Chapter XI: Conclusion: It appears from the foregoing, (8)

It is impossible for any great catastrophe, involving loss of property or life, to occur without a certain superstitious class harping upon the event as a judgment of God upon the wickedness of the victims. If a great city is swept away by the devouring elements, we hear the cry that "an offended Deity has visited the 'Babylon of the West' with his vengeance for her wickedness." Some penurious wretch takes it up, and says, "I'll give nothing, then, to the victims of the fire. It is God's judgment; I won't interfere." A rich man is murdered in cold blood, and the same howl goes up, "It is the judgment of God upon him for heaping up riches." The fact of his riches going to thousands of poor artisans, actors, musicians, widows, orphans, and "western Babylonian sufferers," goes for nothing with such people. These same superstitious wretches have not yet done asserting that the assassination of President Lincoln was in judgment for his attending a theatre.

Twenty-five persons were killed in a church at Bologna, recently, while kneeling in prayer. Was this an expression of God's wrath upon church-goers?

"The laws by which God governs the universe are inexorable. The frost will blight, the fire destroy, the storms will ravage, disease and death will do their appointed work, though narrow-mindedness and bigotry misconstrue their intent. All things are for good. If natural laws are violated, the known and inevitable result follows."

* * * * *

I have already exceeded the space to which this chapter was limited, and there are a thousand superstitious beliefs and practices which are not herein enumerated nor explained. But rest assured that nothing exists without its uses, without the knowledge of the divine Author, and nothing supernatural does or ever did exist amongst natural beings. There is nothing within this world but what God has placed for man's good. There is nothing here past man's ability to fathom. God is love.

What there is beyond this world, we shall find out quite soon enough.

XIII.

TRAVELLING DOCTORS.

"His fancy lay to travelling."--L'ESTRANGE.

PUBLIC CONFIDENCE(?).--THE EYE OF THE PUBLIC.--A BAD
SPECIMEN.--"REMARKABLE TUMOR."--"THE SINGING DOCTOR."--CAUGHT IN A
STORM.--BIG PUFFING.--A SPLENDID "TURNOUT."--WHO WAS HE?--A SUDDEN
DISAPPEARANCE.--THE "SPANKING DOCTOR."--A FAIR VICTIM.--LOOSE
LAWS.--DR. PULSEFEEL.--IMPUDENCE.--A FIDDLING DOCTOR.--AN
ENCORE.--"CHEEK."--VARIOUS WAYS OF ADVERTISING.

One might say, with some propriety, that these characters--travelling doctors--should have been classed under the heading of our first chapter, as "humbugs;" but if we should put all under that head that belong there, O, where would the chapter end? As "all is not gold that glitters," so neither, on the other hand, is there anything so bad that no virtue can be found in it. No heart is so utterly depraved as to prevent any good thought or deed from emanating therefrom, though sometimes the good is quite imperceptible to us short-sighted mortals.

As the majority of physicians "turned" out of our medical colleges, or of those in practice in our cities, are unfit to have intrusted to their care the health and lives of our families, friends, or ourselves, so the majority of travelling doctors are to be reckoned equally untrustworthy; no more so.

If the blessed Saviour should return to earth, and travel from town to city, as he did eighteen hundred years ago, healing the sick, I really think there would be a less number believing in him now than then. Less gratitude for his marvellous cures there could not be; for then some of the miserable wretches, whom he healed free of charge, did not so much as return him thanks. This may be said of some of our patients at this day.

Let a medical man of ever so great reputation travel, and he is lost. A band of angels, on a healing mission, would stand no chance with a people who only expect humbugs to visit them. The Shakspearian inquiry would at once and repeatedly be put,--

"How chance it they travel? Their _residence_, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways!"

Let us view a few travelling doctors through the _public_ eye:--

"So shall I dare to give him shape and hue,
And bring his mazy-running tricks to view;
From humbug's minions catch the scattered rays,
That in one focus they may brightly blaze.

