NO. III.—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1807

FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR.

As I delight in everything novel and eccentric, and would at any time give an old coat for a new idea, I am particularly attentive to the manners and conversation of strangers, and scarcely ever a traveller enters this city whose appearance promises anything original, but by some means or another I form an acquaintance with him. I must confess I often suffer manifold afflictions from the intimacies thus contracted: my curiosity is frequently punished by the stupid details of a blockhead, or the shallow verbosity of a coxcomb. Now, I would prefer at any time to travel with an ox-team through a Carolina sand-flat, rather than plod through a heavy, unmeaning conversation with the former; and as to the latter, I would sooner hold sweet converse with the wheel of a knife-grinder than endure his monotonous chattering. In fact, the strangers who flock to this most pleasant of all earthly cities are generally mere birds of passage, whose plumage is often gay enough, I own, but their notes, “heaven save the mark,” are as unmusical as those of that classic night-bird which the ancients humorously 47selected as the emblem of wisdom. Those from the South, it is true, entertain me with their horses, equipages, and puns; and it is excessively pleasant to hear a couple of these four-in-hand gentlemen detail their exploits over a bottle. Those from the East have often induced me to doubt the existence of the wise men of yore, who are said to have flourished in that quarter; and as for those from parts beyond seas—O! my masters, ye shall hear more from me anon. Heaven help this unhappy town! hath it not goslings enow of its own hatching and rearing, that it must be overwhelmed by such an inundation of ganders from other climes? I would not have any of my courteous and gentle readers suppose that I am running a muck, full tilt, cut and slash, upon all foreigners indiscriminately. I have no national antipathies, though related to the Cockloft family. As to honest John Bull, I shake him heartily by the hand, assuring him that I love his jolly countenance, and, moreover, am lineally descended from him; in proof of which I allege my invincible predilection for roast beef and pudding. I therefore look upon all his children as my kinsmen; and I beg, when I tickle a cockney, I may not be understood as trimming an Englishman;—they being very distinct animals, as I shall clearly demonstrate in a future number. If any one wishes to know my opinion of the Irish and Scotch, he may find it in the characters of those two nations, drawn by the first advocate of the age. But the French, I must confess, are my favorites; and I 48have taken more pains to argue my cousin Pindar out of his antipathy to them than I ever did about any other thing. When, therefore, I choose to hunt a Monsieur for my own particular amusement, I beg it may not be asserted that I intend him as a representative of his countrymen at large. Far from this; I love the nation, as being a nation of right merry fellows, possessing the true secret of being happy; which is nothing more than thinking of nothing, talking about anything, and laughing at everything. I mean only to tune up those little thingimys, who represent nobody but themselves; who have no national trait about them but their language, and who hop about our town in swarms, like little toads after a shower.

Among the few strangers whose acquaintance has entertained me, I particularly rank the magnanimous Mustapha Rub-a-dub Keli Khan, a most illustrious captain of a ketch, who figured, some time since, in our fashionable circles, at the head of a ragged regiment of Tripolitan prisoners.^[13] His conversation was to me a perpetual feast; I chuckled with inward pleasure at his whimsical mistakes and unaffected observations on men and manners, and I rolled each odd conceit “like a sweet morsel under my tongue.”

49Whether Mustapha was captivated by my iron-bound physiognomy, or flattered by the attentions which I paid him, I won’t determine; but I so far gained his confidence, that, at his departure, he presented me with a bundle of papers, containing, among other articles, several copies of letters, which he had written to his friends at Tripoli. The following is a translation of one of them. The original is in Arabic-Greek; but by the assistance of Will Wizard, who understands all languages, not excepting that manufactured by Psalmanazar, I have been enabled to accomplish a tolerable translation. We should have found little difficulty in rendering it into English, had it not been for Mustapha’s confounded pot-hooks and trammels.

LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN, CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI.

Thou wilt learn from this letter, most illustrious disciple of Mahomet, that I have for some time resided in New York; the most polished, vast, and magnificent city of the United States of America. But what to me are its delights! I wander a captive through its splendid streets, I turn a heavy eye on every rising day that beholds me banished from my country. The Christian husbands here lament most bitterly any 50short absence from home, though they leave but one wife behind to lament their departure; what then must be the feelings of thy unhappy kinsman, while thus lingering at an immeasurable distance from three-and-twenty of the most lovely and obedient wives in all Tripoli! O Allah! shall thy servant never again return to his native land, nor behold his beloved wives, who beam on his memory beautiful as the rosy morn of the east, and graceful as Mahomet’s camel!

