A man of the town asserted that the last time he had seen Alvarez, the latter was far in advance of his companions, defending himself desperately against three powerful young heathen, who seemed to be acting under the direction of a tall woman who stood nigh, covered with barbaric ornaments, and wearing on her head a rude silver orown. Such is the tale of the Bookseller of Logrono, and such is the narrative of the attempt of the Gitanos to sack the town in the time of pestilence, which is alluded to by many Spanish authors, but more particularly by the learned Francisco de Cordova, in his "Didascalia," one of the most curious and instructive books within the circle of universal literature.-Borrow's Gipsies in Spain. RECENT IMPROVEMENTS OF THE CRIMINAL LAW OF SCOTLAND.-One of the greatest, and by far the most valuable of these improvements is the selection of the jury by ballot from the list of assize, and the right of peremptory challenge, introduced by the Act 6th Geo. IV., cap. 22. According to the previous law and practice, the judge having before him the names of the forty-five persons forming the assize, named or selected, or in the emphatic words of Erskine's Institutes, "picked out" the fifteen jurymen to try the case, while the prisoner had no right of peremptory challenge, but only a right to state special objections, of such a limited and specific nature, as practically to be of no use to him. The former practice led to great abuses on the part of the prosecutor. Another great improvement is, the extinction of those merely technical and formal objections, under cover of which many guilty persons, against whom the evidence was conclusive, escaped conviction and were thrown back upon society,-such as objections to the executions of citation, and the designations of witnesses or jurors, &c. All objections to the designations of witnesses in the list appended to the indictments, must now be stated before the jury are sworn, when, if the party objecting has been really unable to find the witness, and been misled by the defective or incorrect designation, the court are empowered to give what remedy may be just. Even if the objection be sustained, the trial is only delayed, not abandoned. All near relations, except husband and wife, are now admitted to give evidence, and the privilege of "option," formerly allowed to parents and children, is abolished. Formerly, a distinction was made between a breach of trust and a common theft, a strange leniency being shown to the former; now some recent decisions have wiped away this distinction. According to the returns of all criminal prosecutions in Scotland, including those before the supreme court and local courts, for the year 1840, the proportion of convictions were as follows: Persons brought to trial in Scotland, Outlawed for non-appearance, Found insane, Leaving acquitted, 3213 2909 36 7-2952 261 Of whom 219 were dismissed on verdicts of not proven; and 42 on verdicts of not guilty. In England, for the year 1843, of the whole cases brought to trial, one out of every four escaped conviction. In England there is no public prosecutor, the prosecution being at the instance of the individuals wronged; in Scotland the Lord Advocate, appointed by the Crown, is the public prosecutor, through whom all criminal cases are brought to trial, assisted by the Solicitor-General, four advocates depute, and in country courts, by the procurator-fiscal. As the Lord Advocate cannot be compelled to prosecute, the prosecution of a private party, with his consent, is lawful. But so great is the public confidence in the Lord Advocate, that private prosecution is almost unknown. There are no coroner's inquests in Scotland as in England, the duties of such investigations resting with the Lord Advocate. The powers of this functionary are thus very exten sive, and in evil times and under a bad government, might be most arbitrary and partial. But in a government such as now exists, amenable to public opinion in Parliament and through the medium of the press, the dangers are none, and the advantages of a public and unprejudiced prosecutor most apparent. The Habeas Corpus Act, the bulwark of English personal liberty, does not extend to Scotland, but accused persons in Scotland are supposed to be adequately protected from undue imprisonment by the Act of 1701, cap. 6; but it appears susceptible of amendments. The act provides that every prisoner in custody, in order for trial, whether for capital or bailable crimes, shall be entitled to apply to any judge, competent to try him for the crime charged against him, for letters of intimation to be issued within twenty-four hours, addressed to the prosecutor ordinary, for to fix a diet for trial, within sixty days after intimation, and that if that period elapses without a diet being fixed, the prisoner is entitled to instant liberation. If a diet be fixed, by serving the indictment within sixty days, the prosecutor must bring that