The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-07-12 00:00:00

INGENIOUSIMPOST OR.

About a fortnight ago a woman dressed in raga, tottering two.
fold, as if bent down with age, and whose face bore all the marks
of the most inveterate cancer, appeared in Kirkcudbright, and levied
contributions from all and sundry—some being moved to pity by
her incessant groans, and others anxious to escape from an object so
loathsome. In the course of her peregrinations the industrious
mendicant called at the house of Bailie Low, who at once informed
her that vagrants were forbidden to beg in the town, and admonished
her to decamp on pain of being immured in the black hole. This
hint had the desired eltiier, and the woman retreated with so much
activity, that the above 31agistrate began to suspect that all was not
right. Following, therefore, in company with another gentlema.
lie at last got her so far separated from the crowd, who thought it
sin to molest so great an object, an to be able to inquire into the
reality of her
.malady. At the first she only responded to his
questions by groans, and it was not till something very like force,
was about to be used, that she slowly and reluctantly removed.
the mask. And then, what was the vision the gentlemen be..
held? Not the fiendlike suiter so eloquently described in Lallalt
Rookh—not the intrusive ghost that danced away with the " Fair
Imogene"—not a skeleton reduced to skin and bone, whose
juices, forsaking their natural channels, oozed out in blotches and
putrid sores; but a plump, comely, buxom queen, little wore
than thirty years of age, and fitter to be the bride of an Irish
labourer, than the lazy representative of a broken-down beggar.
Though her face resembled a thugs ulcer, or rather many sores
tun into one, from which the nose had entirely disappeared, and
to which the cunning twinkle of a pair of small grey eyes lent a
frightful expression, the whole was the effect of fraud and strata-
gem. A number of pieces of linen rap, ingeniously folded and
intertwisted, and, moreover, cunningly painted or stained, formed
the whole material of the impostor's mask ; and, if report may be
credited, the effect was so striking as to deceive the moat vigilant
and discriminating eye. In addition to this, she carried with her
a small tin filled with water, which she ever and anon applied
to her lips, amt slyly squirted a portion of the moisture on the
folds of the linen, so as to make it appear that the sores were
fresh. As a matter of course, the impostor was instantly eon-
•eyed to gaol, from which place she was brought forth on Friday
last, and publicly exhibited on a temporary pillory, with a label
sunpended from as iron chain, on which was painted in large
characters—" Behold an infamous impostor." And here, in the
first instance, she was permitted to figure in her original disguise__
mask, wallets, rags and all ; but before the comedy had ended, an
officious hand unclasped the visor, and exhibi.ed a transforma-
tion, the effect of which was quite electrical upon the risible
muscles and faculties of the mob. Every one thought its pity
to deform so fair a face, and from the way the woman winced
under the jibes, jeers, and jokes of the crow.% many suspected
that she would have preferred as a punishment the application of
the hangman's whip, so that her shame had been a little more con-
cealed. From the pillory she was again conveyed to the gaol, to
arrange her dress according to her own taste, and previous to being
drummed out of to wn.—Dumfr ies Courier.

The object of Mr. Hamilton Rowan'e visit to this coun.
try, which had become a topic of public conversation in
Dublin, was not exactly understood there. That Gentle-
man did not come to London, we understand, to request a
personal explanation of Mr. Peel. His presence here was
thought expedient for facilitating the issue of a correspond-
ence, .which had taken place between Mr. Rowan and Mr.
Dawson, relative to some expressions that had fallen front
the latter in his place in Parliament. This unpleasant
affair has, however, been brought to a termination, sells-
factory to the feelings of the friends of both parties, without
compromising the honour of either.—Morning Pape..
EAriNo.—Every animal eats as much as it can procure,
and as much as it can hold. A cow eats hut to sleep, and
sleeps to eat ; and, content with eating all day long, " twici•
it slays the slain," and eats its dinner o'er again. A whale
swallows ten millions of living shrimps at a draught ; a
nursling canary bird eats its own bulk in a day, and
.a ca-
terpiller eats five hundred times its weight before Wiles
clown to rise a butterfly. The mite and the maggot
eat the very world in which they live, they nestle and.
build in their own roast beef ; and the hyena, for want of
better, eats himself. Yet a maggot has not the
. put, and
a whale is not subject to sciatica. Nor does Captain Lyon
inform us that an Esqiiimaux is tronblcd with the tooth-
ache, dyspepsia, or bysietics, though he eats ten pounds of
seal and drinks a gallon of oil at a meal, and though his
meal lasts as long as his mess. But if eating is to produce
diseases, which of all the nosologv would be absent front
the carcass of Captain Cochrane's Siberian friend, who es;
401 M. of meat, with gOlbs. of rice porridge, at a sitting.