ADVICE BY A RETIRED PHYSICIAN.

WHEN Rowland Hill invented the penny postagestamp, and put in circulation the smallest papermoney in existence, he little thought the evil uses to which his admirable idea would be turned. He little anticipated that ingenious gentlemen, who roam about seeking whom they may devour, would, through its agency, manage to live upon the public in princely style, their whole stock-in-trade being an advertisement in the paper! In an article published some time since we drew attention to the alluring advertisement of "A Retired Clergyman" who was anxious to make the public acquainted with a recipe for nervous disorders the trifling sum of six postage-stamps being all he asked in return for his invaluable advice. But now the retired clergyman gives place to an aged figure, such as we used to see in the frontispiece of didactic volumes of a quarter of a century since in the form of a venerable hermit dispensing to youth the health-giving mountain herb, as thus—

ARETIRED PHYSICIAN, whose sands of life have nearly

run out, discovered, while in the East Indies, a Certain Cure for Consumption, Asthma, Bronchitis, Coughs, Colds, and general debility. The remedy was discovered by him when his only child,

a daughter, was given up to die. He had heard much of the wonderful restorative and healing qualities of preparations made from the East Indian Hemp, and the thought occurred to him that he might make a remedy for his child. He studied hard, and succeeded in realizing his wishes. His child was cured, and is now alive and well. He has since administered the wonderful remedy to thousands of sufferers in all parts of the world, and he has never failed in making them completely healthy and happy. Wishing to do as much good as possible, he will send to such of his afflicted fellow-beings as request it, this Recipe, with full and explicit directions for making it up and successfully using it. He requires each applicant to enclose him six stamps-one to be returned as postage on the recipe, and the remainder to be applied to the payment of this advertisement.-Address, &c.

Charming picture! Admirable devotion of a green old age to the miseries (and postage-stamps) of a suffering public! This sage, whose "sands of life have nearly run out," and who studied hard to save his child, and happily succeeded through the instrumentality of Indian hemp, should by no means hide his light under a bushel-the whole race of poor afflicted creatures, consumptive, asthmatic, bronchitic, and generally debilitated, have only to apply by letter at once to his mossy cell in that health-giving neighbourhood, Street, Strand, and so they will be cured. Behold, every morning this advertisement flies, on the wings of the press, to the firesides of hundreds of thousands of our countrymen, whose Arcadian simplicity with respect to quack medicines is too deep to fathom: over this simple crew this venerable old fisher of men casts his net-and what is the daily result? Watch the postman drop his bag at the door of the "Retired Physician." Can there be

more than one letter for the aged recluse? Is the man whose "sands of life are nearly run " troubled with a plentiful correspondence? There are hundreds of letters, and every letter comes laden with its due complement of postage-stamps. The receipts of this aged individual from this source are known to average £10 per day; and this is not the whole of the contribution of the public to this deeply interesting individual. The receipt for the preparation of Indian hemp is duly sent; but, as in the case of the "Retired Clergyman," the recipient, not being able to make anything of it, adopts the accompanying suggestion to send it for concoction to a certain quarter: here the second fleecing process begins; and where it ends we scarcely like to say. We are informed that the aged physician, whose "sands of life are nearly run," is a hale and hearty American, who proposes to open another health-giving fount in the French capital, now that he finds himself firmly established with a princely income in the metropolis.

Thus the world wags. Scores of well-educated medical men are at this moment reduced to starvationpoint, and one quack is wallowing in wealth. Is it not infamous that respectable papers should give insertion to such an advertisement? Can any person be deceived as to its character? Can there be a doubt that it is intended to defraud? How, then, we ask, is it possible that honest men can consent day by day to put such palpably fraudulent announcements into circulation? The public health we make such a stir about is as the fat pasture-ground on which design

ing quacks feed without let or hindrance-nay, with the approval of the Government, and often with the support of the Judges.

If the person calling himself a "Retired Physician " were to kill any of his dupes by his doses of Indian hemp, was in consequence put upon his trial, are not all the chances in favour of the judge recommending his acquittal in consequence of his ignorance? It is really monstrous that the most deadly poisons should be prescribed wholesale, through the medium of advertisements, by persons without any legal title to do so. We question if there are half a dozen physicians in London who can boast so large an income as this "Retired Physician," whose whole knowledge and stock-in-trade is summed up in a cunninglywritten advertisement. The proper punishment for this gentleman, whose "sands of life are nearly run,” would be a sound outward application of good English hemp to his own person.

SUPERSTITION: WHERE DOES IT END?

A TOWN-BRED man can scarcely credit the fact that "a wise man" dwells in nearly every village, and that witches and wizards are still, in the belief of the country folk, as plentiful as blackberries. The letters which appeared from day to day in the Times, a few years back, describing the bewitching of farm stock, the carrying off of wives through the air on broomsticks by the agents of the Prince of Darkness, and a thousand other vagaries of this nature, startled the reader, and seemed as much out of place beside ordinary humdrum ideas, as a piece of old tapestry would beside the silks and tabarets of our drawingrooms. Those who know the country are startled by no such revelations: the peasant-mind, they are well aware, is not much advanced from the condition it was during the Middle Ages; and, for all we can see, certain classes of great towns are not a whit more advanced than is poor Hodge. Looking over our commonplace book the other day, we came on a notable instance of this in the shape of a newspaper cutting containing an application made at the Worship Street Police Office, when "a lady-like