rine street. He had tried all this, and knew all about it. So my neighbor Hopps stuck to his colors,' and though the dust of the road generally bestowed upon him the look of a peacock 'turned out to die,' he was game to the last. When, however, the new regulation came in force, and it was a pure question of bread and butter -- obey or leave,' he succumbed quite gracefully, and is now an ardent advocate of the Reform. 6 Good example is the next best teacher after experience. I believe I got these ideas from observing the dress of European travellers, and now the neighboring farmers are adopting our costume from seeing its admirable adaptation to a service in which we have many things in common. Ten years ago when a farmer came to the city, (especially if he had ever lived there, or had friends or relatives there,) he was dressed in black from top to toe. He verily believed that his respectability depended upon it. It was meant as a show of the kindest and best of feelings. He did not wish to shame his city-bred acquaintances. He thought to pass himself for a citizen as if that were something to be desired! He quite forgot that his dress never was well made, but was unmistakably provincial. He left out of the account altogether the fact that rough country usage had destroyed its fair proportions, and that time and the tailors had changed city fashions so that he was quite out of date. There was no fitness in his costume to any walk in life. If there ever had been, it would have been left far behind in the 'rogue's march' of tailoring. But there never was. Riding to church on Sunday over dusty roads; going to the village on market-days, and other uses on dress occasions, soon soiled his holiday garments beyond redemption, and they steadfastly maintained their shabbiness to the end of the chapter- that is, until the wearer could afford to use them in his corn-field. This is now rapidly changing; what with dusty rail-roads, and the more promiscuous mingling of trade and agriculture upon a footing of equality, and the high cash value the farmer has been taught to set upon the fruits of his toil, the farmer has begun to think he may have an intrinsic value and respectability, and that, dressed in a costume becoming his occupation, he is as suitably attired to meet men in the city upon all business engagements, as if he had made himself miserable in a soiled and cheap imitation of a wornout and obsolete fashion of dress. When he dresses himself for the presence of ladies, if he has an acquaintance with those who are punctilious, of course, like any other gentleman, I suppose he must accommodate himself to the customs of those with whom he claims to mingle on a footing of equality. What I refer to as an improvement, is the costume of the farmer when attending to business. He now selects a set of neutral tints, light grays and drabs, and he always looks neat and becoming. I don't discover that he has lost a particle of respect. Selfrespect he has gained, for in his former caricature of a shabby-genteel, broken-down citizen, he always looked as if he felt cheap' and out of place. Now he bears himself proudly, as if he had the spirit of a man within him- not ashamed of his calling. PART FIFTEEN, I SCORN to attack a man for his profession, or a profession for a man. All general and sweeping assertions are for the most part false. There is probably no class or set of men so wholly bad but there are good men among the number. Nevertheless, I must utter my solemn protest against homeopathy, as I understand it. It may be a science; I dare say it is. It may be very wise, and learned, and scientific; I am not prepared to say it is not. But I put it down from experience. I say boldly I have seen it tried and fail. I do not condemn from personal experience, else I should (as my philosopher Pembroke tells me) distrust my judgment. Still I distrust from temperament new-fangled notions when old remedies and old ideas are effectual. Yea, verily, I have seen homeopathy fail signally where old-fashioned remedies did the business' without any flourish of trumpets and without announcing to the friends of the afflicted patient that he was at the point of death.' Now I know I am treading upon delicate ground, and I am careful what I say. I weigh every word. I have not yet said (and I don't mean to insinuate it) that all who practise the healing art upon the homeopathic plan pretend to find every patient at death's door, so as to leave him, if restored to health, so much the more struck with the marvellous power of globules. I don't say that. Nevertheless, I have seen the experiment of the homeopathic treatment attempted on two signal occasions, and I feel it my duty to give my observations to the world. The first 'case' was, some years ago, in the village of Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was startled one night at my boarding-house by a fearful noise in the adjoining room. It was occupied by a young student-at-law, with whom I had a slight acquaintance. I arose quickly and went to his room. I found him half-dressed, moving about, with his mouth distended, gesticulating most violently. I knew him as one who sat up very late, but I was surprised to find him in the dark, and the more astonished that he did not speak to me. He made such a noise as a man might make with his mouth upon the stretch, without control of his teeth or his lips. He seemed dumb with fright and perplexity. His eyes and tongue rolled about in his head as if they had broken loose from their nerves and were beyond the reach of his volition. He made gestures toward me, and I confess I was frightened. I thought he was gone stark mad. He tried to take hold of me, and this alarmed me the more. I rushed from the room, and aroused and alarmed the family. The landlady was a kind-hearted, good soul, and was up and dressed in a trice, and fearlessly entered the room of my neighbor. She soon ascertained that so far from being dangerous he was comparatively helpless. She got him ink and paper, and he wrote in a hurried manner some hints of his difficulty. It appeared his version was, that sitting up late reading law, and becoming overpowered with the leaden dulness of his