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 I am reminded of this by the excessive confidence with which Mr. James Smith predicted that he would treat me as Zephaniah Stockdolloger (Sam Slick calls slockdollager) treated Goliah Quagg. He has announced his intention of bringing me, with a contrite heart, and clean shaved,—4159265… razored down to .25,—to a camp-meeting of circle-squarers. But there is this difference: Zephaniah only wanted to pass the Colonel's smithy in peace; Mr. James Smith sought a fight with me. As soon as this Budget began to appear, he oiled his own strap, and attempted to treat me as the terrible Colonel would have treated the inoffensive brother.

He is at liberty to try again.

This is a reprint of the hoax already mentioned. I suppose R. A. Locke is the name assumed by M. Nicollet. The publisher informs us that when the hoax first appeared day by day in a morning paper, the circulation increased fivefold, and the paper obtained a permanent footing. Besides this, an edition of 60,000 was sold off in less than one month.

This discovery was also published under the name of A. R. Grant. Sohnke's 'Bibliotheca Mathematica' confounds this Grant with Professor R. Grant of Glasgow, the author of the 'History of Physical Astronomy,' who is accordingly made to guarantee the discoveries in the moon. I hope Adams Locke will not merge in J. C. Adams, the co-discoverer of Neptune. Sohnke gives the titles of three French translations of the Moon hoax at Paris, of one at Bordeaux, and of Italian translations at Parma, Palermo, and Milan.

A Correspondent, who is evidently fully master of details, which he has given at length, informs me that the Moon hoax appeared first in the New York Sun, of which R. A. Locke was editor. It so much resembled a story then recently published by Edgar A. Poe, in a Southern paper, 'Adventures of Hans Pfaal,' that some New York journals published the two side by side. Mr. Locke, when he left the New York Sun, started another paper, and discovered the manuscript of Mungo Park; but this did not deceive. The Sun, however, continued its career, and had a great success in an account of a balloon voyage from England to America, in seventy-five hours, by Mr. Monck Mason, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth,