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first awakening, and seeing the apparition, the youth that was to be frightened very coolly looked his companion, the ghost, in the face, and said, 'I know you; this is a good joke; but you see I am not frightened. Now you nay vanish.' The ghost stood still. 'Come,' said the youth, 'that is enough. I shall get angry; away!' Still the ghost moved not. By heavens!' ejaculated the young man, if you do not, in three minutes, go away, I'll shoot you.' He waited the time, deliberately levelled his pistol, fired, and with a scream at the immovability of the figure, became convulsed, and soon afterwards died. The very instant he believed it to be a ghost, his human nature fell before it."

THE INVISIBLE LADY.

In the year 1804, an invisible lady and acoustic temple were exhibited in Boston, as an "Extraordinary Aerial Phenomenon." Its body was made of glass It gave answers to questions asked by visitors. In London, a few years ago, there was shown an apparatus consisting of a four-footed stand, and several trumpet-mouthed tubes, from any one of which spectators received ready answers to questions.

The

answers were said to come from the "invisible girl;" but the true explanation of the puzzle was, that a secret tube, in the legs of the apparatus, communicated the sounds to a girl in a neighboring apartinent. Probably something similar was arranged in the glass body exhibited in Boston; and if we mistake not, during the sojourn of Joice Heth, of more recent

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notoriety, at the Albany Museum, a shrewd Albanian, after a minute and diligent examination, made the wonderful discovery that the old lady, or nurse of Washington, was composed of India rubber, and was made to breathe, speak, cry, sing, &c., by the aid of ventriloquism!

In a case of spirit rappings, Professor Grimes discovered that the party had contrived to have some levers concealed beneath the floor, and by means of certain little pegs coming through where the rappers sat, connecting with the levers, all nicely poised on a balance, they placed their feet upon them, and produced the raps at pleasure. And in the case of the Rochester rappers, when their ankles were firmly held by the committee of investigation, it is said a servant girl rapped with her knuckles under the floor. Mrs. Culver, who had been instructed by the Fox family, and had practised with them a while, afterwards renounced the craft, and exposed this among other deceptions to the world. "The girl," she says, "was instructed to rap whenever she heard their voices calling for spirits."

SORCERERS IN THE EAST.

THE operations of the men sorcerers in India are quite scientific. They set about their work in a business-like manner, and in sight of the house of their intended victim the mystic caldron begins to boil and bubble. The victim, however, is not to be terrified out of his senses. What are his enemy's fires and

incantations to him? He takes no notice, and continues to live on as though there was not a sorcerer in the world. But that smoke: it meets his eye the first object every morning. That ruddy glare: it is the last thing he sees at night. That measured but inarticulate sound: it is never out of his ear. His thoughts dwell on the mystical business. He is preoccupied, even in company. He wonders what they are putting into the pot, and if it has any connection with the spasm that has just shot through him. He becomes nervous; he feels sick; he cannot sleep from thinking; he cannot eat for that horrid broth that bubbles forever in his mind. He gets worse and worse, and dies! But this empire of the imagination is beaten in Java, where it is supposed that a housebreaker, by throwing a handful of earth upon the beds of the inmates, completely incapacitates them from moving to save their property. The man who is to be robbed, on feeling the earth fall upon him, lies as motionless as if bound hand and foot. He is under a spell, which he feels unable to break.

SINGULAR METAMORPHOSES.

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In the East, men are believed to be frequently metamorphosed sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily into tigers. The voluntary transformation is effected merely by eating a certain root, whereupon the person is instantly changed into a tiger; and when tired of this character, he has only to eat another, when, as quick as thought, he subsides from a

tiger into a man. An individual of an inquiring disposition' once felt a strong curiosity to know the sensations attendant on transformation; but, being a prudent man, he set about the transformation with all necessary precaution. Having provided himself with

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"the insane root

That takes the reason prisoner,"

he gave one also to his wife, desiring her to stand by and watch the event, and as soon as she saw him fairly turned into a tiger, to thrust it into his mouth. She promised, but her nerves were not equal to the performance. As soon as she saw her husband fixed in his new form, she took to flight, carrying in her hand, in the confusion of her mind, the root that would have restored him to her faithful arms. And so it befell that the poor tiger-man was obliged to take to the woods, and for many a day he dined on his old neighbors of the village, but was at last shot, and recognized!

In this superstition will be seen the prototype of the wolf mania of medieval Europe. In Brittany, men betook themselves to the forests in the shape of wolves, out of a morbid passion for the amusement of howling and ravening; but if they left in some secure place the clothes they had thrown off to prepare for the metamorphosis, they had but to reassume them to regain their natural forms. But sometimes a catas trophe, like that above related, took place: the wife discovered the hidden clothes, and carrying them home, in the innocent carefulness of her heart, the poor husband lived and died a w lf!

PERNICIOUS ERRORS RELATING TO HEALTH

In a former part of this volume, we have spoker. of several impositions upon the credulity of the public, in matters appertaining to health. The astrologists have told us that "some plants are only to be plucked at the rising of the dogstar, when neither sun nor moon shine, while others are to be cut with a golden knife, when the moon is just six days old." To some particular plants "a string must be fastened, a hungry dog tied thereto, who, being allured by the smell of roasted flesh set before him, may pluck it up by the roots." At one time, the vegetable oil of swallows was considered a potent remedy. It was prepared "by compounding twenty different herbs with twenty live swallows, well beaten together in a mortar." Another medicine was prepared from the raspings of a human skull; another from the moss, growing on the head of a thief, who had been gibbeted and left to hang in the air. In addition to these, we have had "the powder of a mummy; the liver of frogs; the blood of weasels; an ointment made of sucking whelps; the marrow of a stag; and the thigh bone of an ox.” And we have numerous modern nostrums scarcely better than these, by which the gullible public are often sorely victimized.

There are many opinions among the people, which prove highly deleterious in being carried into practice. For instance, that we must "stuff a cold to cure it," when the reverse of the case is the only safe mode of procedure. In a cold, the lungs are already loaded and congested with accumulations of muco-purulent

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