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142 windpipe, and the consequent alteration and deterioration of the voice. Shakspeare says that a soft voice is "an excellent thing in woman;" and with that opinion most of our readers will cordially concur. But a sweet, sonorous, and delightful voice can never proceed from a contracted chest and a cramped larynx; nor can any external show compensate for the want of it. Dress may hide many other deficiencies, but can never mitigate this. And we know of nothing that is more dis­agreeable than the union of a pleasing face and elegant costume, with a poking head and a hoarse, discordant voice.

"The spine is composed of twenty-four bones, each of them possessing fourteen different parts, such as the body, the spinous and transverse pro­cesses, the articulating surfaces, &c.; it results that the bony construction of the spine presents 336 different parts, without the cartilages, ligaments, and a proportionate number of muscles, blood-­vessels and nerves. Is it not astonishing that this wonderful piece of mechanism operates during the whole life without getting out of order? and when there is a derangement, may we not more reasonably refer it to its complicated structure than to