zontally, so as to touch
the top of the head forcibly, as we stand under it. In walking rapidly
beneath it, even if the eyes are shut, to avoid involuntary stooping,
the top of the head will not even graze the rod. The other fact is, that
one side of a man always tends to outwalk the other, so that no person
can walk far in a straight line, if he is blindfolded.

The somewhat singular illustration at the head of our article carries
out an idea which has only been partially alluded to by others. Man is
a _wheel_, with two spokes, his legs, and two fragments of a tire, his
feet. He _rolls_ successively on each of these fragments from the heel
to the toe. If he had spokes enough, he would go round and round as the
boys do when they "make a wheel" with their four limbs for its spokes.
But having only two available for ordinary locomotion, each of these has
to be taken up as soon as it has been used, and carried forward to
be used again, and so alternately with the pair. The peculiarity of
biped-walking is, that the centre of gravity is shifted from one leg to
the other, and the one not employed can shorten itself so as to swing
forward, passing by that which supports the body.

This is just what no automaton can do. Many of our readers have,
however, seen a young lady in the shop-windows, or entertained her in
their own nurseries, who professes to be this hitherto impossible
walking automaton, and who calls herself by the Homeric-sounding epithet
_Autoperipatetikos._ The golden-booted legs of this young lady remind
us of Miss Kilmansegg, while their size assures us that she is not in
any way related to Cinderella. On being wound up, as if she were a piece
of machinery, and placed on a level surface, she proceeds to toddle off,
taking very short steps like a child, holding herself very stiff and
straight, with a little lifting at each step, and all this with a mighty
inward whirring and buzzing of the enginery which constitutes her
muscular system.

An autopsy of one of her family who fell into our hands reveals the
secret springs of her action. Wishing to spare her as a member of the
defenceless sex, it pains us to say, that, ingenious as her counterfeit
walking is, she is an impostor. Worse than this,--with all our reverence
for her brazen crinoline, duty compels us to reveal a fact concerning
her which will shock the feelings of those who have watched the stately
rigidity of decorum with which she moves in the presence