"I'd give our (nameless) knight, before he starts,
A tireless mind, where never Conscience smarts;
An oily tongue, which word should never speak
To call a blush to Satan's brazen cheek;
With, yet, a power of lungs the weak to move,
Which lung-quiescent ... might approve;
A changing face, which e'en might Homer feign,
A ton of brass for every ounce of brain.

"Then launch him forth, right cunningly to rage
Through the thin shams of this enlightened age;
To tell the people they are lords of earth,
And pick their pockets while he lauds their worth;
Drug men with folly, which no clime engrosses,
And sense deal out in homeopathic doses;
And making goodness to his projects bend,
With all right aims an ultra spirit blend.

* * * * *

"He leagues with those who number in their trade
A falsehood told for every sixpence made;
To Mammon mortgage all they have of heart,
To keep their wealth, with priceless honor part.
The fear of God the smallest of their fears,
Rolling in wealth, but bankrupt in ideas;
To save their purse, their souls contented lose,
And count all right, if worldly gain accrues;
Who, when they die, no memory leave behind,
But in the curses of their cheated kind!

"With these Sir Humbug riches seeks to gain,
And feels his way through lab'rinths of chicane;
Embezzles, swindles, lies, until at last
The eye of Justice on his crime is cast,
When, drugged with wealth, he quits our plundered shore,
And Texas boasts one fiery hero more."

The worst specimen of a travelling doctor I ever knew first appeared at R., one of the principal towns of Vermont, a few years ago. His name was Mariam; or that was what he called himself. He was a Canadian by birth, about twenty-five years of age, short, dark-complexioned, and claimed to be the seventh son of somebody. He was very illiterate, not being able to write a prescription, or his name, for that matter, when he came to R.

I visited his rooms at the hotel, after he had been in town some weeks, and noticed, among other things, that his table was strewn with sheets of paper, upon which he had been practising writing his signature. He opened here boldly. He sent out thousands of circulars in the various trains of cars running from R., distributing them in person, on the Poor Richard's principle, that "if you want your work done, do it; if not, send." He inserted cards in the two village papers, containing the most illiterate and preposterous statements, and hundreds flocked to see him. Imagine his knowledge, for he assured me, to whom he opened his heart in confidence, that he never read a page of a medical work in his life.

He first claimed to cure by the laying on of hands; but as he possessed no magnetic powers, he gradually abandoned that deception. As he could not write a prescription, and knew nothing of compounding medicines, he would go with a patient to a druggist's, and looking over the names of drugs on the bottles exposed on the shelves, order two or three articles at random, and, as one druggist assured me, of the most opposite properties; such as tincture of iron and iodide of potash, etc. (NOTE. The acid in the M. Tinct. iron sets the iodine free.)

His clothes were very seedy, "and the crown of his hat went flip flap," and his toes were healthy, "being able to get out to the air," when he came to R. Soon he was "in luck," and a nice suit of clothes, a new silk hat, and boots, speedily graced his not inelegant person. I saw him both before and after the transformation.

The following is a true copy of one of his certificates, taken from his circular:--

"A GREAT CURE OF AN OVARIAN TUMOR!

"This is to certify that Dr. Mariam cured me of an immense _ovarian
tumor of the left shoulder_, weighing five pounds and a half, from
which I suffered," etc., etc.

(Signed) Mrs. ---- ----.

"MALONE, N. Y."

On this item being ridiculed in the papers of R., Mariam changed it to a "rose cancer," and continued the certificate.

Mariam had been practising in Malone, N. Y., also at Whitehall, where, I was informed by a newspaper man, he was arrested for obtaining money under false pretences. He, however, escaped and fled, to practise his deceptions elsewhere. It was reported that he shuffled off his mortal coil by finally taking two ounces of laudanum, after the civil authorities had placed him comfortably in the county jail, where he had the pleasure of passing many days in viewing the world through an iron-barred window, and reflecting on his eventful career.

THE SINGING DOCTOR.

In remarkable contrast with the above described ignoramus, we present the following description, from two contributors, of an extraordinary personage, known for a time as "The Singing Doctor."

