That there is no end of theories concerning the measure of credit that should be given to dreams is readily accounted for. What nobody can explain every one is at liberty to have his own peculiar notions of. Perhaps the most curious thing about it is the proven fact that so many different people should dream precisely the same thing from time to time; so making it possible not only to classify and analyze dreams, but even to lay down certain interpretations, to be accepted by a multitude of believers. Of course it is easy to laugh at the incoherent fancies that flit through the debatable region we inhabit while asleep, but it is not so easy to explain why we laugh, or why we should dream of persons or events long since passed from our memories, or of other persons or events wholly unknown to us, either in the past or the present. Without a doubt people dream just as much nowadays as they ever did. That fact being admitted, the problem for us to consider is, whether the belief in the prophetic character of dreams, held by so many peoples for so many centuries, having the unequivocal sanction, too, of Scripture authority, is really dying out, or continues to hold its old dominion over the minds of poor, fallible mankind. In order to determine this vexed question inquiry was made of several leading booksellers with the following result: Thirty or forty years ago dream books were as much a recognized feature of the book-selling trade as any other sort of literary property; consequently, they were openly exposed for sale in every bookstore, large or small. It now appears that these yellow-covered oracles of fate are still in good demand, mostly by servant girls and factory girls, and, though seldom found in the best bookstores, may be readily had of most dealers in cheap periodicals. This, certainly, would seem to be a gain in the direction of education, though not of the masses. It also appears that, as in the matter of “signs,” the female sex is more susceptible to this sort of superstition than is the male; but that by no means proves the sterner sex to be wholly free from it. Some persons dream a great deal, others but seldom. Let one who is not much addicted to the habit have a bad dream, a frightful dream, and be he never so well poised, the phantasm can hardly fail of leaving a disquieting, perhaps a lasting, effect. Seldom, indeed, can that person shake off the feeling that the dream forbodes something of a sinister nature. In vain he racks his brain for some interpretation that may set his mind at rest, wholly forgetful of the trite adage that dreams go by contraries.