have come, and I desire you to exert all your influence to induce Mr. Branch to accompany me to my residence in the suburbs of Newark, and see my beloved child, who will salute him like a brother and deliverer, and who is nearly distracted to behold him.” Mrs. Briggs sent for us, and we personally responded on the following day, when we told her that we were chasing Matsell night and day, and could not spare the time to visit Newark invalids; nor did we desire to, as we were not a practical physician, and if we assumed the awful responsibility of treating chronic piles and worms, if a patient died while under our care, we might be arrested for murder, and be tried by a jury packed by Dick Connolly, as County Clerk, and be condemned and hung. So, in comes Mrs. Doughty again, and again, and through her tears, and those thrilling and irresistible apostrophes of a devoted mother, she touches the magic cord in the heart of Mrs. Briggs, who resolved to get me to Newark, if possible. So, she comes at me like General Putnam’s or Samson’s wives, and demands me to visit Newark to gratify the invalid’s curiosity to see me, as a matter of humanity, and said that if I did not go, the daughter might die in a fit, and I would be responsible to God and man, and to woman also, for she, herself, would forever hold me responsible for the premature demise of the pale divinity of Newark. So, we proposed to go, if her husband, Alderman John H. Briggs, would accompany us. We then winked to Jack, and he hesitated, which pleased us well, and we peremptorily declined to go. But Mrs. Briggs then flew at Jack with a fork and pepper box, and Jack yielded like a docile lamb, and we also had to go, or perhaps receive the perforation of a fork, or a gill of pepper in our eyes, or listen to a tongue that might have blistered our conscience. So we saw our extraordinary physician, who had ejected eleven worms from our belly, (one of which was tied in a square knot,) and over we went to Jersey City, where Mr. Doughty, and the most beautiful horses and carriage, with driver and postilion, anxiously awaited our arrival, and on we go to the suburbs of Newark, crossing a stream in a ferry boat, that strongly reminded us of the immortal river Styx. We reach Mr. Doughty’s elegant residence, and drove through the meandering paths, and cull pretty flowers, and luscious peaches, and enjoy a rural dinner, and are escorted by Mrs. Doughty into the presence of her daughter, who extends her skeleton fingers, and archly lays them in ours, whose icy coldness thrills the fibres of our bowels. She strives to smile, and casts tender glances, and looks down into our soul, for a deliverer. Our eyes reflect the fondest hope, and as she beheld this cheerful word, on the surface of our vision, she sweetly smiles, and presses our palm with tenderness and love. And then she breathes patient words of her afflictions, and touching soliloquies, and sings plaintive verses, and eclipses the sad Ophelia, when moaning for Hamlet, or scattering withered flowers, or on the rosy margin of the glassy brook, where she meets a watery grave. In her lucid intervals, we describe her symptoms and emotions with such minuteness, that we quickly win her confidence, and she is ready to show us her piles and half a dozen other diseases, including worms, and she directs her mother to remove the bed clothes, and let us behold her scabs and frightful probes and lacerations, and inhuman mutilations, by the leading physicians of Europe and America. But we very emphatically direct Mrs. Doughty to replace the sheets, and quilts, and blankets, as we were not a physician, and had no license, and as the authorities of New Jersey (which were rather severe when they caught a foreign barbarian in their dominions) might cage us, if they learned that we were examining female patients without a Jersey permit. But we assured both mother and daughter, that the gentleman below, in company with Alderman Briggs, was the very physician who drove eleven worms from our stomach, and that he could critically examine her diseases, as he was a licensed physician. So, although the invalid abjured her own lovely children, and her dear kindred, and doctors, and all save her father and mother, yet she had such confidence in us, that she permitted our physician to enter her chamber, where he critically examined her person, and immediately assured her that he could not only save, but cure her in six weeks. She spooned at this thrilling intelligence, and did not recover her consciousness for two hours, when ourself, and the Doctor, and Alderman Briggs, returned to New York. Two months afterwards, we called on the Doctor, who informed us that he had just returned from a very large party in Lafayette Place, where he had passed the evening very pleasantly with Mr. and Mrs. Doughty and their lovely daughter, who was entirely restored to health, and who played the great piano music of Thalberg and Lizt for him, and sang nearly equal to Alboni, and that he had the pleasure of a waltz in her graceful and bewitching embraces, who darted through the parlor in a dance, like an eagle through the air, and that the father, and mother, and daughter, warmly inquired for Mr. Branch, whom they regarded as the saviour of their earthly happiness. And thus closes the lamentations and humanities of a ghastly Grahamite, whose narrative on Worms restored a marble statue to vitality, and her parents, and children, and kindred and friends, to the divinest hilarity and joy. And for miles around the residence of the Doughtys, invalids have been rescued from early graves by this supernatural physician, who recently was compelled to conceal himself from the regiments of skeletons who applied for his magic skill and medicines, which is the only reason why we do not disclose his mighty name, lest his patients waste him to the mournful realms of Greenwood, where his slender frame will soon repose forever.

A Melancholy Postscript!—We called last evening to read these lamentations to the Doctor of Mrs. Doughty’s daughter, and we learned that he was reposing in the dark and silent caverns of the globe. O, the rats and mice and pigmies and shadows and phantoms of life’s funny and tearful and mysterious fandango. We open our eyes in the sweet twilight of the morning, and behold the gorgeous panorama of the Universe, and form the warmest attachments, and go to our rest at sunset, never to awake! Peace to the soul and ashes of Dr. David Perry, who is the lamented Physician of our narrative, who was the student of Dr. Cheesman, and preserved the life of ourself and brother and other kindred and friends.

c12

For American Youth to Read, and for Thieves and Traitors to Ponder.

With the Declaration of Independence in his right hand, John Adams, on the Fourth of July, 1776, rose and said:

“Mr. President:—Read this Declaration at the head of the Army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit: religion will approve of it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public halls—proclaim it there—let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy’s cannon—let them see it who saw their sons and their brothers fall on the field of Bunker’s Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support. Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs; but I can see—see clearly through this day’s business. You and I may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good,—we may die—die colonists—die slaves—die, it may be, ignominiously and