Matthews would not let him see his wife, and said he had been married by a devil, and that henceforth none would be married but by him. His wife was afterward given up to him in Court by an officer, that being the first time he had seen her since she left Albany. She had then a sore place on her arm, from the whipping she had received six weeks before, and there were also marks on her back. Rev. Nathaniel S. Prime saw Mrs. Laisdell's arm, after she had been removed from her father's custody; the mark extended about a third of the way round the arm, it was not entirely healed.

The case was here closed, no other testimony being offered on behalf of the prisoner, and the judge then charged the jury, who retired and in a few minutes returned with a verdict of guilty. The Court then intimated to the prisoner that if he had any thing to say, he would now be heard, provided he behaved properly. He was already sentenced to thirty days imprisonment for his contempt of Court on a former occasion.

MATTHIAS then addressed the Court in a firm but seemingly somewhat subdued tone. The following are his words verbatim. "I have been confined near seven months, and nothing has been made out against me, until this last case, and this has been a great affliction to me, though I have been sustained under it, knowing that I was innocent. The things which are apparent are so because they misrepresented my doctrines."

COURT-We don't want to hear any thing about

them.

MATTHIAS-You don't-I was going to terminate by saying, that feeling I was innocent I think this termination altogether extraordinary and unjust, and if it is in the power of the Court to make an offset in my favour in the latter case, I hope it will.

JUDGE RUGGLES-The prisoner was not confined on account of the present offence, but the Court have taken it into consideration in determining on the sentence. He stands convicted of an assault under peculiar circumstances: under other circumstances, if punished at all, it would be very lightly. But we find that in the very first interview with his daughter, he told her that marriages were void, and endeavoured to inculcate in her the same immoralities that he had already inculcated upon the inmates of the house. The chastisement was also inflicted without her deserving it, or allowing her to be heard. The Court sentences the prisoner to be confined three months in the county jail, from the termination of his first sentence.

To Matthias.-We now tell you that the times for practising those foolish impositions are past. The Court is satisfied that you are an impostor, and that you do not believe in your own doctrines. We advise you therefore, when you come out of jail to shave off your beard, lay aside your peculiar dress, and go to work like an honest man. MATTHIAS-] -It is not true.

He was then led out of Court.

Every good man would wish, in the language of the presiding judge, that "the times for practising

such foolish impositions were past." But it will be seen by a subsequent page, that the spirit of fanaticism and delusion is not yet extinct, even in the city of New-York, notwithstanding the shocking disclosures that have been made, and the melancholy consequences.

CHAPTER X.

Traits of the Impostor's Character-A Scene in Prison-Anecdote-His Contempt of Women-Shrewd Comparison-Adroitness in evading Questions-Casting out a Devil-Conversations on his miraculous Gifts-Steamboat Scenes and Conversations--Interview with a Gentleman of DistinctionReflections-Readiness at Repartee-Parallels between Matthews and other Impostors-Simon Magus-Montanus-John of Leyden-Cochrane-Mysterious Influence-Summing up of the Impostor's Character-A Compound of Insanity, Knavery, and Self-deception.

IN more than one instance, in the course of the present work, the term shrewdness has been applied to the conduct of Matthews in certain emergencies. It is not to be understood, however, that the writer awards to him the possession of any extraordinary gifts of cunning or of wit. There are those, we are aware, who allow him credit for no one moral or intellectual quality-who consider him a perfect and unimprovable specimen of ignorance and stupidity; while on the other hand, persons are not wanting who look upon him as a man by no means devoid of sense, and withal very adroit. The truth, probably, as in most cases of conflicting opinions, lies between the extremes. The writer does not believe him to be altogether the blockhead which some suppose, but is, on the contrary, inclined to award him some degree of shrewdness, with more

of native intellect than he has received credit for. But in order to the better illustration of his character, a few personal anecdotes have been collected from authentic sources, which will be submitted in the present chapter, together with two or three reports of interviews with him, which have been politely furnished the writer by literary gentlemen of character.

While confined in the Bellevue prison in October last, awaiting his examination, prior to his full commitment for trial, the inmates of the prison, suspecting that he had money in his possession, made an attempt to inflict the discipline of blanketing him. The prophet threatened them with eternal torment if they proceeded. They assured him he must submit, as it was an ordeal through which all of them had to pass, and he was no better than the rest of them. They then put him into a blanket, several of them holding the corners of it, and gave him two or three tosses. The poor prophet, finding that they were determined to carry their threat into further operation, agreed to pay them twenty-five cents a-piece to let him off. After they had liberated him, he declared, most truly, beyond a doubt, that he had been thrown into a "den of thieves." The allusion was more to the point than was always the case in his references to sacred writ.

While Matthews was residing at the hotel near the Battery as heretofore mentioned, a gentleman by the name of F had also his quarters at the same place. Not many days after he had commenced boarding there, he was one morning very familiarly and abruptly accosted by Matthews, with