"There is no new thing under the Sun."
—Eccl. I, 9.
"Nil spernat auris, nec tamen credat statim."
—Phædrus.
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
182 FIFTH AVENUE
1879
Copyright by
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
1879.
Transcriber's Note: Hyphenation and punctuation have been standardised. Variant spellings have been retained. Greek text appears with a mouse-hover transliteration, e.g., Βιβλος.
PREFACE.
In issuing this little book I have been actuated by a desire to do something towards the removal of a lamentable degree of popular ignorance.
It seems that no proposition that can be made is so absurd or impossible but that many people, ordinarily regarded as intelligent, will be found to accept it and to aid in its propagation. And hence, when it is asserted that a young lady has lived for fourteen years without food of any kind, hundreds and thousands of persons throughout the length and breadth of a civilized land at once yield their belief to the monstrous declaration.