indictment to a conclusion within forty days immediately following, or the prisoner is entitled to liberation. No second indictment can be served after intimation under the statute, but new criminal letters may be raised by the prosecutor within forty days. Failing this, the prisoner is entitled to a complete and final discharge. By the present construction of the statute, a person liberated on bail may still be liable to trial for an indefinate period. At present, no accused person is within the protection of a statute called the Charter of Personal Liberty in Scotland, unless he bring himself within that protection by presenting a written application to a judge. This costs two guineas, besides agents' fees, and must be a barrier to release to many a poor prisoner. TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. The conductors of THE TORCH being desirous that the work should circulate freely amongst all classes, have resolved on reducing the price one half, viz., from THREEPENCE to THREE HALFPENCE per number; and they have farther arranged that for this latter sum, a larger quantity of matter shall be given than is presently to be found in any periodical of the same class at a corresponding price. Along with this change, they also contemplate an alteration in the general plan of the work, which, in one word, will consist in its being made more thoroughly and entirely POPULAR, and so remodelled as to become a vehicle for the instruction and entertainment of the masses, without regard to class or party distinctions. And in accordance with this design, there will regularly be inserted Popular Expositions of Experimental and Natural Science, Biographies of Eminent Persons, Tales and Sketches, Hints for Social and Domestic Improvement, Statistics, Gleanings from Ancient and Modern Authors; and in fine, everything calculated to foster reading habits where already formed, or to create a taste for mental culture amongst those who hitherto have neglected it. Subscribers for the current quarter will receive two numbers additional to what they subscribed for, in order to make up the full value of their subscription; and new-subscribers will receive the work on the following terms: One quarter of thirteen numbers, unstamped, and delivered at the residences of subscribers, 1s. 73d., pre-paid. One quarter, sent free by post to any part of the United Kingdom, for 2s. 6d., prepaid. Single numbers 13d., unstamped, or free by post 24d. EDINBURGH: Printed by ANDREW JACK (of No. 29 Gilmore Place) at No. 36 Niddry Street, and published at No. 58 Princes Street, by WILLIAM AITCHISON SUTHERLAND of No. 1 Windsor Street, and JAMES KNOX of No. 7 Henderson Row, all in the City and County of Edinburgh. EDINBURGH: SUTHERLAND and KNOX, 58 Princes Street, and sold by Houlston and Stoneman, Paternoster Row, London: W. Blackwood, Glasgow: L. Smith, Aberdeen: and may be has by order of every Bookseller in the United Kingdom. Edinburgh, Saturday, March 14, 1846. A Weekly Journal for the Instruction and Entertainment of the People. No. 12. SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1846. Price 14d. CONTENTS. Progressive Improvement-Prospects of Society, 227 THE STORY TELLER.-What a Mother can Endure, 238 Quacks and Quack Medicine, Criticism on Literary Men, David Hume, The Miseries of War, The Limitations of Science, A Curious Story, 229 231 A Ghost Story, MISCELLANEOUS, 233 237 POETRY.-Our Ain Folk (Original), The Last Dahlia, 237 Original Clerical Anecdotes, 239 240 241 242 242 242 PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENT-PROSPECTS | head. Now, all these evils, as they have hitherto OF SOCIETY. THAT man possesses in himself the elements of progressive improvement, and that, if he is just to himself, he is ever improving, we regard as an indubitable principle. The tendency of society, therefore, is to advance. Man, in the early years of life, and when untutored, or in a savage or barbarous state, is the feeblest and weakest of all animals. His power is in his mind; and that mind, when its faculties are duly cultivated, enables him to press, not only most of the lower animals, but the whole physical world into his service; and, in proportion as he avails himself of this power, that is, of his mind, he rises superior to all inferior creatures, and gradually advances in the scale of intelligence, of comforts, and of virtue. There is, in point of fact, so vast a difference between man in a savage and man in a civilized state, that they scarcely seem to belong to the same species. The poor Indian, for example, is not elevated much above the wild beasts that surround him; so ignorant that he has not learned even to domesticate these animals, and convert them to his use. Such is the poor Indian. But how different man, when civilized; that is, when his reason has been evolved by education, cultivation, and exercise. How different is man in Britain at this moment! His intellectual nature, which has