Yet beautiful, O most puissant slave-driver, as are my wives, they are far exceeded by the women of this country. Even those who run about the streets with bare arms and necks (et cetera), whose habiliments are too scanty to protect them from the inclemency of the seasons, or the scrutinizing glances of the curious, and who it would seem belong to nobody, are lovely as the houris that people the elysium of true believers. If then, such as run wild in the highways, and whom no one cares to appropriate, are thus beauteous, what must be the charms of those who are shut up in the seraglios, and never permitted to go abroad! surely the region of beauty, the Valley of the Graces, can contain nothing so inimitably fair!

But, notwithstanding the charms of these infidel women, they are apt to have one fault, which is extremely troublesome and inconvenient. Wouldst thou believe it, Asem, I have been positively assured by a famous dervise, or doctor, as he is here called, that at least one-fifth part of them—have souls! Incredible as it may 51seem to thee, I am the more inclined to believe them in possession of this monstrous superfluity, from my own little experience, and from the information which I have derived from others. In walking the streets I have actually seen an exceedingly good-looking woman, with soul enough to box her husband’s ears to his heart’s content, and my very whiskers trembled with indignation at the abject state of these wretched infidels. I am told, moreover, that some of the women have soul enough to usurp the breeches of the men, but these I suppose are married and kept close; for I have not, in my rambles, met with any so extravagantly accoutred: others, I am informed, have soul enough to swear!—yea! by the beard of the great Omar, who prayed three times to each of the one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets of our most holy faith, and who never swore but once in his life—they actually swear!

Get thee to the mosque, good Asem! return thanks to our most holy prophet, that he has been thus mindful of the comfort of all true Mussulmans, and has given them wives with no more souls than cats and dogs, and other necessary animals of the household.

Thou wilt doubtless be anxious to learn our reception in this country, and how we were treated by a people whom we have been accustomed to consider as unenlightened barbarians.

On landing we were waited upon to our lodgings, I suppose according to the directions of the municipality, by a vast and respectable escort 52of boys and negroes, who shouted and threw up their hats, doubtless to do honor to the magnanimous Mustapha, captain of a ketch; they were somewhat ragged and dirty in their equipments, but this we attributed to their republican simplicity. One of them, in the zeal of admiration, threw an old shoe, which gave thy friend rather an ungentle salutation on one side of the head, whereat I was not a little offended, until the interpreter informed us that this was the customary manner in which great men were honored in this country; and that the more distinguished they were, the more they were subjected to the attacks and peltings of the mob. Upon this I bowed my head three times, with my hands to my turban, and made a speech in Arabic-Greek, which gave great satisfaction, and occasioned a shower of old shoes, hats, and so forth, that was exceedingly refreshing to us all.

Thou wilt not as yet expect that I should give thee an account of the laws and politics of this country. I will reserve them for some future letter, when I shall be more experienced in their complicated and seemingly contradictory nature.

This empire is governed by a grand and most puissant bashaw, whom they dignify with the title of president. He is chosen by persons, who are chosen by an assembly, elected by the people—hence the mob is called the sovereign people—and the country, free; the body politic doubtless resembling a vessel, which is best governed by its tail. The present bashaw is a very plain old gentleman—something they say of a humorist, 53as he amuses himself with impaling butterflies and pickling tadpoles; he is rather declining in popularity, having given great offense by wearing red breeches and tying his horse to a post.^[14] The people of the United States have assured me that they themselves are the most enlightened nation under the sun; but thou knowest that the barbarians of the desert, who assemble at the summer solstice, to shoot their arrows at that glorious luminary, in order to extinguish his burning rays, make precisely the same boast—which of them have the superior claim, I shall not attempt to decide.

I have observed, with some degree of surprise, that the men of this country do not seem in haste to accommodate themselves even with the single wife which alone the laws permit them to marry; this backwardness is probably owing to the misfortune of their absolutely having no female mutes among them. Thou knowest how valuable are these silent companions—what a price is given for them in the East, and what entertaining wives they make. What delightful 54entertainment arises from beholding the silent eloquence of their sighs and gestures; but a wife possessed both of a tongue and a soul—monstrous! monstrous! is it astonishing that these unhappy infidels should shrink from a union with a woman so preposterously endowed!

