, upon the papers on '_Mind
and Instinct_,' which appeared in the last two numbers of the
KNICKERBOCKER. Our friend and correspondent, 'HARRY FRANCO,' among others,
in a gossiping epistle to the Editor, writes as follows:

'I HAVE been considerably interested in your correspondent's
paper on mind and instinct; only I rather wonder at his laboring
to prove a theory which few are inclined to question. But he
does not after all, it appears to me, draw the right conclusions
from his argument. All living beings have a mind, or reason, or
what you will, which prompts them to do all that their animal
functions are capable of performing. In this respect man is as
much governed by instinct as a brute. My neighbor's dog every
night when I come home walks up to me, wags his tail, and looks
in my face, and says in his way, 'How are you?' His master gives
me a nod, takes his pipe from his mouth, and says the same. But
when a stranger comes to my door, neither the dog nor his master
salutes him; but were he to fall into the brook, they would both
run to pull him out. Are they not both influenced by exactly the
same feelings? If I should ask my neighbor to endorse my note,
he would look sulky, hem! and haw! and refuse; if I should
attempt to take a bone from his dog, the brute would snarl and
growl, and perhaps bite me. Do you see any marvellous difference
between the two animals? A near neighbor of mine, about six
months since, had a little boy of four years old, who had a
spaniel of which he was very fond. One day during the absence of
the father, the child was taken ill with the croup; the mother
was alarmed, and it so happened that her servants were away, and
she had no one to send for a physician. The poor woman was in
great tribulation, for in spite of all her efforts the child
grew worse. In about an hour after the child was taken ill, her
father's carriage stopped at the door, and her mother made her
appearance. Her father's house was about two miles distant. The
grandmother said that Carlo, the sick child's dog, 'came running
into the house, all bespattered with mud, and flew about and
acted so strangely that she knew something must be the matter
with little Billy, her grandson, and she came to see what it
was.' Until then, the mother of the child had not noticed the
absence of the dog from