Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1876 — The Science of Phrenology Illustrated. [ARTICLE]

The Science of Phrenology Illustrated.

They had a lecture on phrenology in Norristown a short time ago from a traveling professor of that sciencte, And pkrt of it was quite entertaining. He had on the stand several plaster heads mapped out in town lots, and after he explained what they meant he invited persons in the audience to come up and let him feel their bumps and explain their characters. Several times he hit it pretty accurateand excited a considerable amount of applause, but after a while old D. stepped up for examination. He is aq absent-minded man, and he wears a wig. While dressing himself before coming to the-lecture he had placed his wig on the bureau, and accidentally tossed his plug of tobacco into it. When he put the wig on it was just like him not to notice the plug, and so, when he mounted the platform, he had a lump just over his bump of combativeness as big as half a hen’s egg; The professor fingered about a while over D’s head, and then said:

“ We have here a somewhat remarkable skull. The perceptive faculties strongly developed; reflective faculties quite good; ideality large; reverence so great as to be unusual, aud benevolence very prominent. Secretiveness is small, and the subject, therefore, is a man of candor and frankness; he communicates what he knows freely. We have also,” said the professor, still plowing his fingers through D’s hair, “ acquisitiveness not large; the subject is not a grasping, avaricious man, he gives liberally; he—he—he. Why, itcan’tbe? Yes. Why, what —I Munificent Moses! that’s f the most, awful development of combativeness I ever heard of! Are you a prize-fighter, eh ?” “ Prize-fighter!” exclaimed D. “ Why, wbat do you mean ?” “ Never been a soldier, or a pirate, or anything like that ?” “ You certainly must be crazy.” “ Ain’t you fond of going into scrimmages and row’s, and hammering people?”

“ Certainly not.” “ Well, sir, then you’re untrue to your nature. The way your head’s built qua!isles you, I should say, in a special manner, as a knocker-down and dragger-out. If you want to fulfill your mission, you will aevofe the remainder of your life to “ battering up your fellow man and keeping yourself in one interminable and eternal muss. You’ve got the awfulest fighting bump that ever decorated a human skull. It’s phenomenal. What’ll you take for your head when you die? Gentlemen, this man is liable at any moment to commence raging around this community like a wildcat,. banging you tyith a club or

anything that comes handy. It isn't safe fm him to be at large.* I I'm Then D. put up Mis hand to feel the bump: and he noticed the tobacco. He pulled] ofi his wig, and there was the plug jiqrt, sticking behind his left eir. Then fire professor, looking At it a moment in confusion, said: “ Ladies and gentlemen, we will now—the lecture is—that Is, I have no more— Boy ttyrn out those lights!” The# the audience laughed, and D. put on his wig, anty, lire pr«few#>r started to catch the late train. The science of phrearolbgy ft not as popular in Norristown aa it was, and D. still remains peaceable.— Phila. Bulletin.