I have, by purchase and otherwise, obtained the secret of the compounds of the celebrated "Spanish," _alias_ "Turkish, Love Powders." I had previously considered them very harmless preparations. They are quite the reverse. The powder and drops are _Spanish flies_ and _blood-root_! Sometimes the former are mixed (pulverized) with fine sugar; but the Spanish flies (cantharides), either in powder or liquid, is a very dangerous irritant, a very small dose sometimes producing painful and dangerous strangury. It is far more certain to produce this distressing complaint than to cause any sexual excitement. There may be some harmless powders sold as "love powders," but I have never seen any. I have a quantity of the former. Any physician or chemist may see it, who is interested. A few drops of it will produce burning and excoriation of the mouth and stomach, and inflammation of the stomach, liver, and kidneys. And this dangerous stuff is sold by ignorant fortune-tellers to any equally ignorant, credulous creature who may send fifty cents therefor. _The French Secret_ is only for fools. Reader, _you_ have no occasion for it. It would be of no positive earthly benefit, provided I could so construe language as to explain to you what it is, in this connection. Be assured that you cannot circumvent Nature, except at the expense of health. _Qui n'a sante n'a rien._ Druggists' clerks sometimes sell to boys _tincture cantharis_ for evil purposes. _Hasheesh_ is another dangerous article, sometimes sold at random, and purchased for no good purpose. A few years since, a great excitement was produced by the young ladies of P---- Female Seminary obtaining and using a quantity of _hasheesh_. "One girl took five grains, another _ten_ grains. The latter was rendered insensible, and with difficulty restored to consciousness, while the former was rushing around under the peculiar hallucinating effect of the drug, and in a manner bordering on indecency." I obtained this statement, with more that I cannot publish, from a physician who witnessed the scene. "DOES HE LOVE ME?" Young girls and children are seduced into visiting fortune-tellers. A Boston fortune-teller, in 1871, took a summer tour through Eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire. At Manchester, one evening, some one knocked lightly at her reception-room door, when, on her answering the summons, there stood three little girls, of ten or twelve summers. "Well," said the lady, "what do you children want?" "We came to have our fortunes told," replied the youngest, drawing her little form up to represent every half inch of her diminutive dimensions. With a smile of incredulity, the lady said, "It costs fifty cents. Besides, you are too small to have a fortune told." "We've got the money," replied the little speaker; "and we're not too little. Why, I am ten, and Jenny, here, is twelve." [Illustration: CHILDREN CONSULTING A FORTUNE-TELLER.]