The "Hoosac Valley News" tells this story:--

"One day late in the autumn of 1860, while the rain poured in torrents, and the wind howled fearfully along the hills of old Plymouth, I was obliged to drive to Watertown. The 'Branch' was swollen to the river's size, and foamed madly down over the sombre rocks, while above my head, on the other side of the road, the trees rocked and swayed, as though about to fall into the seething, roaring waters below.

"Above, or mingled with the clashing of the elements, I heard some voice, as if singing. It struck me with wonder. I stopped to listen. It became more distinct, as if approaching. What was it? Who could it be, singing amid the fearful tempest?

"In the midst of my surmising, the object of my wonder came in sight, around a turn in the road just ahead of me.

"It was the Singing Doctor, whom I instantly recognized by his little old white horse, as well as by his own voice, to which I had before listened. The little animal was drenched like a 'drowned rat.' The doctor, in his open buggy, with no umbrella,--for the sweeping wind precluded the possibility of holding one,--and the driving rain pelting mercilessly upon his face and head, was singing.

"'You must be a happy man,' I exclaimed, 'to be singing amid this awful storm.'

"'Why not?' he replied. 'It is always better to be singing than sighing;' and we passed on through the dangerous defile, and separated....

"Last summer, as I journeyed through the Green Mountain State on a pleasure excursion, I met, on a romantic mountain pass, a magnificent turnout,--a splendid top carriage, drawn by four beautiful, jet black Morgan mares,--which did not attract my attention so much, however, as the music within the carriage. It was the Singing Doctor again, with his two little daughters, singing.

"The handsome and good-natured driver offered me the best half of the road; but still I lingered till the last notes of the song died away, when I drove past the 'Sanatorian,' wondering to myself what singing had to do with his increasing prosperity."

The remainder of the sketch is from the pen of a lady in Vermont:--

"I think it was during the spring of 1867 that our little 'city on the lake' was visited by the above remarkable character. We are often visited by migratory physicians, who are usually of the 'come-and-go' order; but this one burst upon us like a comet, with dazzling splendor, briefly announced, but at once proclaimed his determination of returning with the regularity of the full moon--repeating his visits every month. Few believed his last arrangement could be carried out, as his predecessors had generally fleeced the invalid public to their utmost at one visit, and if they ever again appeared, it would be under another name and phase. It soon became evident that one visit could not repay the outlay, for no ready posting-board was large enough to hold the agent's posters, which were printed in strips some twenty-five feet in length, and his advertisements occupied one, two, or more columns of the public journals, while he flooded the houses with his pictorial circulars.

"He was merely announced as 'The Sanatorian,' but was indorsed (true or false?) by some of New England's most respectable people. He came in grand style, as the papers briefly announced, thus:--

"'_The Sanatorian._ This distinguished physician proposes visiting us on the 18th inst.... The doctor comes in great style.... He has the finest carriage, and the gayest four black Morgan horses we have ever had the pleasure of riding after.'

"The driver, a handsome fellow, with full brown whiskers, curling hair, and a 'heavenly blue eye,' had taken the editor and writer of this last paragraph out to an airing. The team was photographed by the artists, and many of the best citizens had the pleasure of a ride in the easy carriage, and behind the swift ponies.

"The doctor usually remained _incog._ to the public. If they wished to see him, they must go to his 'parlors' at the best hotels. They did go. And now the most remarkable part of the affair remains to be recorded. An editor who interviewed him reports thus: 'The doctor rocks in a rocking-chair,--in fact, never sits in anything else,--or arises and walks the floor, and instantly, _at a glance_, tells every patient each pain and ache better than the patient could describe them himself. 'Are you a clairvoyant?' the editor asked.

"'_Faugh! No, sir._ Clairvoyancy is a humbug; merely power of mind over mind. A clairvoyant can go no farther than your _own_ knowledge leads him, unless he guesses the rest,' was his emphatic reply.

"The same patients, disguised, visited him twice, but he would tell the same story to them as before. His diagnosis was truly wonderful.

"'What is your mode of treatment, or what school do you represent?'

