The origin of this word is contested; some derive it from the French broyer, “to grind;” others from brocader, to cavil or riggle; others deduce broker from a trader broken, and that from the Saxon broc, “misfortune,” which is often the true reason of a man’s breaking.  In which view, a broker is a broken trader, by misfortune; and it is said that none but such were formerly admitted to that employment.  The Jews, Armenians, and Banians are the chief brokers throughout most parts of the Levant and the Indies.  In Persia, all affairs are transacted by a sort of brokers, whom they call “delal” i.e. “great talkers.”  Their form of contract in buying and selling is remarkable, being done in the profoundest silence, only by touching each other’s fingers:—­The buyer, loosening his pamerin, or girdle, spreads it on his knee; and both he and the seller, having their hands underneath, by the intercourse of the fingers, mark the price of pounds, shillings, &c., demanded, offered, and at length agreed on.  When the seller takes the buyer’s whole hand, it denotes a thousand, and as many times as he squeezes it, as many thousand pagods or roupees, according to the species in question demanded; when he only takes the five fingers, it denotes five hundred; and when only one, one hundred; taking only half a finger, to the second joint, denotes fifty; the small end of the finger, to the first joint, stands for ten.  This legerdemain, or squeezing system, would not do for the latitude of London.

P.T.W.

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DR. GALL.

(For the Mirror.)

The loss which the scientific world has lately sustained by the death of Dr. Gall, will be longer and more deeply felt than any which it has experienced for some years.  This celebrated philosopher and physician was born in the year 1758, of respectable parents, at a small village in the duchy of Baden, where he received the early part of his education.  He afterwards went to Brucksal, and then to Strasburgh, in which city he commenced his medical studies, and became a pupil of the celebrated Professor Hermann.  From Strasburgh he removed to Vienna, where he commenced practice, having taken the degree of M.D.  In this capital, however, he was not permitted to develope his new system of the functions of the brain; and from his lectures being interdicted, and the illiberal opposition which he here met with, as well as in other parts of Austria, he determined to visit the north of Germany.  Here he was well received in all the cities through which he passed, as well as in Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, and explained the doctrines he had founded on his observations from nature before several sovereigns, who honoured him with such marks of approbation and respect as were due to his