Captain North exhibited some shavings of the real Pole, and a small bottle which, he asserted, contained scintillations of the Aurora Borealis, from which, he stated, he had succeeded in extracting pure gold. He announced that his nephew was preparing for a course of similar experiments, of which he expected to know the result in October. The gallant Captain then favoured the company with a dissertation on phrenology, of which, he said, he had been a believer for thirty years. He stated that he had made many valuable verifications of that science on the skulls of the Esquimaux; and that, in his recent tour in quest of subscribers to his book, his great success had been mainly attributable to his phrenological skill; for that, whenever he had an opportunity of feeling for soft places in the heads of the public, he knew in a moment whether he should get a customer or not. He said that whether in the examination of ships’ heads or sheep’s heads--in the choice of horses or housemaids, he had found the science of pre-eminent utility. He related the following remarkable phrenological cases:--A man and woman were executed in Scotland for murder on presumptive evidence; but another criminal confessed to the deed, and a reprieve arrived the day after the execution. The whole country was horrified; but Captain North having examined their heads, he considered, from the extraordinary size of their destructive organs, that the sentence was prospectively just, for they must have become murderers, had they escaped hanging then. Their infant child, of six months old, was brought to him, and, perceiving on its head the same fatal tendencies, he determined to avert the evil; for which purpose, by means of a pair of moulds, he so compressed the skull in its vicious propensities, and enlarged it in its virtuous ones, that the child grew up a model of perfection. The second instance was of a married couple, whose lives were a continued scene of discord till they parted. On examining their heads scientifically, he discovered the elementary causes of their unhappiness. Their skulls were unfortunately too thick to be treated as in the foregoing case; but, causing both their heads to be shaved, he by dint of planing down in some places, and laying on padding in others, contrived to produce all the requisite phrenological developments, and they were then living, a perfect pattern of conjugal felicity, ‘a thing which could not have happened without phrenology.’ (This dissertation was received with loud applauses from the entire assembly, whose phrenological organs becoming greatly excited, and developed in an amazing degree by the enthusiasm of the subject, they all fell to examining each other’s bumps with such eagerness that the meeting dissolved in confusion.) CHAPTER XVIII. LAW AND JUSTICE.