The precise mode of operating upon males varies in different countries. In Madagascar three separate and distinct operations are inflicted upon the individual. In the South Sea Islands the natives simply slit up the prepuce on its dorsal aspect, and in earlier times the practice was to cut the prepuce all round the corona, avoiding the frœnum. In the Fiji Islands the instrument used is a sharp splinter of bamboo. Upon females the process of excision is performed by aged women. In Egypt the custom is still maintained; and the women of the _Said_ travel about from town to village, crying out “Circumcisor! who wants a circumcisor?” In Old Calabar, Mr. Daniel had the opportunity of witnessing the operation, which is likewise performed _there_ by aged females. The girl having been placed on the knees of a woman, with the legs apart, the clitoris was seized, _forceps-like_, by two pieces of bamboo or palm-sticks, and being gently drawn forth, was severed with a sharp razor. Among the Jews the peculiar and distinctive mark of circumcision is perpetuated in our days, and without any material change of ceremonial. The _modus operandi_ is as follows:—The godfather being seated, takes the child on his knees, and the operator (who may be the father of the child, if capable, or some friend of the family, or a professed expert) takes up with his fingers, or a pair of tweezers, as much of the prepuce as he intends to cut off, and, on applying the knife, says—“Blessed be Thou, O God, who hast commanded us to use circumcision.” He then sucks the blood, and spits it into a cup of wine, and having applied styptics to the wound, retakes the cup, and having blessed _it_ and the child, pronounces the name of the child, and moistens his lips with the contents of the cup. Various prayers are then said, and the ceremony is concluded. Though the modern Jews generally use a steel instrument, there is this remarkable exception—that, when a male child dies before the eighth day, it is circumcised prior to burial, and this is done, not with the ordinary instrument, but with a fragment of glass or flint. The practice extended to the Ishmaelites, and, as we have already stated, was subsequently adopted by Mahomet, so that a very large section of the human race are to this day, participators of a rite established considerably more than 3000 years ago. The subject cannot be dismissed without noticing the fact that the Jews under their various captivities, subjugations, and persecutions, endeavoured, in some instances, to obliterate the marks of circumcision. This is abundantly proved, not only by contemporary writers, but by the evidence of Epiphanius, Celsus, Galen, Paulus Ægineta, Fallopius, and others, who have enlarged upon the means adopted for the accomplishment of this object. It is, further, a noteworthy circumstance that the Jews _entirely_ suspended the practice of circumcision during the forty years of their wanderings in the wilderness.