Thou hast doubtless read in the works of Abul Faraj, the Arabian historian, the tradition which mentions that the muses were once upon the point of falling together by the ears about the admission of a tenth among their number, until she assured them, by signs, that she was dumb; whereupon they received her with great rejoicing. I should, perhaps, inform thee that there are but nine Christian muses, who were formerly pagans, but have since been converted, and that in this country we never hear of a tenth, unless some crazy poet wishes to pay a hyperbolical compliment to his mistress; on which occasion it goes hard, but she figures as a tenth muse, or fourth grace, even though she should be more illiterate than a Hottentot, and more ungraceful than a dancing bear! Since my arrival in this country, I have met with not less than a hundred of these supernumerary muses and graces—and may Allah preserve me from ever meeting with any more!

When I have studied this people more profoundly, I will write thee again: in the mean time watch over my household, and do not beat my beloved wives unless you catch them with their noses out at the window. Though far distant and a slave, let me live in thy heart as thou 55livest in mine; think not, O friend of my soul, that the splendors of this luxurious capital, its gorgeous palaces, its stupendous mosques, and the beautiful females who run wild in herds about its streets, can obliterate thee from my remembrance. Thy name shall still be mentioned in the five-and-twenty prayers which I offer up daily; and may our great prophet, after bestowing on thee all the blessings of this life, at length, in good old age, lead thee gently by the hand, to enjoy the dignity of bashaw of three tails in the blissful bowers of Eden.

Mustapha.

FASHIONS.

BY ANTHONY EVERGREEN, GENT.

The following article is furnished me by a young lady of unquestionable taste, and who is the oracle of fashion and frippery. Being deeply initiated into all the mysteries of the toilet, she has promised me, from time to time, a similar detail.

Mrs. Toole has for some time reigned unrivaled in the fashionable world, and had the supreme direction of caps, bonnets, feathers, flowers, and tinsel. She has dressed and undressed our ladies just as she pleased; now loading them with velvet and wadding, now turning them adrift upon the world to run shivering through the streets with scarcely a covering to their—backs; and now obliging them to drag a long train at their heels, like the tail of a paper kite. Her 56despotic sway, however, threatens to be limited. A dangerous rival has sprung up in the person of Madame Bouchard, an intrepid little woman, fresh from the head-quarters of fashion and folly, and who has burst like a second Bonaparte upon the fashionable world. Mrs. Toole, notwithstanding, seems determined to dispute her ground bravely for the honor of old England. The ladies have begun to arrange themselves under the banner of one or other of these heroines of the needle, and everything portends open war. Madame Bouchard marches gallantly to the field, flourishing a flaming red robe for a standard, “flouting the skies;” and Mrs. Toole, no wise dismayed, sallies out under cover of a forest of artificial flowers, like Malcolm’s host. Both parties possess great merit, and both deserve the victory. Mrs. Toole charges the highest, but Madame Bouchard makes the lowest courtesy. Madame Bouchard is a little short lady—nor is there any hope of her growing larger; but then she is perfectly genteel, and so is Mrs. Toole. Mrs. Toole lives in Broadway, and Madame Bouchard in Courtlandt street; but Madame atones for the inferiority of her stand by making two courtesies to Mrs. Toole’s one, and talking French like an angel. Mrs. Toole is the best looking, but Madame Bouchard wears a most bewitching little scrubby wig. Mrs. Toole is the tallest, but Madame Bouchard has the longest nose. Mrs. Toole is fond of roast beef, but Madame Bouchard is loyal in her adherence to onions; in short, so equally are the merits of the two ladies balanced, 57that there is no judging which will “kick the beam.” It, however, seems to be the prevailing opinion that Madame Bouchard will carry the day, because she wears a wig, has a long nose, talks French, loves onions, and does not charge above ten times as much for a thing as it is worth.

Under the direction of these high priestesses of the beau monde, the following is the fashionable morning dress for walking.

