a plank was kept balanced on a log of wood, for the new Noodle to walk back and forward on blindfolded, a dozen or fourteen times. Stepping on to each end, he would have to make a slight ascent, until he passed the balance, when all at once his descent was sudden and calculated to tumble him down. He was also run along by two men as supporters. And further, he had the comfort to break his shins against the end of the plank, in stepping back upon it. This is what men and christians play at! The "Odd Fellows" Societies would have been put down with the cor.. responding societies, during the French revolutionary war, had it not been, that the Duke of Cumberland was a member and their patron. So you see that royalty can entwine itself with and protect any and every kind of degrading nonsense-any thing to keep people from reading and thinking-any vice but that vice in the eyes of royalty called sedition and blasphemy-the practical part of which is the only proof of a people's virtue. Sir Francis Burdett once said, that he should never despair of the country so long as there was one man in it bold and honest enough to print and publish all public truths; but without such a man he should despair of it. Where has he been looking, or of what has he been thinking, during your career? Or is such a man to be applauded in secret and not to have public support? Pardon this political digression, a woman's fingers are moved by the same nerves that move her tongue; and if dumbness in her be a good quality, you know well, and so does Judge Bailey, who was never made angry by any one but me, and that a religious anger, that it is a goodness, to the possession of which I do not make pretensions.

The Lodge in Newcastle Street was called the Mother Lodge of the Imperial Order; but who was the Father does not appear. Perhaps the Holy Ghost, whose omnipotence extends to affairs of crim. con. God help me for letting that phrase slip, and I scorn to erase it, since it is so near the truth, and that which we have all been so religiously taught from our youth upwards. In matters of religion, all women forget themselves, there are no indecencies or indelicacies here, and so it seems with me when touching such a subject. It may be as well to mend the matter, by telling the smiling reader, that crim. con., in my vocabulary, as I believe it to be in that of the lawyers, who, for a world, could say nothing unchaste or painful to a female, is an abbreviation of criminal conversation. So, blasphemy and sedition, in which we have so largely dealt, and for which we can shew our scars, are a part and parcel of the law of crim. con.

There remains a mystery in the immaculate conception and virgin birth of a Lodge of Odd Fellows; but when a lodge gives birth to a new Lodge, it is called swarming; as appropriate a term here, as when applied to other insects.

At the lodge held, in the Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, a hailing or addressing sign is used, by putting the fore finger of the right

hand at the side of the nose, as children do when teasing or mocking each other. This is used in many other lodges.

This will leave nothing unexposed, that " Odd Fellows" wish to conceal; and the one who wished you might die in your cell, before you got to such an exposure, may now see, that the God of" Odd Fellows" has no power to give force to such a curse. I pity the wretch that could use such an expression, but it affords one of many proofs, that such associations make men worse than perhaps they otherwise would be; because they all hold to a pe--` culiar vice, in the secrecy of their swarming orders.

I was so pleased with my towns woman's exposure, that I felt an irresistible impulse to add something to her example, and to. give her my name. She must know me: and I do look forward with pleasant ideas at a meeting.

Hoping, that your female correspondents will increase in Nottingham, and every where else, and hoping also, that they will advance far enough to give you and the public their names, that you may be more and more encouraged and assisted to hunt out and hunt down vice and folly, wherever it now lurks, and particularly that of the odd fellows, every one of whom ought to have an odd wife. I remain, dear Sir, most respectfully yours,

SUSANNAH WRIGHT.

P. S. I promise you before I begin, that I will try to make one P. S. do; though, for the length of that one I will not answer. My townswomen of Nottingham are generally intelligent and spirited, and I hope that your exposure of the little disgraces that are to be found among them will be duly felt and tend to their feeling ashamed of them. There, as every where else, the alehouse is the grand whirlpool of vice and folly: though I am happy to say, that I found a husband, who, by his reasonings, his readings and thinkings, had escaped it, or was never so far drawn in, as to suffer in pocket or character by it. The Lodge of Odd Fellows, to which he belonged, was held to be a resort of select company, and the only means of preserving a select company; but, I mean to argue, that the most select and most proper company for a man, after his hours of labour, is his wife and children at home. All other select companies are bad companies; and the man, who talks about going to an alehouse or tavern for the sake of company, rather than for the sake of liquor, is alike a hypocrite and a bad man to his wife and family. Has a wife no need of select company? Has she no need of recreation? Is it proper that she shall not only be confined at home, to make a good wife, but solitarily confined; and, in addition to that, to have her rest broken, while her good husband is seeking select company at the tavern or alehouse, for the purpose of coming home worse than a beast, from intoxication, as the summit of the comforts of his good homely wife?

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 135, Fleet Street.

No. 22, VOL. 12.] LONDON, Friday, Dec. 2, 1825. [PRICE 6d.

JOINT STOCK BOOK COMPANY.

It is proposed to form a company to be called the BOOK COMPANY.

The undersigned projector confesses that his object is to make the printing press as powerful in his hands as combined capital can make it.