for centuries been duly cultivated and exercised, enables him to trace the connexion between cause and effect: to scan what is minute, to unravel what is mysterious, to discover what was concealed, to mount from nature up to nature's God. Instead now of being, as once, the slave or the tool of tyrants, he has banished tyranny from this beautiful island, and established in its place freedom, equal rights, and liberty of conscience. Knowledge, when once diffused throughout the community, and thus placed on a firm foundationknowledge can never die. It is self-generating; and, as it has gradually been advancing, particularly since the invention of printing, four hundred years ago, it will ever continue to advance, and shed its benign and humanizing influence over the world, till every vestige of ignorance has been obliterated, and till every thing has been laid prostrate before it. Despotism has rapidly been undermined; vicious institutions have been sinking; corruption has been hiding her been giving way, will ever continue to give way before the torch of knowledge, and its invariable concomitants, truth and sound principle. We do not believe in the perfectability of man: we do not believe that error and suffering can ever be banished from the world; but we do believe that ignorance and oppression, the two greatest enemies to the welfare and advance of society, will be banished, their very name and nature withered from the world. And we believe farther, that, with the blessing of a gracious Providence, man will so continue to improve, and the institutions under which he lives become so pure and perfect, that, far advanced in this country as we already are, we are only as it were beginning our career, and have an indefinite race of improvement to run. The wisdom of our forefathers, sometimes ignorantly boasted of, was folly, absolute folly, compared to the wisdom that now obtains; and yet the time will come when our descendants will look back upon our boasted knowledge, and find it as defective as we regard that of our rude ancestors in the times of Wallace and of Bruce. Progressive improvement will not, indeed, be confined to the inhabitants of this enlightened country only. As we have got the start of all other nations, we will, if true to ourselves, ever maintain our superiority. But improvement, like knowledge, its great precursor, will yet cover the whole world, as the waters cover the channels of the deep. There is no place so rude that it will not soften; none so remote that it will not reach; none so inhospitable that it will not make the abode of comfort and elegance. In almost every quarter of the world, the schoolmaster is making his appearance; and, on his approach, ignorance and rudeness give way. He carries in his hand the torch of knowledge; a torch which, in proportion as it lightens any country, civilizes and dignifies it, and scares away the demon of oppression, and bids those bound go free. Now, this is rapidly being the case. The world is undergoing emancipation; ignorance is giving place to knowledge; error to sound principle; rudeness to refinement; crime to virtue heathenism to Christianity. Every day civilized man is extending his dominion in every quarter of the globe, and is either enlightening, by his precepts and example, the poor Indian, or naked savage, or compelling them, by the nature and force of things, to retire, and to yield the supremacy. The aborigines of North America are rapidly giving way, and withdrawing farther and farther to their native wilds; while the enlightened European, by the very force of his knowledge, and of the arts of civilization, as rapidly occupies the ground which they have abandoned. The American Indians will soon disappear from the face of that immense continent; intelligent and civilized man will certainly extend his sway over the New World. A new channel of improvement has recently been opened in the same quarter of the globe. We have colonized Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and other islands in Australasia, and are rapidly transferring there the policy, the enterprise, the literature, and the religion of this country. Barbarism is, as usual, giving way to civilization, and rudeness to refinement; and it is not perhaps too much to say, that before the close of the present century, English manners, and English institutions, will prevail over that fertile and salubrious quarter of the world. In the south even of benighted Africa, civilization has taken up her abode, and will ultimately, even there, we have no doubt, permanently fix her residence, and diffuse her healthy and renovating influence. But Africa has been visited with a yet greater blessing, and promises to derive greater advantages from another and a more unlooked for quarter than any which even British colonization can be expected speedily to effect. We allude to the settlement of free blacks at Liberia, on the western coast of that continent. Slavery