the strong muscles, till they played terrible antics before. the powerless physician. One often thought of the Laocoon, but looked in vain for the serpent.

One evening, at five o'clock, or thereabouts, I had thrown myself exhausted from my horse into my office chair, after a visit to my little deaf mutes at the Asylum, and was indulging in my favorite luxury, a cup of green tea, which I preferred taking away from my family, for the simple reason, that no man whose heart was in his profession, could take time to make himself an acceptable guest at the tea-table, with such fearful music still ringing in his ears; few of us, indeed, paid needful attention to our own personal comfort. Whatever be our quarrels, to our credit be it said, we shrink not when the "seals that close the pestilence" are removed, and the poor demand our aid. I was hastily sipping my tea, when my poor young friend, with his feeble body and sickly laugh, thrust his head into the office door, and carelessly asked how the cholera came on; remarking, with the usual flippancy of the thoughtless, he supposed that we were "not particularly desirous of its disappearance." Poor man! his remark grated upon my ears, for I knew the condition of his delicate wife, and that their chances would be at zero from the first, should they be attacked. Something about his face, that every experienced medical eye could at once detect, told me that the fiend was at work within him. I arose, and asking him to be seated, and take some tea, questioned him a little, and intended to advise a remedy. He soon detected my fears, and jeeringly desired me not to be "looking so sharply for business." Alas! such business was not desirable; our fees were mostly paid in tears. I made my evening visits, and on my return found a message from his wife, requesting my immediate presence, as her husband "had been attacked an hour before." Not one hour could have elapsed since his conversation with me! Why prolong the tale? Everything was done that three of us could

suggest; one or other of us was with him till midnight, when he died; his poor wife closed his eyes, herself as tearless, and almost as corpse-like, as the cold form before her. Anticipating trouble, from her evident feebleness, I asked her condition. She replied calmly, and with that perfect self-possession, only to be accounted for when the soul, subdued by extreme sorrow, and triumphing over apprehension, looks for death as a boon from heaven; "she was perfectly well, and as soon as we had performed the last sad offices, she would try and get some rest."

The next day, on my return from the cemetery, where a few of the neighbors conveyed him, I called in to see the widow, and found her already past the first stage of the frightful disease. She had informed no one, and evidently wished to die. Oh! how expressive was her sad smile when I questioned her. Again I summoned my brethren; again we went through the hopeless routine. Scarce a groan escaped her, her only seeming anxiety being the trouble she gave us. Poor child of sorrow! her young dream of life was indeed early clouded. Before midnight she also found rest in heaven.

Surely the Great Author of Nature has decreed that there shall be the broadest contrasts in the nervous organisms of men and women, as well as the joy and sorrow so often depending upon them. How calm and peaceful is the soul in one-how fierce and turbulent the still chafed spirit in another? We have often thought that sleep tells the story of the soul with more truth than wakefulness. Look upon that placid brow, those lips parting as if in prayer for the loved one at her side-it is the first-born of luxury and innocence. The absence of every movement convinces us that the soul is at peace with itself, and like the warm and mellow earth under the dews of heaven, is waiting to give forth the breath of love as soon as the senses awake to consciousness. Again we see the knit brow, the oft-compressed

lip, the hurried respiration, the dilated nostril, and clenched hand, of that impetuous spirit, that seems under the influence of some fearful dream of wrong or crime. She is, alas! a child of sorrow and misfortune. Yet what is there within the human breast that often fascinates the soul with intense admiration for such a turbulent spirit, especially if it animate a beautiful form? Such predilections are true we fear of all who are accustomed to the study of that fearful poem -human passion. Yet the history of the drama proves that the broadest contrasts delight its worshippers. Lady Macbeth, Desdemona, and Ophelia, with all the lesser and intermediate shades of character, were the work of one master spirit, and it is but reasonable to suppose the same influences operate upon meaner minds. We confess a strange fascination for such studies, and think them the legitimate province of the practical physician.