To do this, much of the direction of this company will rest with him; but that direction will be subject to the counsel and correction of a committee of subscribers, and every affair of the company will be conducted in the most open, most honourable and most business-like manner, courting the scrutiny of every subscriber.

The class of books which this company will first offer to the public will be complete editions, in the English language, of the work of standard authors, who have written in any language, with a view to human improvement. And the general rule, though exceptions may arise, will be, to print old known standard works, that might not be in print, or that might not have been before printed in the English Language. The books of this company are to be finished in the best literary, editorial and operative style, avoiding all unnecessary expense as to embellishments.

The shares are to be of one hundred pounds each, transferable, and to receive an interest of five per cent, to be paid annual and regularly independent of all dividends or aug mentations of shares that may arise from further profits.

A subscription for a full share can alone entitle the subscriber to an eligibility to the committee; but the undersigned will receive, and be responsible for any sum of five pounds and upwards that is the aliquot part of one hundred, of which he will form shares and take them in his own name, and for which a proportionate interest and dividend shall be as regularly paid as for a full share.

Any full shareholder, who may prefer the concealment of his or her name may receive the same advantage by a reliance on the undersigned.

As some responsibility will attach to the printing and pub

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 135, Fleet Street.

lishing, the undersigned will take it upon himself at the low charge of five per cent. which is but the half of that which is ordinarily charged for publishing. Thus the company will have no dealings but with the paper-merchant and the undersigned, and be exempt from every kind of liability.

Apartments will be successively taken proportioned to the extension of the company's property, and, as early as possible, it will possess its own printing materials, as the cheapest means of printing.

Until printing materials can be obtained, the undersigned will get the work of the company done in the most economical manner. And until a committee can be appointed to approve or improve, he will appoint such a person or persons as are necessary to the book-keeping and wholesale publishing department.

Subscriptions for shares will be taken throughout the first quarter by the undersigned, and the press will be set to work with the new year. Such shares as are taken before the first of January, 1826, can alone be entitled to receive the first quarter's interest and so on in succession before the first of April, July, and October.

Whatever may be the sums advanced before the first of January, the business of the company will proceed, as we could not use a large capital at once, if it were possessed. RICHARD CARLILE.

OBSERVATIONS.

The above is the outline of an important plan, which I have long purposed to make. I disclaim all idea of profit from it, beyond that of a shareholder and a bookseller. We have no Lord Nugents, no Duke of Buckingham to patronize, for pay, our joint stock company; but we have the best object in view for which an association can take place. It was well observed, by the author of Christianity Unveiled; that truth will force its way to thrones. I begin to think, that it has happened in this country, and it now remains, a last important point, to make truth rebound from the throne to every inhabitant of the Island. We must assist the throne in the propagation of truth, and such a throne shall have my support.

As far as I can exercise influence in this company, I will pledge myself, that it shall be conducted to the profit and great profit of the shareholders. Quarterly reports of progress, of books printed, printing, and sold shall be made, while I am at liberty to do it, and my ambition will be, however large or however small that printing and sale may be, that it shall appear before the public in a manner that shall become no bad lesson for other companies, and for

the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reference to his public revenue and expenditure.

I have not issued this prospectus without a preparation to begin having been already made: to act rather than to speculate, being my manner of motion. I am already promised various sums, the amount of one of which is of itself five hundred pounds. On the first of January 1826, the JOINT STOCK BOOK COMPANY will date its origin, and, if possible, the first work that is to issue from it, shall be published on that day.

It is distinctly to be understood, that I shall hold myself responsible for all monies intrusted to my care, and for the whole concern, until a proper committee and direction shall take it out of my hands. Under this view, I can only offer to the shareholders my past conduct as a security for the future. As far as any person, may wish their names concealed under mine, their wishes shall be honourably complied with.

Congdon's Hotel, Exeter,

Nov. 25, 1825.

RICHARD CARLILE.

TO THE REPUBLICANS OF THE ISLAND OF

ALBION,

And to all those in the British Isles, who may desire to possess Republican Benefits and Republican Virtues.

CITIZENS, Congdon's Hotel, Exeter, Nov. 25, 1825. IT is due to you, from me, that, after six years of close imprisonment, on beginning to move over a greater space of the surface of the earth than the walls of Dorchester Gaol afforded, I narrate my sensations. I have told you that, my leaving the Gaol was felt as a mere change of lodgings; though, I confess, with respect to my hosts, from the disagreeable to the agreeable. The last act of my host. the Gaoler was, to tell me, that the sooner I left the better, and from the time that he was in possession of my warrants of discharge, to my quitting the Gaol, he scarcely lost sight of me. So sudden was my removal, that my only escort to the town was my two youngest boys, and the Gaoler was not polite enough to say :-" pray stay until the rain is over, or take an umbrella." However, I was glad to turn my back to that most disagreeable fellow for the last time, and though I have eyed him passing in the streets of Dorchester, I have not the least wish to see him again, unless I can move him by the power of a legal warrant into a court of justice.

In Dorchester, my reception was decidedly good and