every active co-partnership to five persons. But thousands of firms really exist with what is called sleeping partners, consisting of elderly men and females, who share in the family concern. Moreover, numerous respectable companies exist in this commercial country, managed under legal deeds of trust, where the profits flow into hundreds of shares and sub-divisions. Therefore, if it were attempted to enforce the old law against such co-partnerships, it would destroy the most flourishing concerns of the nation.

Q. Has it ever been enforced?

A. I believe not, for it would prove an unfortunate policy, if not a vain attempt, to enforce an old law against a general custom. Custom, being antecedent to law itself, is generally respected by every judge of the land.

Q. But have there never been any losses incurred in consequence of such co-partnerships?

A. I believe in very few instances—where the companies had either a bad foundation, bad management, or unavoidable misfortunes.

Q. Do you apprehend any losses in your plan?

A. The foundation of the National Light and Heat Company is more solid than any other establishment whatever; it has no risks of any kind; it exceeds in benefits the Water Companies, by gaining four valuable products from the destruction of a great nuisance-that of smoke. These products amount to above £20, in every chaldron of fuel, and can be made from three to four times, in twenty-four hours.* Hence, with a tolerable good management, no losses or misfortunes can possibly happen.

*Three years since, £10,000 were subscribed, by one hundred

Q. Will you have no rival companies?

A. In this respect, the National Light and Heat Company, being founded on a patent invention and privilege, is certainly more secure than all our flourishing Insurance and even Water Companies. It operates exclusively in the whole realm and colonies, by granting licences, instructions, and apparatus, under the patent right, until a charter be obtained to render it more respectable.

Q. Will no farther calls be made on your subscribers? A. Never, with my consent; because, by my calculation, we have money enough with 20,000, (five pound deposits,) to begin our operations in several houses, manufactories, streets, and parishes. From these profits we can gradually deduct any farther instalments, to make up the £50 capital, if this should ever be wanted.

Q. To what extent do you suppose it may be carried?

A. If our Governors, but especially the Executive Committee, are gentlemen of active dispositions to assist my endeavours, we may effect almost a general application of the saving, all over the metroplis, in a few years, besides granting licences, &c. for the country and colonies. Hence, in about four or five years after beginning to operate, we may reasonably expect to carry it to a tenth proportion of my estimates, when our shares will be nearly on a par with those of the New River Company.

N. B. A number of other questions have been asked me

candidates, to form a Coke Company, because many of those gentlemen were fully persuaded, that my COKE being introduced, would alone make their fortunes. But this product is only the seventh-part of the whole saving.

repeatedly, but they are by far too simple—often too puerile, to appear in print; therefore, I have only selected such questions, and given such answers, as, I humbly conceive, to be intelligible to every capacity.

Should any gentleman be struck with any other doubt or question, not included in the above, I shall answer them, on application, at the Committee room.

Pall Mall, 97 and 98.

F. A. WINSOR.

EXTRACTS FROM A PAMPHLET ENTITLED, MR. W. NICHOLSON'S ATTACK, IN HIS PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, ON MR. WINSOR AND THE NATIONAL LIGHT AND HEAT COMPANY; WITH MR. WINSOR'S DEFENCE. A FEW days since I was informed, that a Mr. William Nicholson, of Soho Square, had written against me and my Establishment-the National Light and Heat Company.

Unacquainted with that gentleman, and unconscious of ever having offended a perfect stranger to me, and to my concern; curiosity led me to send for the Philosophical and Chemical Journal, which could not be traced at any bookseller's in Westminster, but was at last obtained in Soho Square.

After having read Mr. N.'s unprovoked, unphilosophical, and, I will add, ungentlemanlike attack,-for such, all impartial readers must deem it,—I considered whether the dignity of my undertaking would allow me publicly to notice so curious a production: for I had long since determined not to answer anybody, or anything, but what should be characteristic of a real gentleman, or of real science. 1

leave it to the candour of the reader whether Mr. N.'s bears the character of either.

I am extremely sorry Mr. N. has committed himself so far with the public, as either to force me into a complete silence, or to expose the folly of his voluntary, or rather officious, provocation.

His laboured insinuations to raise, if possible, public suspicion against my private character, conscious honour, and rectitude, prompted me to overlook with a smile; but I think it due to the value of my cause, and the numerous respectable subscribers who honour me with daily increas ing confidence (even since that personal attack appeared in print, without my hearing of it till seven weeks after) by the great increase of their shares, that I should prove to them and the public, that their generous confidence has not been placed in an individual who will suffer himself to be attacked with impunity by any man; at least if that man be not entirely beneath the notice of a reply.

It is this consideration alone which induces me to reply to Mr. Wm. Nicholson, who, I suppose, has some reputation at stake among the correspondents of his Journal.

From the lateness of the period this journal comes before me (as I seldom read monthly publications), and from constantly devoting my time to my subscribers, public and private lectures, and experiments, I can only be cursory in my reply. I hope it will sufficiently elucidate Mr. N.'s cursory remarks on his anti-philosophical and anti-chemical theme:

"Whether Mr. Winsor's National Light and Heat Company deserves public encouragement."

It is a curious argument, that Mr. Nicholson, by his peremptory decision, should deem "the National Light and

Heat Company undeserving of encouragement;" BECAUSE he "knows absolutely nothing of Mr. Winsor;" BECAUSE he seems to think it not worth while to examine the discovery before he condemns the Inventor; BECAUSE he does not seem to entertain the least scientific idea of the great difference between raw smoke lights, known above centuries before Murdoch, Diller, and others, but proved unfit for general application (for hundreds have in vain attempted to introduce them in England, and abroad, exclusive of the ingenious French engineer, Le Bon's Thermolamps at Paris); and lastly, BECAUSE Mr. N. and his learned friends, have perhaps encountered insurmountable difficulties, which they do not wish to avow, which all chemists know, but which by five years' constant costly experiments I have surmounted.

These facts Mr. N. may be informed of, and get better acquainted with me, if he will deign to oppose, on real philosophical grounds, and not attempt to throw obsolete statutes across the beneficial application of valuable discoveries.

But should Mr. N. again descend from his own philosophical sphere, and attack me in the manner and style he has done, I may perhaps be tempted to examine Mr. N.'s Journal, where, from the first specimen now before me, I may find an ample field of obtruding my acquaintance on Mr. N. and his learned correspondents, the same as he has now forced himself on me and my concerns.

It may, perhaps, be deemed unfortunate by Mr. N. and his friends, that my discovery is not brought forward under the patronage of some dignified member of an academy, or scientific institution, but by a mere stranger, rushing like Saul into the sphere of prophets.