author, Grotius or Puffendorf, I think he said, he had dropped into a gentle slumber, which out-lasted his candle, and upon arousing himself he had unconciously yawned and gaped to such an unusual extent that to his bewilderment he had become unable to close his mouth. This story might answer for my landlady, who was merely a woman, but I was not to be taken in thus. I had my suspicions he had dreamed what he told as a fact, but a paralysis of the jaw had in fact taken place, or that he was indeed raving nad. I inclined, however, to the former opinion. I seized my hat and dashed into the street to look for a physician. It was pitch dark. I had no clue and knew not whither to go, but pushed blindly on until I saw a light in a window and boldly knocked. Pretending I had mistaken the house for the Doctor's and availing myself of my blunder, I inquired of the murmuring inmates the residence of the nearest medical man. I was directed to one near at hand. I soon found him, thumped loudly at his door; got him out and on his way to my friend. We were soon on the spot, and found him as I had left him, staring with mouth distended, looking like a fool. The doctor understood the case at a glance, It was, as he said, a spasm at the root of the tongue. Something after the manner of the famous dog's tail that curled so tightly as to lift him off his hind legs.' The medicine man was, as he said, a homeopathist, and he had to ponder a little time over his book before he could select the appropriate infinitesinal. At length he hit upon it. It was donnabella, or arabella, or something of that sort, and he placed one upon the end of the patient's tongue, and sat down to wait its effect. He said that in about half-an-hour it would be time to take another of the pillulets. Before morning he hoped the patient would begin to find the strange tension of his jaws relax. We all sat down quietly and gazed in each other's faces. At first it was very solemn. But I soon began to grow nervous, and drawing the landlady aside I begged to know if there was no other physician near. She told me of a medical student who had just come in the town to finish his studies, but he was no homeopathist, and she presumed from my selection he would not be satisfactory to me. I waited no longer, but proceeded forthwith and fetched him in. He lectured me on the way about my disregard of professional etiquette, and showed me to a demonstration that I was blasting his prospects for life by compelling him to save a victim from professional murder. But I would not listen to his scruples. I meant to get him on the spot, whether he would act or no. I detailed to him the symptoms of the unfortunate young man. But he was very grave and dignified until he entered the room. I had heard of inextinguishable laughter,' but I never felt it until I heard the obstreperous roar of this medical student as he looked in upon the solemn mid-night assemblage in my friend's room. The homeopathic practitioner was sitting in dumb and profound study; the patient a model of patience; my landlady almost in tears. This sudden laughter was like a thunder-clap from a cloudless sky. I cannot stop to describe its effects. The medical student asked for a couple of forks, or spoons, and without saying as much as 'by your leave' to the Esculapian before him in the field, he thrust them in the mouth of the patient. In a second, crack went his jaws, and his teeth snapped upon his benefactor. A benediction to the new-comer and a hearty curse upon the homeopathic savan almost simultaneously gushed from the nouth so suddenly released from 'durance vile,' and the man of pills gathered up his box and book, and departed hastily without uttering a word. The truth of the matter was, as had been asserted in the beginning, master law-student had studied rather late and had yawned so terribly his jaws could stand it no longer and showed him they were put out' about it and would not come to' when he willed it. This was the first successful failure of practical homeopathy it was my lot to witness. I afterward was told by the discarded pill-man that if let alone he would have cured my friend, and then he gravely told me he had been administering such remedies' as would have produced lock-jaw. He proceeded upon the principle, as he said, similia similibus curantur ! What all that means I don't pretend to know. Probably he was scientifically right, and would have murdered my friend in a very learned fashion. 6 The second case' was more 'striking.' I'll give a hasty sketch, as I am exceeding my limits. Late one very hot day last summer a young father was carrying his child upon his knee in my car. The child was quite a baby and was warm, and tumbled and fretful, and he cried and bawled lustily. He had evidently been out upon an excursion' and had a hard day of it, and was trying to avenge abused nature by this baby demonstration. The father had a little box full of lilliputian vials and a little book. First he would read a while from the book, and then selecting a tiny globule from one of the vials, would give it to the child. This was repeated again and again, but without effect. The child screamed louder and louder. The passengers in the car looked to me for relief from the nuisance. The father got out of all patience. Homeopathy, as he practised, would not answer. father held the child before him firmly in his arms, and gazed steadily in his face, as if to read his disorder in his eyes. Instantly a thought seemed to flash across his mind. A remedy was suggested to him that the wisdom of Solomon has perpetuated, and which will out-live all the nostrums of all the schools. He threw the child, kicking and struggling, across his knee, facing the floor, and then lifting its drapery his hand rapidly fell thrice with a sounding thwack! The uproarious screams of the little sufferer soon subsided into sobs, and in a few minutes the child slept upon his father's bosom in sweet and happy unconsciousness. Now, am I not fully justified in setting my face against homeopathic practice, both lay and professional? The NATURE. SO FOND is Nature of the beautiful, She freezes not a leaf or blade of grass, Unnumbered shapes her viewless fingers mould, |