If the weather be very cold, a thin muslin gown or frock is most advisable, because it agrees with the season, being perfectly cool. The neck, arms, and particularly the elbows bare, in order that they may be agreeably painted and mottled by Mr. John Frost, nose-painter-general, of the color of Castile soap. Shoes of kid, the thinnest that can possibly be procured—as they tend to promote colds, and make a lady look interesting—(i. e. grizzly). Picnic silk stockings, with lace clocks, flesh-colored are most fashionable, as they have the appearance of bare legs—nudity being all the rage. The stockings carelessly bespattered with mud, to agree with the gown, which should be bordered about three inches deep with the most fashionable colored mud that can be found; the ladies permitted to hold up their trains, after they have swept two or three streets, in order to show—the clocks of their stockings. The shawl scarlet, crimson, flame, orange, salmon, or any other combustible or brimstone color, thrown over 58one shoulder, like an Indian blanket, with one end dragging on the ground.

N. B. If the ladies have not a red shawl at hand, a red petticoat, turned topsy-turvy over the shoulders, would do just as well. This is called being dressed à la drabble.

When the ladies do not go abroad of a morning, the usual chimney-corner dress is a dotted, spotted, striped, or cross-barred gown; a yellowish, whitish, smokish, dirty-colored shawl, and the hair curiously ornamented with little bits of newspapers, or pieces of a letter from a dear friend. This is called the “Cinderella dress.”

The recipe for a full dress is as follows: take of spider-net, crape, satin, gimp, catgut, gauze, whalebone, lace, bobbin, ribbons, and artificial flowers, as much as will rig out the congregation of a village church; to these, add as many spangles, beads, and gewgaws as would be sufficient to turn the heads of all the fashionable fair ones of Nootka Sound. Let Mrs. Toole or Madame Bouchard patch all these articles together, one upon another, dash them plentifully over with stars, bugles, and tinsel, and they will altogether form a dress, which, hung upon a lady’s back, cannot fail of supplying the place of beauty, youth, and grace, and of reminding the spectator of that celebrated region of finery called Rag Fair.

One of the greatest sources of amusement incident to our humorous knight-errantry is to ramble about, and hear the various conjectures 59of the town respecting our worships, whom everybody pretends to know as well as Falstaff did Prince Hal, at Gad’s-hill. We have sometimes seen a sapient, sleepy fellow, on being tickled with a straw, make a furious effort, and fancy he had fairly caught a gnat in his grasp; so, that many-headed monster, the public, who, with all its heads, is, we fear, sadly off for brains, has, after long hovering, come souse down, like a king-fisher, on the authors of Salmagundi, and caught them as certainly as the aforesaid honest fellow caught the gnat.

Would that we were rich enough to give every one of our numerous readers a cent, as a reward for their ingenuity! Not that they have really conjectured within a thousand leagues of the truth, but that we consider it a great stretch of ingenuity even to have guessed wrong; and that we hold ourselves much obliged to them for having taken the trouble to guess at all.

One of the most tickling, dear, mischievous pleasures of this life is to laugh in one’s sleeve—to sit snug in the corner, unnoticed and unknown, and hear the wise men of Gotham, who are profound judges of horse flesh, pronounce, from the style of our work, who are the authors. This listening incog., and receiving a hearty praising over another man’s back, is a situation so celestially whimsical, that we have done little else than laugh in our sleeve ever since our first number was published.

The town has at length allayed the titillations of curiosity, by fixing on two young gentlemen 60of literary talents—that is to say, they are equal to the composition of a newspaper squib, a hodge-podge criticism, or some such trifle, and may occasionally raise a smile by their effusions; but pardon us, sweet sirs, if we modestly doubt your capability of supporting the burden of Salmagundi or of keeping up a laugh for a whole fortnight, as we have done, and intend to do, until the whole town becomes a community of laughing philosophers like ourselves. We have no intention, however, of undervaluing the abilities of these two young men, whom we verily believe, according to common acceptation, young men of promise.

Were we ill-natured, we might publish something that would get our representatives into difficulties; but far be it from us to do anything to the injury of persons to whom we are under such obligations.

While they stand before us, we, like little Teucer, behind the sevenfold shield of Ajax, can launch unseen our sportive arrows, which, we trust, will never inflict a wound, unless, like his, they fly, “heaven-directed,” to some conscience-struck bosom.

