With a penchant for politics, William Tait's magazine denounced press taxes for three decades. Items in which it compared itself to contemporaries included valuable data but disappeared quickly.

1. [Tait, William]. “A Tête à Tête with Mr. Tait.” 1 (1832): 9–16.

Pledged that Tait's would be different from 1832 periodicals of “prosing disquisitions, spoony tales, pointless epigrams, and endless twaddle” and be more like the generation of John Wilkes when serials featured “the livingnesses of the day.”

2. [Lauder, T. D.]. “The Revolution.” 1 (1832): 17–25.

Pleaded for the end of newspaper duties so that knowledge could spread.

3. [Tait, William and Christian Johnstone]. “To Correspondents.” 1 (1832): 139 (verso), 383, 515.

Notified contributors that Tait's failure to publish submissions was not always due to their “inferior merit” but also to tardy arrival, repetition of ones already printed, and unavailable space. Long articles, which “generally proceed from dullness, carelessness, or enthusiasm,” were unsuitable for readers of periodicals. “The readiness of writers of established fame and the eagerness of young volunteers full of talent and enthusiasm” to pen for Tait's was “gratifying.” At the request of the majority of contributors, replies were sent privately.

4. [Tait, William]. “Keep Him Down.” 1 (1832): 220–23.

Understood that in the hierarchy of periodicals there were “many most useful and popular kinds of literature, which the quarterly people would sooner die than acknowledge.”