still exists in the otherwise free States of North America, exists there most unaccountably, and to a melancholy extent. But our transatlantic brethren have adopted a plan, which, though it has been objected to, and though, perhaps, not perfectly free from objection, promises to be pregnant with unspeakable blessings to that ill-used country-the native land of the negro. An association has been formed in America called the Colonization Society, the object of which is to transfer free blacks from the United States to the coast of Africa, and settle them as a colony there. The part of the coast selected for that purpose is at about 10 degrees south latitude, and has been called Liberia, and its capital, Monrovia, in honour of President Monro. The colony already extends to about 250 miles of coast, and the whole is inhabited by a black population, but free and intelligent, carrying with them the institutions, policy, and literature of the country which they have left. They have established schools, and have erected churches; have regular courts of law; have introduced the printing press; publish newspapers and literary works; industry is prospering among them; their harbours, particularly that of Monrovia, are frequented with ships, and they already carry on no trifling commerce. It is true that they have been attacked, and their settlement opposed by the natives, and some blood has been shed; but the colonists have hitherto triumphed over every opposition, are happy and flourishing; and from the extent of their territory, and the firm settlement they have effected, as well as on general principles, we have no doubt of their stability and permanence; indeed, we flatter ourselves that the arrival and settlement of these emancipated slaves, while it will form a blessing to themselves and their descendants, will constitute an era in the history of Africa, and be the means, under Providence, of disseminating civilization throughout the extent of that hitherto benighted and oppressed continent. "It seems," says Dr Fellows, " to be the benevolent scheme of the infinite Creator with respect to his creatures, to make a beginning of their being in a low state of pleasurable existence; and by a slow progression, or through a series of mysterious and inscrutable changes, to advance them to a higher. If the first state be the smallest portion of happiness that is compatible with a balance of good, it must be recollected that progressive advancement is the order of the universe, or rather, the design of the great Father of the universe. And is not a minimum of good, with a perpetual increase, preferable to a greater abundance in the first instance, but without subsequent or endless augmentation? Good perpetually increasing must be preferable to stationary good; even though that good be high in the degree of enjoyment and the scale of happiness. Progressive good seems most in unison with the constitution of the world, and with the fond desires and natural expectations of man." 66 "I readily acquiesce," says Gibbon, the celebrated historian, "I readily acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue of the human race." It is," says Mr M'Culloch, "the proud distinction of the human race, that their conduct is determined by reason, which, though limited and fallible, is susceptible of indefinite improvement. In the infancy of society, indeed, being destitute of long experience and study, without that dexterity which is the effect of practice, and without the guidance of those instincts which direct other animals, man seems to occupy one of the lowest places in the scale of being. But the faculties of most animals come rapidly to maturity, and admit of no farther increase or diminution, whereas the human species is naturally progressive. In addition to the necessity which obliges man to exert himself to provide subsistence, he is, almost uniformly, actuated by a desire to improve his condition; and he is endowed with sagacity to enable him to devise the means of gratifying this desire. By slow degrees, partly by the aid of observation, and partly by contrivances of his own, he gradually learns to augment his powers, and to acquire an increased command over the necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human life. Without the unerring instinct of the ant, the bee, or the beaver, he becomes, from a perception of their advantage, the greatest storemaster and builder in the world; and, without the strength of the elephant, the swiftness of the hound, or the ferocity of the tiger, he subjects every animal to his power. Having felt the advantages resulting from improved accoumodations, he becomes more desirous to extend them. The attainment of that which seemed, at the commencement of the undertaking, to be an object beyond which his wishes could not expand, becomes an incentive to new efforts. Man never is, but always to be blessed. The gratification of a want or desire is merely a step to some