half-dollar for the display of the animal's skill. After the piece was safely deposited far out of reach, the youth requested the exhibitor to "make him hand it down again." "We never learnt him that trick," was the reply! The enterprising Joab reaped an abundant harvest of dimes, and floods of papers poured into the Brooklyn post-office, each one containing his advertisement marked, agreeably to its conditions, and a few words written upon it by the editor, making his choice between the valuables promised by Sargent, and directing how to send the books, when they were the articles selected. These papers were of course charged with letter postage, and as the quantity which had arrived was becoming somewhat troublesome by its bulk, (since Joab took very good care not to inquire for _them_,) the post master sent to 266 Hicks Street, in order to notify him of the mass of news waiting for him at the office, as well as to make some inquiries in reference to the voluminous correspondence in which Mr. Sargent was engaged. But the person sent, returned with the report, "_non est inventus_," and the wary deceiver, having doubtless taken the alarm, came no more to the office to inquire for letters; so that although the rogue was "unwhipped of justice," a stop was put to his unrighteous gains. This case may serve as a warning to all, to look with distrust upon such advertisements emanating from unknown individuals, especially if the promises made are out of proportion to the "value received." In the present imperfect state of human nature, it is not common to find an individual offering through the papers most disinterested proposals for the good of people in general, without the fact coming to light sooner or later, that he had rather more prominently in view his own good in particular. And I will conclude with the following aphorism,--If you want onion seed, or anything else, send where you know you will not be cheated. * * * * * A GIFT ENTERPRISE. The fraud of which I am about to speak, also depended in a great measure for its success on the fact that it could be carried on through the mails. Gorgeous hand-bills were sent to the post-offices throughout the country, accompanied with requests to the different post masters to act as agents, and allowing them a liberal per-centage on all tickets sold. Those who read these hand-bills (suspended on the post-office walls,) and swallowed with expanded eyes and capacious throats the magnificent promises which they contained, could not determine by anything that appeared on the surface, whether "Dashall & Co." were real personages, or merely figments of the brain; and if the former, whether or not they were able and willing to meet their engagements.