ine that, practically, this science must be now pretty near
completion. Earth, air, fire, and water, are all pressed into the
service. It has its painters, and poets, and literary staff, from the
bard who tunes his harp to the praise of the pantaloons of the great
public benefactor Noses, to the immortal professoress of crochet and
cross-stitch, who contracts for L.120 a year to puff in 'The Family
Fudge' the superexcellent knitting and boar's-head cotton of Messrs
Steel and Goldseye. It may be that something more is yet within the
reach of human ingenuity. It remains to be seen whether we shall at
some future time find puffs in the hearts of lettuces and
summer-cabbages, or shell them from our green-peas and Windsor beans.
It might be brought about, perhaps, were the market-gardeners enlisted
in the cause; the only question is, whether it could be made to pay.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A POLICE-OFFICER.

THE MONOMANIAC.

The following narrative relates more to medical than to criminal
history; but as the affair came in some degree under my notice as a
public officer, I have thought it might not be altogether out of place
in these slight outlines of police experience. Strange and
unaccountable as it may at first appear, its general truth will hardly
be questioned by those who have had opportunities of observing the
fantastic delusions which haunt and dominate the human brain in
certain phases of mental aberration.

On arriving in London, in 1831, I took lodgings at a Mr Renshawe's, in
Mile-End Road, not far from the turnpike-gate. My inducement to do so,
was partly the cheapness and neatness of the accommodation, partly
that the landlord's maternal uncle, a Mr Oxley, was slightly known to
me. Henry Renshawe I knew by reputation only, he having left Yorkshire
ten or eleven years before, and even that knowledge was slight and
vague. I had heard that a tragical event had cast a deep shadow over
his after-life; that he had been for some months the inmate of a
private lunatic asylum; and that some persons believed his brain had
never thoroughly recovered its originally healthy action. In this
opinion, both my wife and myself very soon concurred; and yet I am not
sure that we could have given a satisfactory reason for such belief.
He was, it is true, usually kind and gentle, even to the verge of
simplicity, but his general mode of expressing himself and conducting
business was quite coherent and sensible; although, in spi