education, marriage, the removal of disease, the prevention of madness
and of crime, the arts of government, the regulation of amusement, the
efficient employment of physical forces--themes so often discussed
here--have equally occupied the attention of our planetary brethren,
although, as will be seen, in the results of our studies we differ not a
little. This is not a story of Anthropophagi, or men whose heads do grow
beneath their shoulders, which can merely excite wonder, but a record of
actual men, who, widely separated from us in the ocean of space, are
beings with whom we can sympathise much more than with the inhabitants
of the uncivilized portions of our own globe.

The reader will now begin to understand what is meant when the Editor
calls attention to the practical value of most of his communications,
and invites consideration of the fragments, as suggestive of much that
concerns the welfare of mankind, the question as to their source being
provisionally left open. The man of science, the poet, the
metaphysician, the philanthropist, the musician, the observer of
manners, even the general reader who merely seeks to be amused, will, it
is hoped, find something interesting in the following pages. Let all,
therefore, taste the fruit and judge of its flavour, though they do not
behold the tree; profit by the diamonds, though they know not how they
were extracted from the mine; accept what is found to be wholesome and
fortifying in the waters, though the source of the river is unknown.

Lest, in thus expatiating on the value of his communications, the Editor
should be thought to have overstepped the bounds of good taste, he would
have it perfectly understood that he is not speaking of his own
productions, and that whatever the merit of the fragments may be, that
merit does not belong to himself. He is an Editor and an Editor only;
and he therefore feels himself as much at liberty to express his opinion