Another marvelous great source of pleasure to us is the abuse our work has received from several wooden gentlemen, whose censures we covet more than ever we did anything in our lives. The moment we declared open war against folly and stupidity, we expected to receive no quarter; and to provoke a confederacy of all the blockheads in town. For it is one of our indisputable facts, that so sure as you catch a gander by the tail, the 61whole flock, geese, goslings, one and all, have a fellow feeling on the occasion, and begin to cackle and hiss like so many devils bewitched. As we have a profound respect for these ancient and respectable birds, on the score of their once saving the Capitol, we hereby declare that we mean no offense whatever by comparing them to the aforesaid confederacy. We have heard, in our walks, such criticism on Salmagundi as almost induced a belief that folly had here, as in the East, her moments of inspired idiotism. Every silly royster has, as if by an instinctive sense of anticipated danger, joined in the cry, and condemned us without mercy. All is thus as it should be. It would have mortified us very sensibly had we been disappointed in this particular, as we should then have been apprehensive that our shafts had fallen to the ground, innocent of the “blood or brains” of a single numskull. Our efforts have been crowned with wonderful success. All the queer fish, the grubs, the flats, the noddies, and the live-oak and timber gentlemen, are pointing their empty guns at us; and we are threatened with a most puissant confederacy of the “pigmies and cranes,” and other “light militia,” backed by the heavy-armed artillery of dullness and stupidity. The veriest dreams of our most sanguine moments are thus realized. We have no fear of the censures of the wise, the good, or the fair, for they will ever be sacred from our attacks. We reverence the wise, love the good, and adore the fair; we declare ourselves champions in their cause—in the cause of morality—and we throw our gauntlet to all the world besides.

62While we profess and feel the same indifference to public applause as at first, we most earnestly invite the attacks and censures of all the wooden warriors of this sensible city; and especially of that distinguished and learned body, heretofore celebrated under the appellation of “The North River Society.” The thrice valiant and renowned Don Quixote never made such work amongst the wool-clad warriors of Trapoban, or the puppets of the itinerant showman, as we promise to make among these fine fellows; and we pledge ourselves to the public in general, and the Albany skippers in particular, that the North River shall not be set on fire this winter at least, for we shall give the authors of that nefarious scheme ample employment for some time to come.

PROCLAMATION, FROM THE MILL OF PINDAR COCKLOFT ESQ.

To all the young belles who enliven our scene,

From ripe five-and-forty, to blooming fifteen;

Who racket at routs, and who rattle at plays,

Who visit, and fidget, and dance out their days;

Who conquer all hearts with a shot from the eye,

Who freeze with a frown, and who thaw with a sigh:—

To all those bright youths who embellish the age,

Whether young boys or old boys, or numskull or sage:

63Whether BULL DOGS, who cringe at their mistress’s feet,

Who sigh and who whine, and who try to look sweet;

Whether TOUGH DOGS, who squat down stock still in a row

And play wooden gentlemen stuck up for a show;

Or SAD DOGS, who glory in running their rigs,

Now dash in their sleighs, and now whirl in their gigs;

Who riot at Dyde’s^[15] on imperial champagne,

And then scour our city—the peace to maintain;

To whoe’er it concerns or may happen to meet,

By these presents their worships I lovingly greet,

Now KNOW YE, that I, Pindar Cockloft, Esquire,

Am laureate, appointed at special desire;

A censor, self-dubbed, to admonish the fair,

And tenderly take the town under my care.

I’m a ci-devant beau, cousin Launcelot has said—

A remnant of habits long vanished and dead:

But still, though my heart dwells with rapture sublime,

On the fashions and customs which reign’d in my prime,

I yet can perceive—and still candidly praise,

Some maxims and manners of these “latter days;”

Still own that some wisdom and beauty appears,

Though almost entombed in the rubbish of years.

64No fierce nor tyrannical cynic am I,

Who frown on each foible I chance to espy;

Who pounce on a novelty, just like a kite,

And tear up a victim through malice or spite;

Who expose to the scoffs of an ill-natured crew,

A trembler for starting a whim that is new.

No, no—I shall cautiously hold up my glass,

To the sweet little blossoms who heedlessly pass;

My remarks not too pointed to wound or offend,

Nor so vague as to miss their benevolent end:

Each innocent fashion shall have its full sway;

New modes shall arise to astonish Broadway:

Red hats and red shawls still illumine the town,

And each belle, like a bon-fire, blaze up and down.

Fair spirits who brighten the gloom of our days,

Who cheer this dull scene with your heavenly rays,

No mortal can love you more firmly and true,

From the crown of the head to the sole of your shoe.

