me, that "you can't make a whistle of a pig's
tail." The philosopher died, but his saying was accepted by the
world as an axiom--a bit of incontrovertible truth, eternal,
Godlike, fully up to par, worth a hundred per cent., with no
possibility of discount. Time, however, which often demonstrates
the fallibility of human wisdom, has not spared even this
oft-quoted adage; and now there is not a collection of curiosities
in the land which lacks a pig-tail whistle to proclaim in the
shrillest tones the falsity of the wise man's proposition, and
the triumph of Yankee ingenuity. Had this same philosopher been
interrogated on the subject, he would undoubtedly have announced,
and with an equal show of probability on his side of the
argument, that "you can't make a star-reading prophetess out of a
snuffy old woman;" but had he lived to the present day, the Cash
Customer would have taken great pleasure in exhibiting to him
these two apparently irreconcilable characters combined in a
single person, and that person Mrs. Fleury, who pays for the
daily insertion of the following advertisement in the newspapers.

"ASTROLOGY.--MRS. FLEURY, from Paris, is the most
celebrated lady of the present age, in telling future
events, true and certain. She answers questions on
business, marriage, absent friends, &c., by magnetism.
Office No. 263 Broome-st."

There is not so much of promise in this paragraph, as there is in
some of the more grandiloquent announcements of the other
witches--not probably, that Madame Fleury is any less pretentious
than they, but her knowledge of the English language is not
perfect enough to enable her to give her ideas their full effect.

The Cash Customer resolved to visit this "most celebrated lady of
the age," who had come all the way from Paris, to tell his
"future events true and certain," nothing daunted by the
circumstance that she lives in the filthiest part of Broome
Street, which has never been swept clean since it was a very new
Broome indeed.

If our fancy farmers, who expend so much money upon the various
foreign manures and fertilizing compounds, would but turn their
eyes in the direction of Broome Street, a single glance would
convince them of the inexhaustible resources of their own
country, while guano would instantly depreciate in value, and the
island of Ichaboe not be worth a quarrel. This prolific and
valuable deposit that covers Broome Street bears perennial crop