In the years 1808, '9, and '10, a Mr. Austin of Colchester, Vermont, gave out that he was a gifted person in the art of healing; and if the patient would describe to him, by word of mouth, or by letter, the true symptoms of his malady, he would receive healing at his word, if indeed his disease was curable. In a very little time the obscure retreat of Austin was thronged with invalids, coming from almost every section of the country; and Colchester was scarcely less in favor than Ballston or Saratoga. The mail carriers groaned under the burden of maladies described. Bar rooms at public inns, on roads leading to Colchester, were decorated with letters directed to the "Prophet of Colchester;" and vagrants were found travelling over the country, collecting of invalids their evil symptoms, to be truly and faithfully delivered to the prophet in a given time, at the moderate price of fifty cents per letter. We were soon referred to cases wherein the most inveterate deafness was removed; the blind saw; dropsies and consumptions, in the last stages of them, were cured; and the patient, it is said, in many instances, would tell the day and the hour when their letters were received by the prophet, although they might be some hundred miles distant from the deliverer, because, at such an hour, they began to mend. The prophet, however, did not long enjoy his far-famed celebrity. His house, after a while, was deserted of invalids. The people discovered their folly, and permitted him to sink into his former merited obscurity. It was just the same with the celebrated _rain-water_ doctor, as he was called, who established himself at one time in Providence, and at another time in the vicinity of Boston. Many of those now living can recollect the accounts of marvellous cures, and the flocking of invalids of all descriptions to his temple of health. But the community at length discovered the imposition of his practice, and left him to the undisturbed enjoyment of his rain water and his gruel.