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ALEXANDER WHISTELO. 587

sport, It is a quit rent which the learned owe to us small
wits; it ia an indemnity for the shade they cast upon us, and
we seize upon it by the title of amends, I do very much re-
spect the witness and admire his learning and his candor;
but when I think of the odd excursion we have made to dis-
eover the parentage of this child of nature, I must either
laugh or die of it.

If a witness was wanted with a mind well stored with facts,
he stands unequalled. His is like the magazine of some great
commission merchant, whose high credit and extensive cor-
respondence brings him consignments from the four corners
of the earth——with room for all, and no particular reason for
rejecting any, whoever would make up an assortment to an-
swer any demand, may call upon him. If the wares be not
all his own, he has a factor’s lien on them, and a vested in-
terest, and may dispose of them for the benefit of the con-
eerned, If he parts with them without warranty, and thera
is no scienter, then they are at the risk of the party who re-
ceives them, and the maxim is caveat emptor.

It was with this view of ascertaining how far these facts
were warranted genuine, or in other words, how many ounces
of such testimony went to the pound, that I put so many
questions to Doctor Mitchill. I wanted to know whether we
were to take by the Winchester or the standard bushel
whether our long measure was the ell Flemish or the common
yard; and the Court will very clearly comprehend, or else
will not comprehend how we came to treat of Plato's triangle,
of the virtues of number Three, and of the probability of the
opinions of that great philosopher—viz: that when men and
women hold this sort of tefe-a-tefe, it is only for the sake of
completing a triangle. If I did not pursue that curious sub-
Jeet farther, it wan for this reason. From the moment I
found out that a triangle had but three sides, I saw that the
doctrine would not apply; for make what angle you will of
a man and woman, still as each has two sides at the least, a
Tight and a left, the diagram which they describe must have
four, not to speak of others that I am ashamed to mention.

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