An autopsy of one of her family who fell into our hands reveals the secret springs of her action.  Wishing to spare her as a member of the defenceless sex, it pains us to say, that, ingenious as her counterfeit walking is, she is an impostor.  Worse than this,—­with all our reverence for her brazen crinoline, duty compels us to reveal a fact concerning her which will shock the feelings of those who have watched the stately rigidity of decorum with which she moves in the presence of admiring multitudes. She is a quadruped!.  Inside of her great golden boots, which represent one pair of feet, is another smaller pair, which move freely through these hollow casings.

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Four cams or eccentric wheels impart motion to her four supports, by which she is carried forward, always resting on two of them,—­the boot of one side, and the foot of the other.  Her movement, then, is not walking; it is not skating, which it seems to resemble; it is more like that of a person walking with two crutches besides his two legs.  The machinery is simple enough:  a strong spiral spring, three or four cog-wheels and pinions, a fly to regulate the motion as in a musical box, and the cams before mentioned.  As a toy, it or she is very taking to grown people as well as children.  It is a literal fact, that the police requested one of our dealers to remove Miss Autoperipatetikos from his window, because the crowd she drew obstructed the sidewalk.

We see by our analysis of the process, and by the difficulty of imitating it, that walking is a much more delicate, perilous, complicated operation than we should suppose, and well worth studying in a practical point of view, to see what can be done to make it easier and safer.  Two Americans have applied themselves to this task:  one laboring for those who possess their lower limbs and want to use them to advantage, the other for such as have had the misfortune to lose one or both of them.

Dr. J.C.  Plumer, formerly of Portland, now of Boston, has devoted himself to the study of the foot, and to the construction of a last upon which a boot or shoe can be moulded which shall be adapted to its form and accommodated to its action.

Most persons know something of the cruel injustice to which the feet are subjected, and the extraordinary distortions and diseases to which they are liable in consequence.  The foot’s fingers are the slaves in the republic of the body.  Their black leathern integument is only the mask of their servile condition.  They bear the burdens, while the hands, their white masters, handle the money and wear the rings.  They are crowded promiscuously in narrow prisons, while each of the hand’s fingers claims its separate apartment, leading from the antechamber, in the dainty glove.  As a natural consequence of all this, their faculties are cramped, they grow into ignoble shapes, they become callous by long abuse, and all their natural gifts are crushed and trodden out of them.