I’m old fashioned, ’tis true,—but still runs in my heart

That affectionate stream, to which youth gave the start,

More calm in its current—yet potent in force;

Less ruffled by gales—but still steadfast in course.

Though the lover, enraptured, no longer appears,—

’Tis the guide and the guardian enlightened by years.

65All ripen’d and mellow’d and soften’d by time,

The asperities polish’d which chafed in my prime;

I’m fully prepared for that delicate end,

The fair one’s instructor, companion, and friend.

—And should I perceive you in fashion’s gay dance,

Allured by the frippery-mongers of France,

Expose your weak frames to a chill wintry sky

To be nipp’d by its frosts, to be torn from the eye:

My soft admonitions shall fall on your ear—

Shall whisper those parents to whom you are dear—

Shall warn you of hazards you heedlessly run,

And sing of those fair ones whom frost has undone,

Bright suns that would scarce on our horizon dawn,

Ere shrouded from sight, they were early withdrawn;

Gay sylphs, who have floated in circles below,

As pure in their souls, and as transient as snow;

Sweet roses, that bloom’d and decay’d to my eye,

And of forms that have flitted and passed to the sky.

But as to those brainless pert bloods of our town,

Those sprigs of the ton who run decency down;

Who lounge and who lout, and who booby about,

No knowledge within, and no manners without;

Who stare at each beauty with insolent eyes;

Who rail at those morals their fathers would prize;

66Who are loud at the play—and who impiously dare

To come in their cups to the routs of the fair;

I shall hold up my mirror, to let them survey

The figures they cut as they dash it away:

Should my good-humored verse no amendment produce,

Like scarecrows, at least, they shall still be of use;

I shall stitch them, in effigy, up in my rhyme,

And hold them aloft through the progress of time,

As figures of fun to make the folks laugh,

Like that queer-looking angel erected by Paff,

“What shtop,” as he says, “all de people what come;

What smiles on dem all, and what peats on de trum.”

——“How now, mooncalf?”

We have been congratulating ourselves exceedingly on having, at length, attracted the notice of a ponderous genius of this city, Dr. Christopher Costive, LL. D., etc., who has spoken of us in such a manner that we are ten times better pleased than ever we were before. It shall never be said of us, that we have been outdone in the way of complimenting, and we therefore assure Dr. Christopher Costive that, for a Yankee doodle song, about “Sister Tabitha,” “our Cow,” and “dandy,” and “sugar candy,” 67and all these jokes of truly Eastern saltness, we know no man more “cute” than himself.

If Dr. Costive should find fault with having nothing but whipt syllabub from us, we promise him that, if circumstances render it necessary, we will occasionally give it a little variety by whipping him up in it as completely as ever a dish of ass’s milk was whipt up in this world. Our friend seems rather vociferous in his demand for a dish of “flummery,” and as such a dish is not in our bill of fare, we immediately requested our publisher to procure us one that would suit our friend’s appetite. He has brought us “Democracy Unveiled, or Tyranny stripped of the Garb of Patriotism,” by Christopher Costive, LL. D. etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. We can now promise our friend to serve him up a plentiful dish of flummery from his own shop, whenever he thinks fit to demand it, and garnished with a little Salmagundi for sauce. We hope he will not behave like his prototype, Dr. Lampedo, and gag at his own “patent draught.”

Our respected friend appears a little worried that we do not write for money. Now this looks ill of Dr. Costive—not that we thereby mean to insinuate that Dr. Costive is an ill-looking personage; on the contrary, we think him a great poet, a very great poet, the greatest poet of the age, and, considering the excessive gravity of his person, we are the more astonished at the sublime flights of his fat fancy. To convince him that we are disposed to befriend him all in our power, we take this opportunity to inform our numerous 68readers that there is such a man as Dr. Christopher Costive, and that he publishes a weakly paper, called the “Weekly Inspector,” somewhere in this city, and that he writes for money.^[16] We, therefore, advise “everybody, man, woman, and child, that can read, or get anybody to read for them, to purchase his paper,” where they will find the true “bubble and squeak,” and “topsy-turvy,” which Dr. Costive will at any time exchange for money.

Upon the whole, we consider him a very modest, decent, good-looking big man, who writes for money; being but “half a fish and half a monster.”

71