new pursuit. In every stage of his progress, he is destined to contrive and invent, to engage in new undertakings, and when these are accomplished, to enter with fresh energy upon others. It is plain, therefore," concludes Mr M'Culloch," that if the principle of improvement were not counteracted by hostile aggression, vicious institutions, or some other adventitious circumstance, it would always operate, and would secure the constant advancement of nations." These views, supported by the highest authorities, are of immense importance, both in themselves and as affording a stimulus to us to exert ourselves, in accelerating the advancement of our race. If man is progressive, and if nations have the same tendency, and are also progressive; and if this pro- | wit and impudence; but that people, in these engression is also inherent, depending, through the lightened times, when it is the boast of every body, blessing of God, on the agency of man, then it is that knowledge and science is running over the land both the interest and duty of every individual to in full and ever-flowing streams, should have their engage in the great work, and to co-operate with his judgments so easily swayed, and that the government fellows in impelling society forward. Society is only of the country, for the sake of an insignificant annual an aggregate of human beings: it is made up of revenue, should tolerate such impositions, are circumunits; and while it is the interest and duty of every stances which one would scarcely have looked for. man to lend the influence of his talents and exertions The great boast of an enlightened age is, that nothing to accomplish this great work, there is no individual which tends to contribute to the public welfare, if so low whose assistance and countenance will not be known at all, should be kept concealed. To the of advantage. Our efforts, each in his sphere, may honour of philosophers, and true discoverers in any be of very different degrees of efficiency; but, being science, and especially so in that of medicine, there all directed to the same point, they cannot fail, when never is any desire for concealment. The first imunited, to accomplish the great object we have in pulse of a discoverer is to make his inventions pubview, and promote, at the same time, our own wel- licly known; and, indeed, no principle or discovery, fare and the welfare and advancement of society. A when once in any way put in practice, can be long great moral responsibility, therefore, devolves on unknown in these our times, when every second or every one of us. If, on the one hand, we avail our- third man you meet is a philosopher of some kind or selves of the advantages which our forefathers have another. We shall presently find that this is particuconferred on us, and endeavour to extend more and larly the case with all medicinal substances. No sooner more widely the light which has been transmitted is any new substance of the kind submitted to the to us; if, in short, we are true to ourselves, we public than a hundred chemists are instantly at work will give an impulse to the progress of knowledge and sound views, the salutary effects of which will be fel: long after we are no more, and form a stimulus to our descendants to follow our steps. If, on the other hand, we neglect the blessings which have been handed down to us, and spurn away from us our own best interests and those of the public, we do violence to our natural endowments, we prostitute the advantages placed within our reach, and, so far as we are concerned, society must either remain stationary or retrograde. We have no fear of the result as to ourselves or the generation to which we belong; but such is the alternative within our reach: it is in our power either to accelerate the progress of society, and to promote the welfare of our race, or the contrary. Which we shall choose is evident. We will choose the better part, that will never be taken away from us, and leave to our successors a much higher standard of intelligence, refinement, and happiness, than that which our predecessors have handed down to us. QUACKS AND QUACK MEDICINES. THE system of patent or quack medicines forms one of the most curious examples of legalized imposture that ever perhaps any government practised or sanctioned. Does any needy and cunning adventurer wish to accumulate money? he has only to fix upon some drug, disguise it under whatever form his fancy suggests, write out a history of its exaggerated virtues, then enter it at the office of patents, and forth it immediately comes, enveloped in a government stamp, with an official looking document, and sanctioned by " Her Majesty's Royal Letters Patent." To ordinary minds, every thing that appears formally set down in print is received as a truth; but how much more the important envelope of the curiously filled phial or pill box, which, over and above being a printed document, has the sanction of royalty to its virtues