length of time, in a state of 
inaction, or relaxation. Thus then there 
exists in plants a species of irritability, on 
which depends the circulation of the sap, 
and consequently their nutrition, though 
it must, at the same time, be admitted, 
that the laws, by which it is governed, are 
in many respects different trom those of 
animal irritability. 
*“* Are there then other vital functions 
different from irritability, and sensibility, 
with which we are yet unacquainted? 
Jt is not impossible that nature may have 
gradations, or varieties in the animating 
powers, as well as in the external forms 
of organized existences, which regulate 
their economy, and preserve the different 
classes of being in the scale of creation.” 
Your’s, &c. i. 
a — 
Zo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
PENILE utility ef public companies in 
trade must depend upon the object 
of their association. If this be some mea- 
sure of public improvement, or the carry- 
ing on of a business too extensive, and 
requiring too great a capital, for an indi- 
vidual; or to recover an important branch 
of trade out of the grasp of private 
monopoly, in such cases public compa- 
nies are found beneficial to commercial 
ciety. But if, after having effected such 
an object, or when they are formed unoa 
erroneous principles, they go on, collee- 
tively, interfering with the laudable and 
* From some recent experiments, made by 
Delametherie, this principle would appear to 
reside chiefly in the supple elastic transverse 
membranes of the vessels of plants possessing 
a structure similar to the Jymphatic yessels of 
wery insitable animals. 
On the bad Effects of Public Companies. 238 
necessary exertions of individuals, they 
destroy that opportunity for fair and open 
competition, which is a stimulus to indus- 
try andimprovement. A business divid- 
ed amongst ten traders, who have sepa- 
rate interests to urge their respective en- 
deavours, whose claim to public patrons 
age must be successful or unsuccessful, 
according to its merit or demerit, will be 
productive of more benefit to the country, 
than if aggrandized by an associated num- 
ber of men, who are enabled, by the ad- 
vance of a moderate subscription, to 
make large and excluding purchases; to 
render meffectual the exertions of less 
capitalists; and finally, to bring the arti- 
cle of their trathic into the market at a 
price regulated by caprice and covetous- 
ness, 
To whatever extent-the country may 
have been benefited by the numerous 
public Companies formed within the last 
twenty years, (and that it has been much 
and extensively benefited in many in- 
stances is fully admitted,) yet, whilst they 
are liable to be perverted into machines 
of injurious aggrandizement, they should 
be regarded with a due degree of careful 
and jealous apprehension. The late un- 
precedented high price of copper, and its 
effect upon manufactures, at a period 
when the superior workmanship of many 
articles of English wares formed the only 
balance against the inferior price of those 
brought into the markets of the Continent 
by French, German, and Italian artisans, 
seems not to have been made the subject 
of much investigation, Yet it caused a 
stagnation in what remained of our con- 
tnental trade; and many instances might 
be adduced, wherem the preference for 
English manufactures, in foreign mar- 
kets, was rendered useless by the high 
price of copper in our own. ) 
The supply of copper to our manufac- 
turing towns has for some years heen con- 
fined to public companies, which were 
first formed to counteract what was then 
deemed private and arbitrary monopoly, 
The persons assaciating were then con-~ 
sumers, and their views were to obtain the 
metal at a fair and saving price, Since. 
that time the shares have passed into the 
hands of persons who are not consumers, 
and whose interest, therefore, centers in 
making the highest possible profit upon 
the article. With what success their ex- 
ertions have been attended, the manufac- 
turer who has been unable to vend his 
goods, and the proprietor of copper-shares 
who has exulted in his large aud dispro- 
pertionate dividends, have well ascertain- 
ed. 
f 
