"I must add a curious story, which I believe will surprise your Italian surgeons as much as it has amazed the faculty here. A sailor who had broken his leg was advised to communicate his case to the Royal Society. The account he gave was, that having fallen from the top of the mast and fractured his leg, he had dressed it with nothing but tar and oakum, and yet in three days was able to walk as well as before the accident. The story at first appeared quite incredible, as no such efficacious qualities were known in tar, and still less in oakum; nor was a poor sailor to be credited on his own bare assertion of so wonderful a cure. The society very reasonably demanded a fuller relation, and, I suppose, the corroboration of evidence. Many doubted whether the leg had been really broken. That part of the story had been amply verified. Still it was difficult to believe that the man had made use of no other applications than tar and oakum; and how _they_ should cure a broken leg in three days, even if they could cure it at all, was a matter of the utmost wonder. Several letters passed between the society and the patient, who persevered in the most solemn asseverations of having used no other remedies, and it does appear beyond a doubt that the man speaks truth. It is a little uncharitable, but I fear there are surgeons who might not like this abbreviation of attendance and expense; but, on the other hand, you will be charmed with the plain, honest simplicity of the sailor. In a postscript to his last letter, he added these words: "I forgot to tell your honors that the leg was a wooden one!" * * * * * There was great delicacy in the manner in which a foreigner, having a friend hung in this country, broke the intelligence to his relations on the other side of the water. He wrote as follows: "Your brother had been addressing a large meeting of citizens, who had manifested the deepest interest in him, when the platform upon which he stood, being, as was subsequently ascertained, very insecure, gave way, owing to which, he fell and broke his neck!" * * * * * If you will take a bank-note, and while you are folding it up according to direction, peruse the following lines, you will arrive at their meaning, with no little admiration for the writer's cleverness: "I will tell you a plan for gaining wealth, Better than banking, trading or leases; Take a bank-note and fold it up, And then you will find your wealth in-creases. "This wonderful plan, without danger or loss, Keeps your cash in your hands, and with nothing to trouble it, And every time that you fold it across, 'Tis plain as the light of the day that you double it." * * * * * If your "Editor's Drawer," writes a correspondent, is not already full, you may think the inclosed, although an old story, worthy of being squeezed in.