_American Quackery._—The cost for advertising quack medicines in the United States, annually, is estimated at 200,000 dollars. A peck of pills per day is considered necessary for Boston, and half a bushel for New York. On an average, only one in twenty-five who take them is actually sick; and the proportion of those dispensing with some necessary of life to purchase nostrums, which do them a positive injury, is in the ratio of eighty-seven to every one hundred throughout the country. [7] Dr. Petit found the crystalline in the eye of a man eighty years of age so yellow as to resemble amber. “When exposed to heat it becomes soft, swells, bubbles up, is apt to take fire, and burns with a yellowish flame.”—_Heron’s Chemistry._ “It gives out electricity by friction. It is an indurated vegetable juice, and not produced by the laws of crystallization, but by the same causes which influence the mechanical condition of gum arabic, and other resinous substances. Insects are often found embedded in it.”—_Parkes’s Chemistry._ It is a fact, that to silence such objections, a great improvement in amber, very pure and costly, was announced; this was nothing more nor less than yellow plate-glass, the same as is used in stained-glass windows. I have several specimens of these “superlative patent amber” in my possession. [8] Dr. Neill Arnott. [9] Dollond—Curtis. CHAPTER V. “Nothing extenuate or set down aught in malice.”—SHAKSPEARE. Some instances which have come under my own cognizance will illustrate the way in which gross imposition is practised, and the public morals materially injured, by weakening confidence in those who are, from their education and rank, looked to as guides and preceptors, and causing the mind to turn with indignation from the needy, but debased and grovelling creatures, who resort to any means, however infamous, to effect their selfish purposes. A military gentleman, of Stonehouse, was waited upon by a renowned optical quack, who, the moment he entered the parlour, exclaimed, “Goot Got, Sar! vy, you are a’goin plind; the sight is leaving your left eye! If you don’t immejartly take to my improved classes I vill not answer for the konserkences; kataract will grow on it in a month!” The gentleman, taken by surprise, tried on some of the _preservers_, and finally purchased two pairs of hand-folding spectacles, for which he paid four pounds. Some time after, they were more particularly inspected, and proved to be common glass, instead of pebbles, as was represented, and of much stronger focus than the eyes required. The full London retail charge for _such_ articles is 10_s._ per pair.