and wonderful powers. We can easily conceive, that in the dark ages, the Arabian physicians who wandered over Europe could readily impress upon the ignorant multitudes the powers and virtues of their particular nostrums which they prescribed, and in whose efficacy even they themselves had a certain degree of faith. So likewise may we believe in the address of the more modern quack doctor, who frequented all fairs and public places, cajoling the rustics by his the most searching analysis is made; and not only the ordinary qualities, but even the most recondite ultimate principles of the matter examined are brought to light. It may be safely affirmed, then, that no quack medicines, of any kind whatsoever, have the least pretensions to exclusive originality; in fact, nothing of this kind is aimed at by their venders. The most ordinary medicines are generally selected, and all the art consists in disguising their qualities, enhancing their appearance, and enveloping them with the magic enticements of seal, stamp, label, and elaborate bill of wonderful cures effected by their use. To this we may add, that a price is affixed to them, some two or three hundred per cent. more than their actual value. The nostrum being prepared, and a high sounding name bestowed upon it, the next important part of the business is, to push it into notoriety and extensive circulation. For this purpose the daily press is called into requisition. Day after day, and week after week, we take up some one or other of the public newspapers, and the "Renowned Balm of Gilead," "The Morison Pill," or the Purifying and Renovating Lotion, incessantly meet our eye. The wonderful cases of cures are forced upon the mind so often, that at last they begin to be considered as realities, as matters just as certain as the price of stocks, or the rise and fall of the baker's loaf. In case the advertisement should not catch the wandering eye of the reader, the cunning paragraph is crammed in among the accidents, or the fashionable chit chat, so that even the most wary reader is not unfrequently caught before he has an opportunity to retreat, and caught too, by such sentences as may be nauseous, and highly offensive to every well regulated and virtuous mind. Besides the newspapers, every corner swarms with large bills promising health, strength, and longevity to all and sundry, but especially to the worn-out debauchee and dissipated sensualist, as well as cures to all those that labour under incurable diseases. No sooner is a scaffolding set up, a corner wall under condemnation, or a house under repair, than these handbills cluster over it in a single night, like the rapid growth of the fungus, or the grey lichen upon the neglected rock. Neither can you walk the streets but at every corner an assiduous distributor forces the handbill into your grasp, so that what you see and feel, and hear of everywhere, and at all periods of the day, comes at last, to be established as some great fact and reality in the mind. From believing. Wilson's Gout Tincture. - Eau Medicinale de Husson.-These are famous nostrums for gout and rheumatism, and owe any virtues they possess to preparations of colchicum; but the dose is uncertain while the simple wine or vinegar of colchicum is well-known and manageable medicine. a or even half believing, you are at last led to try the Friar's Balsam.-This is a long-established cure experiment; if this experiment be not satisfactory, for all cuts and wounds externally, and for many you say nothing about it, so that it is so much know-internal maladies also. Its composition and effects ledge sunk, and lost to the community at large. If, are exactly the same as the mixture just mentioned. however, the experiment turns out successful, or, what is the same thing, if your mind be impressed with the idea of its success, then your friends and acquaintances are excited, by your strong recommendations, to try the same cures which you have thus practised. But, it may be asked, are such medicines ever successful? They are successful to the mind in this way-a person may be ill twenty times in his life, but an illness can only prove fatal once. In short, people fall ill and get well again, they know not always how. But if one under these circumstances happen to take a quack medicine, especially if his mind be prepossessed in favour of its virtues, and then, in the natural course of events, recovers, he of course attributes his recovery to his favourite medicine. On the other hand, if he takes the medicine and gets no better, or dies, then who is at the trouble to record the failure? Thus it is that the fame of successful cases are spread, while the failures are buried in oblivion. The genuine memoirs of a few of our most successful 'empirics would be the most instructive reading possible. In general, they are shrewd men with an acute knowledge of human nature, and an imperturbable firmness and pertinacity of purpose, for it requires more than a fool for a successful impostor. Some immense fortunes have been made by empirics of this kind, and regular trading firms exist for the sale of patent medicines, where the annual expense of advertisements and puffs alone are said to exceed a thousand pounds. Every city swarms with such, and every village and district has its popular oracle. In Lancashire there is a famous empiric, who is said to have accumulated half a million sterling. 'He practises in all the departments of the healing art, but is particularly famous as a bone-setter. There are few wounds or bruises of any sort that, in a district of some hundred miles around, would be thought well treated without an application of his famous red drops, which are said to owe their efficacy to the coloured brandy of which they are composed. Perhaps the simplest way of convincing the uninitiated of the commonplace nature of quack medicines in general, is to give the composition of a few of the most common and best known of these nostrums: Whitehead's Essence of Mustard consists of oil of turpentine, with a little camphor, flower of mustard, and spirit of rosemary. This mixture forms a good enough stimulating application in rheumatism, old sprains, and other local pains; but on the other hand may produce great mischief in external inflammations. Moreover, in cases where such mixture is required, the ingredients can be made up at any chemist's for a twentieth part of the price charged for the Queen's royal patented bottle. The Essence of Mustard Pills, which usually accompany the above embrocation, are composed of a few grains of balsam of tolu and common rosin. Common bread pills would be equally efficacious in all the complaints recommended in the labels accompanying these. Essence of Colts'-foot. From the name, this should consist of the expressed juice of a common weed, once deemed medicinal, but in reality it is a mixture of alcohol, with small portions of balsam of tolu and benzain. It is recommended in coughs and pulmonary complaints, and if taken in any quantity it will infallibly aggravate all such diseases. Marsden's Antiscorbutic Drops.-Green's Drops. Solomon's Anti-impetiginous Drops-Spilbury's Antiscorbutic Drops. - Ward's Drops.- Morton's Drops.-All these contain more or less corrosive sublimate, an exceedingly active and poisonous preparation of mercury. The labels recommend these drops to be taken both internally and externally, and as a lotion for the skin. They are all exceedingly dangerous, except under the direction of a skilful practioner, when the simple form of the medicine is alone used. Lynch's Embrocation consists of olive oil coloured, and slightly scented; of no earthly use in one way or another, though perfectly harmless, except in its high price. Oxley's Essence of Jamaica Ginger.—This is a mere solution of common ginger in rectified spirits, a mixture which any person may make at a very moderate expense. The Black Drop is a mixture of opium and verjuice fermented. It was extensively used, and at one time even in regular practice, but is now superseded by the Muriate of Morphia. Portland Powder is a mixture of various bitters, and was used as a tonic in gouts, but its frequent use is found to be very injurious. Roche's Embrocation consists of olive oil, with cloves and amber dissolved in it; its application to the chest in hooping-cough is a very frequent practice, but it does no manner of good whatever. Struve's and other embrocations contain antimony and cantharides; but these may be applied more usefully in other forms. Solomon's Balm of Gilead. This was a celebrated nostrum for many years, and brought the proprietor a handsome fortune. It consists of brandy, in which is dissolved the essential oil of cardainum seeds, and a little cantharides. It forms a very expensive, but not unpleasant dram. Mrs Stephen's Medicines for Stone and Gravel are made of lime and soap formed into pills. A little magnesia, or carbonate of soda, are far preferable. Worm Cakes, Lozenges, &c. derive their efficacy from containing calomel. From this circumstance they, in many cases, also prove certain poisons to delicate infants and feeble children. Anderson's Pills are composed of common aloes, and are safe and useful enough medicines, but they are sold at three times the price of the same pills as ordinarily made by the chemist. Antibilious Pills.-These contain aloes, colocynth, and sometimes calomel. If pills containing the latter ingredient be used continually, they will most certainly undermine any constitution. Morison's Pills are composed of gamboge, aloes, and extract of chamomile. They have been swallowed in millions for many years; in some cases they may be of use, as they are identical with common pills prescribed every day by the physician; but their indiscriminate use, especially in cases of gastric irritation and inflammation, has undoubtedly caused many deaths. The soothing syrups contain, as their name implies, |