e a superficial knowledge of Medicine, and are thus enabled to
do, with a certain amount of impunity, many dark deeds. It is
reported of more than one of these women that she has done as
many deeds of child-murder as did even the notorious Madame
Restell.

In this regard, they are among the most dangerous and criminal of
all the Witches.

The "Individual" visited Mrs. Hayes, who is one of the most
ignorant of the whole lot, and Mrs. Seymour, who is one of the
most intelligent of all. He sets down the particulars of his
visit to the former, in the words following:

How the "Individual" sees a Clairvoyant--How he pays a
Dollar, and what he gets for his money.

Not all the sorcery of all the sorcerers; not all the necromancy
of all the necromancers; not all the conjurations of all
masculine conjurers; not all the magic of all male magicians; not
all the charming of all the charmers, charm they never so wisely,
could have induced Johannes to ever more place the slightest
trust in a wizard, or repose in any wonderworker of the bearded
sex the merest trifle of faith, even the most infinitesimal
trituration of the homoeopathicest grain. The single dose he had
received from the renowned Doctor Wilson was quite enough, and
had satisfied all his longings for wisdom of that sort.

Besides, his coming events cast such peculiar and very unpleasant
shadows before, that he preferred to keep out of the grim
presence of such shady men, and for all after time to bask him
only in the sunshine of smiling women.

"_Pizon his first wife_," would he? Well, he could have taken
that "pizon" with tolerable composure from the lips of lovely
woman, but to receive it from the mumbling mouth of a skinny old
man, was too much to accept without divers rebellious grins.

A peach-cheeked witch, a cherry-lipped conjuress; a Circe, with
only enough charms to make a respectable photograph, might with
impunity have called him a counterfeiter, or a horse-thief, or
even a thimble-rigger; or might have told him that he would, upon
opportunity, garotte his grandmother for the small price of
seventy cents and her snuff-box; or that he was in the habit of
attending funerals to pick the pockets of the mourners, and of
going to church that he might steal the pennies from the
poor-box, all this would he have borne uncomplainingly from a
woman; but these unpalatable statements from one of the masculine
gender would be "most tolerable and not to b