old him he should marry her, protect her, and
save the father; but he replied that the old man would neither allow
him to live in the house, nor take his daughter from him; so that she
was compelled to remain in the dreadful condition in which I had found
her. I told him to call upon me next day, and proceeded homewards.

Before James H---- called, which he did about two o'clock, I revolved
in my mind what should be done for the unfortunate man. I recollected
that, in a conversation I had with Dr D---- of Edinburgh, he told me
of a case of melancholy, and accompanying determination to commit
self-murder, which he had successfully treated by presenting to the
mind of the patient such horrific stories and narratives of men who
had taken their own lives, and suffered in their death inexpressible
agonies, and such shocking pictures of murders where the wretched
victims were brought back, by the hand of their offended Maker, from
the gates of death, with their consciences seared by the burning iron
of his vengeance, that the man got alarmed, was cured of his thirst
for his own blood, and never again spoke of self-destruction. I
resolved upon trying this expedient, and could not think of a better
book for my purpose than that extraordinary record of human vice and
suffering, the "Newgate Calendar." I fortunately possessed a copy,
with those fearfully graphic pictures, that suit so well, in their
coarse, half-caricatured, grotesque delineations, with the dreadful
narratives they are intended to illustrate. I picked out the most
fearful volume, that contained, at the same time, the greatest number
of attempted self-murders, where the victims were snatched from their
own chosen death, and, after their wounds were healed, devoted to that
pointed out by the law as due to their crimes. When James H---- called
in the afternoon, I gave him the volume, and requested him to hand it
to the patient's daughter, with directions to put it into the hands of
her father, as having been sent to him by me. He said he would take
the first opportunity of complying with my request.

I had no visits to make that required my presence in that part of the
country for two or three days. On the second day after I had sent the
book, I had another call from James H----, who said that he had been
requested by the patient's daughter to return the volume, and to
request another one, which the patient desired, above all things, to
be sent to him that day. I a