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ALEXANDER WHISTELO. 593

that Doctor Mitchill saw, in the very act of metamorphose,
was a full-grown man, and could not be influenced, one would
think, at that time, by any affection of his mamma to change
his color. That fact then remains to be accounted for on
some newer principle. I once knew a Mr. Perey, a composer
in mnsic and singing master. He taught in my family, and
he confessed one day in the fullness of his heart, that he had
been credulons enough to throw away a guinea a visit for
several months, to a quack, calling himself an ancient mag-
netist, who undertook by gestures end wry faces to take a
purple stain from the cheek of a favorite pupil. In the be-
ginning of the course of magnetism, all parents, kindred and
neighbors, glorified thie quack, for they thought they saw
the mark disappearing from the edge of the lower eyelash.
But finally they were convinced that they were imposed upon.

There was a horse shown some time ago in New York as a
wonder, and he passed well enough because his tail wes
shaved and his buttocks painted dapple green. It is the
easiest thing in life to work a wonder.

The last question I took the liberty of asking Doctor
Mitehill, in order to come to a just estimate of what he
conceives the line of probability was, whether the fact which
we have on Scripture authority of the changes worked upon
Laban’s sheep by the contrivance of Jacob, was to be con-
sidered as a miracle, or, on the principles of maternal affec-
tion, a thing within the ordinary laws of nature? And the
learned witness answered, without hesitation, that it was to
be accounted for by the ordinary laws of nature. Seeing
that this is 20, and that in matters of generation the re-
semblance is so perfect between man and beast, I wonder
it has not been long ago turned to. the embellishment of the
roman gpecies. Ladies might then go to the ball, and In-
dians to the war without paint; and it would be an innocent
pleasnre to variegate boys and girls, by means of colored
sticks, feathers and ribbands; and the Dutchmen might dis-
play their taste upon their children as they do now upon
their tulips, How pretty and pleasant to see little natural

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