send forth a blast loud enough to
be heard from hence to China; and a herald, with world-pervading voice,
to make proclamation for a certain class of mortals to take their
places. What shall be their principle of union? After all, an external
one, in comparison with many that might be found, yet far more real
than those which the world has selected for a similar purpose. Let all
who are afflicted with like physical diseases form themselves into
ranks.

Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. It may
gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that disease, more than any
other circumstance of human life, pays due observance to the
distinctions which rank and wealth, and poverty and lowliness, have
established among mankind. Some maladies are rich and precious, and
only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased with gold.
Of this kind is the gout, which serves as a bond of brotherhood to the
purple-visaged gentry, who obey the herald's voice, and painfully
hobble from all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in
the grand procession. In mercy to their toes, let us hope that the
march may not be long. The Dyspeptics, too, are people of good standing
in the world. For them the earliest salmon is caught in our eastern
rivers, and the shy woodcock stains the dry leaves with his blood in
his remotest haunts, and the turtle comes from the far Pacific Islands
to be gobbled up in soup. They can afford to flavor all their dishes
with indolence, which, in spite of the general opinion, is a sauce more
exquisitely piquant than appetite won by exercise. Apoplexy is another
highly respectable disease. We will rank together all who have the
symptom of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by the way
supply their places with new members of the board of aldermen.

On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose physical
lives are but a deteriorated variety of life, and themselves a meaner
species of mankind; so sad an effect has been wrought by the tainted
breath of cities, scanty and unwholesome food, destructive modes of
labor, and the lack of those moral supports that might partially have
counteracted such bad influences. Behold here a train of house
painters, all afflicted with a peculiar sort of colic. Next in place we
will marshal those workmen in cutlery, who have breathed a fatal
disorder into their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors
and shoemakers, b