The incidents we shall now relate, will serve to show the influence of that loathsome spirit of selfishness and brutality upon a generous and noble nature, that actuates the bosoms of those who live upon the profits literally wrung from the heart's-blood of the poor sewing girls, employed by hundreds in those dens of death, the immense work-rooms that supply the Broadway shops with the finer articles of women's and children's clothing. I received both of them from my patient's own lips; and although a more fiery or passionate soul never agitated the human breast, a nobler spirit never animated the form of woman. Alas! the grave has effaced the memory of her errors, and brightened that of her virtues in the hearts of all who knew her.

One of four sisters, daughters of a respectable citizen, who early in life became reduced in circumstances, she enjoyed no facilities for acquiring accomplishments other than those of a domestic character. She became a proficient in the use of the needle, and having a natural incentive to beauty of form, wherever visible, excelled in embroidery. Noble and

Ere

generous, she could not see her mother and father suffer, and soon turned her acquirements to account in ornamenting children's garments for the stores. Beautiful and graceful in person, with a fine constitution, and a glorious eagle eye, with nostrils denoting a fiery spirit, and lips on which the glad bee might have lingered, half baby's and half woman's, and a swan-like neck and bust, she did not suffer in health by this pursuit, and attracted the admiration of a young man, who shortly, and I could not but think too hastily for their mutual happiness, for they were very unlike, married her. In a few months he left her, and never returned. long, it became apparent that she was likely to increase the cares and diminish the comforts of their humble home, by herself requiring those attentions she knew to be due to a sick father. This her generous nature would not allow; and after continuing her employment most assiduously till a very late period of gestation, she sought the house of a poor, but kind woman, to pass the period of her accouchment. The extraordinary powers of her constitution, and an elastic spirit, greatly abridged the period, and in a couple of weeks she returned to her father's house with her infant, perfectly restored, with the addition of that nameless, yet apparent charm, that is so rare in the young mother whose occupation is that of the needle.

During her short absence, her family had so sensibly felt the want of the daily pittance she had brought from her labors, that she resolved instantly to resume them. Leaving her baby to her mother's care, hastily bestowed in moments stolen from the needle, she left her home at seven o'clock in the morning, taking with her such nourishment as the house afforded, and in company with a sister who was employed in the same establishment, with fifty or sixty others, in a single room! Seated in that polluted atmosphere, they remained for twelve hours, with the eye of their task-mistress, and occasionally that of her husband, con

stantly upon them. Profound silence was the rule, as these wretched and heartless people are well advised of its influence in increasing the product of the work-room. Think of the weariness of soul that such an atmosphere, and such occupation and restraint, must produce upon the young girl, and wonder not at her pallid countenance. Yet, amidst all this, my poor patient retained, as she expressed it in her usual style, "such glorious health," that she was the envy of all her companions. At the end of a few weeks the spring approached, and business increasing, the demand of the shops for the fine work of this establishment, warned the girls of the customary increase of hours; they already worked twelve hours for fifty cents!-and no new hands were to be procured, for there was no more room. The additional labor was to be wrung from the sixty, with no increase of pay! For twelve weary hours there they sat, with an interval of half an hour in which to snatch the morsel of food they had brought, and to merely straighten the body, for exercise was out of the question with sixty in

one room.

Every mother, every physician, will imagine the condition of my poor patient, on reflecting that she was a nursing mother, in full health, and had nourished her infant at seven o'clock in the morning. As she expressed it to me"I used to bound from my seat to the desk for my half dollar, scattering the poor girls like a maniac. My sister could scarce keep up with me, as I rushed home to my baby boy, and (don't laugh at me) to my dinner, for I was very hungry, and liked not my bread and water lunch. Flinging my hat on the floor, with my child in my lap, and clinging ravenously to the breast, my dinner on a chair before me, and my feet on the bottom spoke, I devoured a quantity sufficient for a plowman. Only think of my condition; my poor baby and myself half starved since morning, and half a dozen towels about my breast to absorb his