328 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



as a butterfly in a frost, and a lesson in walking from 

 a fellow- sufferer, concluded his metropolitan training. 

 This " Patent American Leg" only weighs 3 Jibs, with 

 all its fastenings ; and its inventor, Mr. Palmer, un- 

 fortunately has to wear one. He lost his leg when 

 he was only a child of ten, during his daily labour in 

 a tanner's bark mill ; but he was nearly twenty-two 

 before he succeeded in solving the problem of artificial 

 locomotion. His own story of his " first thoughts" 

 on the subject, as told in The Scalpel } * is as follows : 

 " Tt was winter, and excessively cold. I was dis- 

 satisfied with my Anglesey leg, and requested one of 

 my brothers to bring me a section of a young willow 

 tree, then standing on the farm. He did so, and 

 being no practical mechanic, I went to work on it 

 with a jack-knife and 'a shave/ such as coopers 

 use. After having fashioned it into something like 

 the shape of a leg, I placed it over night in the oven 

 to dry out the sap. In some few days I had so 

 far completed it as to arrange the plan I had con- 

 ceived for the joints ; and at twenty- two years of 

 age I mounted it, and set off for the National Fair at 

 Washington, held in May, 1846. There I received 

 great encouragement, and was introduced to most 

 of the distinguished men." The great difficulty 

 with which his English licensee (Mr. Edwin. 

 Osborne, of Savile-row) had to contend with in Joe's 

 case, was the contraction and stiffness of the knee, 

 which bent the stump quite back, and at first sight 

 seemed to render matters hopeless. By great perse- 

 verance, however, the stump has been " got out " 

 considerably, and now, instead of being bent under 

 the knee, it acts bravely in a socket of its own. A 

 lever was applied all night for weeks (a mere trifle 

 after the firing), to keep the joint in position, and even 

 the whips have an occasional turn at " rubbing in " 

 and " drawing out" morning and evening. As it 



* May, 1854. 



