Respecting the matter of purchasing diplomas, I will state that I have seen a "Regular Medical Diploma" advertised in the New York _Herald_ for one hundred dollars. The name originally written therein is extracted by oxalic acid, or other chemicals. I knew a physician who parted with his Latin diploma for fifty dollars. I here warn the youth, and the public in general, against those advertised "_institutes_," though the name may be selected from that of some benevolent individual,--to give it a look of a benevolent character,--even though it be a "Nightengale," or a "Peabody," or a "St. Mary," and managed, _ostensibly_, under the sanction of the church or state--beware of it. Without, it is the whited sepulchre, within, the blood, flesh, and bones of dead men, women, and children. Some years since there was found, after the flight of one Dr. Jaques (?), in a vault in the city of Boston, the bones of some half score infants. The murderous charlatan escaped the halter he so richly deserved, and was practising in a New England village not above six years since. Another impostor, who has been extensively advertised in this city under an assumed name--selected to correspond with the familiar name of a celebrated New York (also a late Boston) physician and surgeon--who not only cheekily claims to be an "M. D.," but assumes the titles of F. R. S., etc., was but a short time before a dry goods seller on Hanover Street. He never read a standard medical work in his life. Although the villain has gone to parts unknown to the writer, the concern he recently represented as "consulting physician" is in full blast, and the same name and titles are blazoned forth daily in the public prints. Men get rich in these "institutes," take in an "assistant" for a few weeks, then sell out to the _novus homo_, and the thing goes on under the old name until the new man gains strength and confidence sufficient to carry it along under his own or his assumed title. FEMALE HARPIES. Under the name of "female physician," "midwife," etc., the most illicit and nefarious atrocities are daily practised by the numerous harpies who infest all our principal cities. The mythological harpies were represented as having the faces of women, heartless, with filthy bodies, and claws sharp and strong for fingers, which, once fastened upon human flesh, never relaxed till the last drop of life's blood was wrung from their unfortunate victim. Virgil thus expressively described them in the third book of the Æneid:-- "When from the mountain-tops, with hideous cry And clattering wings, the filthy harpies fly; Monsters more fierce offending Heaven ne'er sent From hell's abyss for human punishment; With virgin faces, but with ---- obscene, With claws for hands, and looks forever lean!" I will describe but one of the modern harpies of Boston, appealing to the reader if our text above is too severe.