cease to arise while there are rogues, madmen,
and fools left in the world.

The census returns of 1851 show that four
congregations of persons still believing in
Joanna Southcott attended four places of
worship on Sunday, March 30. In the morning
sixty-eight, and in the afternoon one hundred
and ninety-eight persons attended.

Let us glance next at the imposture of Mary
Toft, the rabbit-breeder. This woman, the wife
of a poor journeyman, pretended that she had
given birth to a number of rabbits, and there
were eminent surgeons and medical men who
believed her. What guarantee is there in the
highest intellect and learning against the
influence of the silliest of impostures, when
experienced physiologists can give credence for
a moment to such a monstrously impossible
thing as this? The case of Mary Toft was first
made known to the faculty by Mr. John
Howard, surgeon, at Guildford, in Surrey, a
man of known probity, character, and capacity
in his profession, who had practised midwifery
for thirty years. Mr. Howard attested that he
had delivered Mary Toft of fifteen rabbits.
Several surgeons went down to Guildford to
examine the woman, and they were all so far
impressed with the evidence of Mr. Howard,
that the King instructed the surgeon to his
household to institute further inquiry. This
eminent authority was fully convinced of the
truth of the story, declaring that he himself
assisted at the delivery of the sixteenth rabbit,
which he brought to town with him. Mary
Toft herself was brought to London, and was
examined by Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Richard
Manningham, Sir Thomas Clarges, Mr. St. André,
and other celebrated practitioners. Sir Richard
Manningham, Fellow of the Royal Society and
of the College of Physicians, and Mr. St. André,
anatomist to the court, both publicly declared
their belief in the phenomenon. The opinion
of two such eminent men induced others to
believe, and so great was the public horror of
rabbits that the rent of warrens sank to nothing:
no one would eat a rabbit on any account.
Mary Toft was driven at last to confess the
imposture, and the eminent practitioners found to
their deep chagrin that they had been taken in by
a clumsy piece of jugglery. Sir Richard
Manningham and Mr. St. André never held up their
heads afterwards. The latter continued to hold
the appointment of anatomist to the royal
household; but his advice was never again
asked for, and he refused to draw the salary.
For the rest of his life he could not bear the
sight of a rabbit. Mary Toft, while being
exhibited as a phenomenon, received considerable
sums of money; and, in order to
perpetuate her fame, had her portrait painted by
Laguerre. On the discovery of her imposture,
she returned to Godalming, and, falling into
felonious ways, was committed to Guildford jail
for receiving stolen goods. She died in January,
1763.

Even this vulgar imposture was declared to
be a divine manifestation. The Rev. Dr.
Whiston, the deputy and successor of Newton
as professor of mathematics at the University
of Cambridge, believed the story of Mary Toft,
and wrote a pamphlet to prove that the
monstrous conception was the exact fulfilment of a
prophecy in Esdras. Thus at various times
have the wisest and most learned of men been
befooled by the grossest and most contemptible
impostures, foisted upon them by the clumsy arts
of the ignorant and the vulgar.

At the beginning of the present century the
country was ringing with the fame of Ann Moore,
of Tutbury, who was said to have lived for five
years without food or drink. In this case, also,
medical men were employed to test the truth of
the phenomenon, and their report confirmed all
that had been alleged. From this time the
Fasting Woman continued to attract visitors
from all parts of the country, who witnessed
her condition with a sort of religious awe, and
who, in commiseration of her sufferings, or to
reward her devotedness, presented her with
money and other gifts. This old humbug, who
lay in bed, with a large Bible before her, to
receive her visitors, turned the exhibition of her
person to such good account as to be able to
place a sum of four hundred pounds in the
funds. She submitted to one test of sixteen
days' watching, but refused to submit to a
second. But the astonishing thing is, not that
Ann Moore should submit to be watched,
when she made so much money by it, but that
there should have been people idle enough,
silly enough, and credulous enough to watch
her.

As to the idle, silly, and credulous persons
who are now abasing their intellects under the
feet of that grossest of all the impostures—
Spiritualism—we wish them no worse than
that they may live long enough to see their
names blazoned in the next edition of the
"History of Popular Delusions," and that they
may come to have as great a horror of rapping-
tables as the learned Mr. St. André had of
rabbits.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS.
MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read at Greenwich on
Friday evening the 4th of May; at Clifton on Wednesday
and Friday the 9th and 11th; at Bristol on Thursday the
10th; at ST. JAMES'S HALL on Monday the 14th; at
Aberdeen on Wednesday 16th; at Glasgow on Friday 18th;
and at Edinburgh on Saturday morning the 19th of May.