“The bridegroom’s letters stand in row above,
  Tapering, yet straight, like pine-trees in his grove;
  While free and fine the bride’s appear below,
  As light and slender as her jasmines grow.”

Why, then, should it be strange, if remarkable powers of observation, analysis, and patient and energetic study should accomplish much more?  In this department the Government had afforded Mr. Sidney great facilities, till at last he would take the letters dropped during the night in the post-office of a great city, and as rapidly as a skilful cashier could detect a counterfeit in counting bank-bills, and with unerring certainty, he would throw out those suspiciously superscribed.  “In each of these nine,” he would say, “there is no letter, but money only.  This parcel is from the W—­Street office.  These are directed to men that are not called by these names:  they are fictitious, and assumed for iniquitous purposes.  Those are from thieves to thieves, and hint at opportunities,” and so on.

Travelling over the principal railways of the country without charge, entertained at hotels where compensation was declined, Mr. Sidney was in some instances induced to impart to his friends some of that knowledge which he took much pains to conceal, believing that by so doing he should best serve the great purposes of his life.  Whether he desired this remarkable power to be kept from the rogues, or whether he thought he should be too much annoyed by being called upon as an expert in handwriting in civil cases, or what his purpose was, is not known, and probably a large number of his intimate friends are not aware of his genius in this.

On one occasion he was in a Canadian city for the first time, and stopped at a principal hotel.  When about to depart, he was surprised that his host declined compensation.  The landlord then requested Mr. Sidney to give him the character of a man whose handwriting he produced.  Mr. Sidney consented, and, having retired to the private office, gave the writer’s age within a year, his nationality, being a native-born Frenchman, his height and size, being very short and fleshy, his temperament and occupation; and described him as a generous, high-toned, public-spirited man, of strong religious convictions and remarkable modesty:  all of which the landlord pronounced to be entirely correct.

The hotel-register was then brought, and to nearly every name Mr. Sidney gave the marked character or peculiarity of the man.  One was very nervous, another very tall and lean; this one was penurious, that one stubborn; this was a farmer, and that a clergyman; this name was written in a frolic; this was a genuine name, though not written by the man himself,—­and that written by the man himself, but it was not his true name.  Of the person last specified the clerk desired a full description, and obtained it in nearly these words:—­