We commend the entire article, from which these brief passages are taken, to the notice and admiration of our readers. It is one of the most attractive papers in the entire number.
GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--A Boston correspondent, '_A Believer in Phrenology_,' must look again, and 'mark, learn, and digest' what it _was_ that OLLAPOD said in our last, as to the 'science' of Phrenology. Its 'general principles' he admitted; it was only its 'infinitesimal detail' which he satirized. Phrenology, let us say to our 'Believer,' has always had a 'fair show' in the pages of the KNICKERBOCKER; 'else wherefore breathe we in a Christian land?' For the '_New-York Observer_,' a religious journal, states that pious probulgences are to 'rule' hereafter as a clerical test in our Church; an exaggerated 'explication,' of course, of the remarks of an able Episcopal contemporary. But as for ourselves, have we not been 'through the mill?' 'Slightuously!' Ask our friends, FOWLER and WELLS, leaders in 'Bumpology,' else. Were we not 'manipulated?' Did we not lie down in a box like a coffin, and were we not then and there covered, from our 'burst' upward, with a Plaster-of-Paris hasty-pudding? Did not the operation 'fix' us? _Rather_! It was solemn at first, and upward to the mouth, such was the expression, in the sudden 'solidarity' of our 'mug;' but when Mr. FOWLER directed his assistant to use a spoon in feeding us with the white pudding, and not to suffocate us by stopping up our nostrils, we began to laugh; but the laughing muscles stopped short off at the junction with the lugubrious fixed plaster. We saw the _result_ next day, in the show-window of Mr. FOWLER, on the Nassau street side of CLINTON-Hall. There we were, large as life, labelled and sandwiched between ROBINSON, the New-Brunswick murderer, and Colonel JAMES WATSON WEBB, of the '_Courier and Enquirer_' daily journal. Haven't we 'suffered' for the 'science' of Phrenology? 'Probably!' 'Phrenology,' says our 'down-east' correspondent, 'can no longer be laughed at.' 'We caänt be laughed at!' is the amusing 'objugatory' of an English Cockney in a modern play; but people _will_ laugh at the marvels which are said to accompany the development of even the smallest and thickest-set organs of the human head. When GALL and SPURZHEIM were in 'Edinboro,' had established the first Phrenological Society in Great-Britain, and were gaining 'converts' only by slow degrees, they and their confrères were 'laughed at' to something _more_ than 'their hearts' content.' On one occasion, we remember, a dry Scottish wag bought from a countyman a vegetable _lusus natura_, in the shape of a big Swedish turnip, which presented in perfection the features and 'developments' of a not very good-looking but remarkably 'intellectual' human head. He had a mould made from it, and sent a plaster image to the new Phrenological Society, as a 'cast from the head of Professor THORNIPSON, a learned Swede of Sockholm!' The bait took; a chart was made at once of the 'cerebral protuberances;' lectures were delivered upon its characteristics; and two or three officers and _savants_ of the Society were overjoyed to find corresponding 'bumps' on their own craniums! Edinburgh, inappreciative of fun though the Scotch are said to be, gave one loud guffaw when the diverting 'trick' was exposed in the '_Courant_' by the shrewd joker who perpetrated it, But _a propos_ of 'Bumpology;' our Cedar-Hill neighbor, 'the COLONEL,' tells a capital story thereanent, which we will essay to jot down: One day, in the weekly newspaper of a small village in 'old Chatauque,' there appeared an advertisement, setting forth that Professor FEELOVER, Practical Phrenologist, had arrived, and stood ready to examine heads, give 'certified charts' of character, lecture, and give lessons upon the 'Science.' He 'put up' at the principal hotel, which he found a 'good '_stand_' for business,' for a week had passed on, since the paper came out, yet not a solitary person had inquired for the PROFESSOR. Tired of this indifference to 'science,' he was broodingly 'fetching a walk' in the outskirts of the village, when a 'slow,' green-looking young countryman entered the hotel, and addressing the landlord, said: 'Be yeöu the Phrenologist that feels of folkses' heads, and gives a receipt for what's inside on 'em?' 'Yes,' answered the fat, good-natured BONIFACE, who loved a joke better than his dinner; 'yes, I 'm the man.' 'What d' yeöu tax?' 'Half a dollar.' 'Wal, go ahead.' The landlord seated his 'patient,' and directed his clerk at the desk to take down, in two columns, the result. He fumbled, and pinched, and pressed the head of his wincing customer, calling out at the same time the subjoined developments: