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REAL ADVENTURE IN A DISSECTING ROOM. To the Editor of the Caledonian Mercury.

SIR,-I am now a person well up in years, and as I never was a great hand at composition, I believe it is now too late for me to begin. I hope, however, to make myself intelligible in the narrative I am going to give you, which the wickedness of these bad times renders appropriate at present, and leads me to hope may turn out to be a useful warning to yourself and readers.

About the year 1794, when I was half man and half boy, (a man in will, but in deeds a good deal of the boy), I remember I had just done with my apprenticeship, and was beginning to get journeyman's wages. Well, in January of that year, one night about eleven, I came away, a little fresh, as we say, from a sort of club that used to meet down in the Pleasance, where we sat drinking ale, and smoking, and singing, and, in short, getting no good. Well, Sir, I set off on my road home to Canonmills, where I boarded with my brother; but the night being fine, and the moon well up and near the full, I took a little walk, as I did not feel inclined to go to sleep. So I got to some fields near the place where Charlotte Square now stands, and sat down on a stone that was by the side of the footpath, striking a light and lighting my cutty pipe. After smoking away a while in the moonshine, three roughlooking fellows, with corduroy jackets and smallclothes, in the style of Gilmerton carters, came up to me, and asked me civilly enough to tell them the way to the Ferry road. I directed them as well as I could, but they did not seem to take me up, and so we stood jabbering away longer, I think, than there was any occasion. At last, on pretence of treating me to a gill at the toll-bar on the Ferry road, I was silly enough (as it turned out) to agree to go with them for a bit of the way. We had not got very far, when one of my gentlemen (without giving himself the pains even of picking a quarrel) hit me a crack on the side of the head with his fist, and another gave me a punch with all his might in the pit of the stomach. These blows took away my breath, and stunned me a good deal,

and I fell to the ground, but was not so senseless as not to feel distinctly that they had laid hold of me at once, and rolled a thing like a wet sheet round my head and face. I think I felt myself kicking, gasping, and struggling hard for breath, but the fellows held down my hands, and I could not screech because of the wet blanket, if it were so; but I found myself turning weaker and weaker, and my breath went from me altogether. I do not remember any thing more.

"So,

Sir, when I came to myself again, I think the first thing I felt was being very cold, and finding a nasty smell like putrefied butcher-meat. I came to a little, and I could just see a glimmering light, and made out that I was lying upon a hard and wet place like a kitchen dresser. I ventured to look about a little, when I saw an old wizened-like man, with glasses on his nose, poking away among the bowels of a dead man, who lay on a table upon his back, and by him there were two younger chaps looking on, one holding the candle, and the other a long knife. They were talking away in some queer lingo, which I could not make out, and yet it was no foreign language. O ho," quoth I, "this is what my sins have brought me to at last. This one (meaning the body with the glasses) is the old devil, and the others are his imps, and there they are tormenting a poor sinner, just the way the minister told me the day I went to be an apprentice. So," thought I, "my turn will be coming next, and nothing I can do of myself will do me any good, or get me free from this torment." Well, I was not far wrong; for, all of a sudden, the three creatures, leaving their prey in the corner, came with all their horrible implements to use me after the same fashion. As I thought it would be ill manners in a person in my circumstances to take the first word of those beings of great power, I kept my eyes shut, and said never one word.

"So," says the gentleman with the glasses, "this is a fine muscular fellow indeed---what a chest he has." I wonder what he died of," says the one of the familiar spirits.

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"He will be a great catch," says the other, "for tomorrow's demonstration of the abdominal viscera."

"So, gemmen," says Glasses again, “do you reach the scalpel-and do you hold the candle. Now for a clean section of the integuments and superficial muscles."

No sooner said than done-he scrapes my belly on the upper part with the point of his knife-up I start with a screech you might have heard at Tranent-away flies the knife-out goes the candle-and the bloody Doctors (for such they were) tumble neck over heels upon the floor. However, there was a gleam of light from the fire, and I got up, came down from my table, and threw myself (as naked as Adam, and as much ashamed) upon my knees before them, crying out for mercy.

Well, Sir, the three bloody Doctors were more frightened and astonished than I was myself-and they told me to keep quiet, and lighted the candle and doctored all my scratches and bruises with adhesive plaster, and set me to warm myself by a fire, where I saw the head and little bit hands of a poor innocent dead baby stewing in a pot. They all assured me that they had taken me for a dead man, whom one of their blackguards had promised to bring them from Corstorphine churchyard; and said they were very vexed that there should have been any foul play, and an actual attempt at murder. So they persuaded me that I had better say no more about the matter, and offered me two guineas (which I took), and they covered my nakedness with some of their own clothes, one supplying a great coat, another a pair of boots, and so forth. I was so much taken with their kindness, that I gave them a full promise to say nothing of what had happened, and told them that I did not want to know where the surgery shop was, and that they might blindfold me with a napkin, and leave me in any part of the town they pleased, from which I could find my way home.

The place where we were was a sight not to be spoken of, and I believe I should only turn your stomach if I were to attempt to describe it. There were all sorts of bits of dead men, and some whole ones—and anatomies hanging by strings from the roof-and people's insides and little unchristened babies in bottles-and all sorts of rotten and unclean things, and lots of

knives, and saws, and articles which I cannot give a name to-to say nothing of the awful smell.

Well, they kept their word, and left me in a stair leading from the South Bridge to the Cowgate, and I soon found my way home. It was now four on a Sabbath morning, and I found my brother, who was wondering what could have come over me, and not a little surprised to see me with a superfine new great coat, and a broken head stuck over with diachylum plaster. And so I had to please him with a story made up for the occasion, and I never heard more of it. However, the affair was not lost upon me (and I hope it will not on you and your readers)—and so, soon after, I married Mrs. G. and took myself up, and have since thriven very well in the world.

My Doctor friend (for I made out his name, though I said nothing about it) is dead, and has been for some years.

So, Sir, as there is now no occasion for me to hold my tongue about the matter at all, I have even stated the case of my escape from the fangs of these harpies, hoping that it may prove a useful warning to the unwary, and put people on their guard against wandering about at untimeous hours, lest they also meet with a similar or worse adventure, as they will see is but too common now-a-days.

Your obedient servant,

MOSES KEAN.

M. G.

THE late Moses Kean was a tailor, a stout-built man, with black bushy hair and a wooden leg. He always dressed in a dashing manner, in a scarlet coat, white satin waistcoat, black satin smallclothes, and a Scot's liquid-dye blue silk stocking. He had also a longquartered shoe, with a large buckle covering his foota cocked hat, and a ruffled shirt; and he never went out without a switch or a cane in his hand. He was a very extraordinary mimic, particularly in imitations of Charles James Fox, which he gave occasionally at the little theatre in the Haymarket. Mr. Edmund Kean, the celebrated actor, owes his education to the above person, who was his uncle.-Nollekens.

ADDRESS BY MRS. H. SIDDONS,

On the re-opening of the Theatre-Royal, Edinburgh.
MRS. H. SIDDONS---(speaking behind the scenes)
Don't talk to me, I tell ye it's a shame,
And all before the curtain say the same.---
I enter, certainly, in strange confusion,
But hope you'll pardon my abrupt intrusion,
When I confess my present situation

Is one so full of pain and irritation,

--(Entering)

That, no more able my complaints to smother,
At your tribunal I impeach my brother---(applause)
Of misdemeanors, without stint or measure---
Of disobedience to my royal pleasure :

For, say whate'er I will, his pompous frown,
And plump negatur, knock my project down,
Till my whole reign's one scene of fret and worry,
Like poor Queen Mary and her Regent Murray.---(loud
cheering and laughter).

To-night, my wish to speak to you was met
By the old answer, ""Tisn't etiquette."

But I'm determined; and now ask the reason,
If, with a speech, my brother ends the season!
Why I, when here beginning one anew,

May not indulge in speechifying too?---(applause)
'Tis hard enough resigning the last word,
But more to humour him is quite absurd.
He, with a bow, may see you out, and then

I will, with curtseys, welcome you again.---(applause)
Which is the most judicious system---tell?---
His most respectfully bidding you farewell,
Or the new practice I to-night begin,

Of, as respectfully, bidding you come in ?---(cheers)
At least I'll try't; when all's done and past,

I can't make this year worse than he the last.

Indeed, I'm somewhat tired of the elf,

And think of looking into things myself;
For tho' reluctant to speak ill, I own,

Of" Regent Murray"---(cheers)---he mistakes the town.
As---don't be angry, now---but, entre nous,
'Tis not so much what's good as what is new
Oft brings you here, and, truly, 'tis a bore
For ever hearing what you've heard before;

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