My office was so situated, that from its windows could most advantageously be observed, and for a considerable distance, the vast throng that ebbed and flowed, hour after hour, through the great thoroughfares of the city.  For the greater part of three consecutive days I sat by Mr. Sidney’s side, watching the changing crowd through the half-opened shutters, listening incredulously, at first, to the practical application of his science to the unsuspecting individuals below, till my derision was changed to admiration, and I was thoroughly convinced of his power.  As my friends of both sexes passed under the ordeal, it was intensely bewitching.  Hour after hour would he give, with rapidity and correctness, the occupation and peculiarity of character and condition of almost every individual who passed.  This was not occasional, but continuous.  The marked men were not singled out, but all were included.  He was a stranger, and yet better acquainted with the people than any of our citizens.  And this was the manner of his speaking:—­

“That physician has a better opinion of himself than the people have of him:  he is superficial, and makes up in effrontery what he lacks in qualification.  The gambler yonder, with a toothpick in his mouth, has of late succeeded in his tricks.  The affairs of this kind-hearted grocer are troubling him.  Were we within a yard of that round-shouldered man from the country, we should smell leather; for he works on his bench, and is unmarried.  Here comes an atheist who is a joker and stubborn as a mule.  There goes a man of no business at all:  very probably it is the best occupation he is fitted for, as he has no concentrativeness.  The schoolmistress crossing the street is an accomplished teacher, is very sympathetic, and has great love of approbation.  That lawyer is a bachelor, and distrusts his own strength.  This merchant should give up the use of tobacco, and pay his notes before dinner, else he will become a dyspeptic.  Here comes a man of wealth who despises the common people and is miserly and hypocritical; and next to him is a scamp.  I think it is Burke who says, ’When the gnawing worm is within, the impression of the ravage it makes is visible on the outside, which appears quite disfigured by it’:  and in that young man the light that was within him has become darkness, and ‘how great is that darkness!’”

Of some qualities of mind he would occasionally decline to speak until he could see the features in play, as in conversation.  Some occupations he failed to discover, if the arms were folded, or the hands in the pockets, or the body not in motion.  It is not my purpose to specify any of the rules by which he was governed, though they differed materially from those of Lavater, Redfield, and others, nor the facts from which he drew his conclusions, but simply to give results.