Secondly. It is also erroneously assumed that concealment can always or generally be effectually carried out. There are so many ways by which the truth can be betrayed, even where concerted plans are laid, guarded at every point, that failure is much more common than success, so far as my observation has extended. Some unguarded expression or act, even on the part of those who are practising the concealment, or some information communicated by those who are not in the secret, perhaps by children, or some evidence casually seen, very often either reveals the truth, or awakens suspicion and prompts inquiry which the most skilful equivocation may not be able to elude. The very air that is assumed in carrying on the deception often defeats the object. In one instance where this was the case, the suspecting patient said very significantly, ‘How strangely you all seem—you act as if something dreadful had happened that you mean to keep from me.’ Even the little child often exhibits a most correct discrimination in detecting deception in the manner, the modes of expression, and even the very tone of the voice. And sometimes, nay very often, people so far undervalue the good sense and shrewdness of children, that their deception is even ridiculously bungling, and justly excites an honest indignation in the bosom of the deceived child. I give the following scene as an illustration of the above remark. ‘Come, take this,’ said a mother to her child, ‘it’s something good.’ The child was evidently a little suspicious that he was not dealt with candidly; but after a great many assurances from her on whom a child ought to be able to rely, if upon any body in the wide world, he was at length persuaded to take the spoon into his mouth. The medicine, which was really very bitter, was at once spit out, and the little fellow burst forth in reproaches upon his mother for telling him such a lie. ‘No, my dear,’ said she, ‘I have told you no lie. The medicine _is_ good—it is good to cure you. That is what I meant.’ ‘Good to cure me!’ cried he, with a look and an air of the most perfect contempt. ‘You cheated me. You _know_ you did.’ The contempt which this child manifested towards such barefaced equivocation was most justly merited, and yet this is a fair example of the deceptions which physicians are almost every day obliged to witness, and which, (may I not say?) some of them encourage both by precept and example.