the purest gin, and told us to drink freely of it, which we did, and soon felt so happy that we arose from our bed, and went to Mitchell’s Olympic Theatre, where the sweet Mary Taylor was placarded for the Child of the Regiment, and Mitchell for Jem Bags. The gin had now got the better of us, and we talked, and laughed, and hissed the actors, until Mitchell approached the foot-lights, and made an inflammatory speech against us, when a deafening shout arose: “Put him out! put him out!” and out we went, in a mighty hurry, over the heads of ladies and gentlemen. On reaching the outer door, a policeman saw us, whom we had learned to read and write, who accompanied us to the Graham House, and left us at the street door. We staggered up stairs, and got into the bed room of two nervous old maids, who were rigid Grahamites, and as thin as shads, who screamed so frightfully, that we got out as soon as possible, lest they would scratch our eyes out, and tear us to bleeding tatters. We then got into the bed room of Horace Greeley, who poked out his bald head from his straw pillow and scanty Graham bed-clothes, and exclaimed: “Who’s there?” “Thou pale and ghastly shadow! what dost thou in my bed? How dare you enter the sacred precincts of my domestic castle?” “Yon dam drunken vagabond! you are a liar, if you say I’m in your bed. This is my room, and my couch, and if you don’t leave, I’ll throw my boot at your bewildered skull.—Hence! thou miserable sot! Away!” We then approached him, and sat on the side of his narrow cot, and stroked his chin, when he gave us a tremendous blow, in the face, and made our nose bleed copiously. He then arose, and perceiving who we were, expressed the deepest sorrow, and bathed our nostrils, and led us to our room in the attic, and undressed us, and put us to bed, and tucked in the blankets, and after a scathing lecture against intemperance, he left us with a fond good night. We sent for our gin physician, who said that whoever cured us, must cure our nerves, and he could not do it. This we regarded as our final knell, and we began to read the Bible and hymn book, and prepare for death. But a homœopathic physician was strongly recommended, whom we consulted, who gave us phosphorus and aconitum, which revived us like galvanic batteries, and he then told us to exchange Graham bread and mush for beef-soup and tenderloin, and we recovered rapidly. We were teaching a lad, whose dear little sister had the dysentery, with two allopathic butchers in attendance, who, after bleeding, and leeching, and blistering, and suffusing her system with mercury, recommended brandy as a last resort. The little angel had her last fit, as was supposed, and as her father was exhausted and bed-ridden with grief and a burning fever, we went for a coffin towards midnight, and entered a store where there was a lamp in its expiring rays, and rang the bell, when in the drear and narrow perspective, we beheld the lank and greedy grave-digger in his shirt and pants, and black nightcap, approaching us, in about the measured pace of “Hamlet’s Ghost.”—He had a dark lantern, and seemed a hideous spectre emerging from the regions of the dead. We were extremely nervous, and awfully dyspeptic, and unusually depressed from the protracted storm, and could endure his fearful aspect no longer, and when within five paces of our trembling person, we darted from the coffin store, and ran as though the evil Nicholas was after us. The sexton suspected us for a thief, and chased us several blocks, but we flew like a whirlwind, and the devil himself could not have caught us. On reaching the abode of the suffering innocent, we found that she had emerged from the last fit, and off we scampered for the homœopathic physician who had saved our life with phosphorus, and aconitum, and beef soup, and tenderloin. We aroused him from his couch, and we were by the side of the little invalid in twenty minutes, when the Doctor removed a tooth, (her jaws being apparently closed in death,) and deposited about four drops of medicine in her mouth, which was continued during the night, and at twelve, meridian, she ate egg and potato combined, with milk, and in five days she rollicked all over the house. While conducting the Matsell Investigation, we wrote a Disquisition on Worms, and Mrs. Doughty, (the amiable wife of Mr. Doughty, who was long connected with the New York Street Department, and whose lovely daughter married a member of the great Banking House of Prime, Ward, & King,) called on the noble and supremely beautiful Mrs. Alderman John H. Briggs, and said: “I reside near Newark, New Jersey. My husband’s name is Samuel S. Doughty, (who was Street Commissioner of the City of New York in 1844 and ‘45,) and is very wealthy, and has erected a mansion that will compare with any in New Jersey. We have spacious grounds, and gardens, and orchards, and horses, and carriages, and all that can render us happy in the evening of our days, and yet we are very miserable. A dark cloud hovers over our magnificent abode, that we fear will soon belch the elements of destruction, and overwhelm us all in one common ruin. I have a sweet, and intellectual, and generous-hearted daughter, whose rare conversational powers, and vocal and instrumental music, cheered us in other days, who has been chained to a couch of illness more than two years. So disconsolate is her heart, that she will not permit her rosy and curly children to enter her apartment, nor a solitary mortal, save myself and husband. Her stomach rejects every species of food, and she has the piles most awfully, and several other diseases. Doctors Parker and Mott, and other eminent Americans, and two distinguished European physicians, have crossed the Atlantic, and toiled long and hard for her restoration. Now, my dear Mrs. Briggs, please listen very attentively to what I am about to disclose. A week since, I discovered a long article on Worms in the New York Daily Times, signed by Stephen H. Branch, and read it to my daughter, to elicit, if possible, a smile from her sad face. But I had scarcely closed it, ere she partially arose in her bed, and fixed her excited eyes upon me, and most terribly alarmed me, as she had not arisen in her bed for months, without assistance, and I said: ‘Why, my dear child, did you arise without my aid, and why, dear Caroline, do you stare so at your mother?’ She waved her hand, and faintly cried: ‘Go on, dear mother, go on, and let me again hear the delightful music of those words. I am saved, mother, I am saved, and Stephen H. Branch is my deliverer. Read, mother, read, and gladden the heart of poor Caroline.’ And I read it again, and she alternately wept and laughed until I closed it, and then she softly laid her head upon her pillow, and crossed her arms on her excited and swelling bosom, and breathed a prayer to God for the preservation of Mr. Branch, until she could behold him. Her words were perfect inspiration, and I cried until my eyes were highly inflamed, and until I almost fell upon the floor, and I dared not cry more, and I had to leave her and call my husband, who came and relieved me. She had not slept without laudanum for months, but in ten minutes after I closed Mr. Branch’s article on Worms, she passed into a gentle and natural slumber, and did not awake until the following day at meridian. And her repose imparted a rainbow glow to her icy cheeks, and exchanged roses for lilies. And she beckoned me to her bedside, and softly said: ‘Mother: I want you to visit Mr. Branch, as I believe I have got worms, and I am sure, from his glowing and truthful Dissertation on this novel theme, that he fully understands my case, which the most eminent physicians have failed to fathom.’ I smiled, and assured her that it would be useless. But for several days she has afforded me no peace, such have been her importunities for me to see Mr. Branch. And as I conceived it very dangerous to oppose her will, in her critical condition, I