"'There hangs my "school,"' he would reply, pointing to a New York college diploma. 'That, however, cures nobody. What cures one patient kills another. My opathy is to cure my patient by _any means_, regardless of "schools."'

"To some he gave 'nothing but water,' the patients affirmed; to others, pills, powders, syrups, or prescriptions. Well, he came the next month, to our surprise, and to the joy of most of his patients. He did the greatest amount of advertising on the first visit, doing less and less puffing each time. The rich, as well as the poor, visited him. He charged all one dollar. Then, if they declined treatment, he was satisfied; but if they doubted, or were sceptical, he refused all prescription. He advertised quite as much by telling one man he was past all help, and would die in eight weeks, which he did, as by curing the mayor of the city of a cough that jeoparded his life. If a poor woman had no money, he treated her just as cheerfully. Men he would not. His cures are said to have been remarkable. He made some eleven visits, and his patrons increased at each visit; but the novelty wore off before he disappeared. He was said to be an excellent musician, an author and composer, a man who was well read (a physician here who often conversed with him so informed the writer), could translate Latin and French, and converse with the mutes. When the day closed, he would see no more patients, but devoted his time to friends, to writing, or to music. Often the hotel parlor would be thronged at evening with the musical portion of the community. In personal appearance he was nothing remarkable,--medium size, wore full beard, had a sharp black eye, a quick, nervous movement, and his voice was not unpleasing to the ear.

"Why he--such a man--should travel, no one knew. He had an object, doubtless, to accomplish, realized it, and retired upon his true name, and from whence he came."

"YOURAN, THE SPANKER."

The writer has many times seen a fellow who travelled the country, nicknamed "the Spanker." He was a tall, lean, lank-looking Yankee, with red hair and whiskers, a light gray eye, and claimed to cure all diseases by "spatting" the patient, or the diseased part thereof, with cold water on his bare palm, the use of a battery, and a pill. He had served as door-keeper to a famous doctor, who created a _furore_, a few years since, by the exercise of his magnetic powers, making cripples to throw down their crutches, and walk off; the deaf to hear, the blind to see; or, at least, many of them _thought_ they did, for the time being, which answered the doctor's immediate purpose. But one fine morning the magnetic doctor found his door-keeper was among the "missing." He had learned the trade, and set up on his own account.

This fellow was as ignorant of physic as Jack Reynolds was of Scripture. Reynolds, who killed Townsend in 1870, when under sentence of death, listened attentively for the first time to the story of the Saviour's crucifixion in atonement for our sins, when he rather startled the visitors, as well as the eminent divine, with the inquiry, "Did that affair happen lately?"

He was not, it is evident, conversant with Scripture. "The Spanker" was not read in medicine. His treatment was the most ridiculous and repulsive of the absurdities of the nineteenth century. The patient was stripped of his clothes, and often so severely spanked as to compel him, or her, to cry out with pain.

The beautiful young wife of the Rev. Mr. F., of Vermont, was brought to the writer for medical advice. The patient was carefully examined, and the minister taken aside, and assured that the lady was past all help; she was in the last stages of consumption; that she would, in all probability, die with the falling of the autumn leaves, or within two months.

The following day the minister carried the patient to the spanker doctor, who declared her case quite curable. The minister employed him to treat the patient.

A few weeks later I saw the minister, seated on the doorstep of his house, bowed in grief. He was on the lookout for me, as I was expected that way. He called to me, and asked if I would view the corpse of his once beautiful wife. I dismounted, and entered the house of mourning. There lay the poor, fair young face, within the narrow confines of the coffin. The cheeks were hollow, the eyes sunken, and the nostrils closed, and I doubt if any air had passed through the left one for weeks--pathognomonic indications of that fell disease, consumption.

"She did not live as long, doctor, as you thought she would, in August," said Mr. F.

"No, sir: I did not then make allowance for the harsh treatment of Dr. ----, that, I am advised, soon followed."

"O, sir," he exclaimed, in agony of soul, while the tears coursed freely down his cheeks, and fell upon the coffin,--"O, sir, God only knows what the poor thing suffered. Dr. Youran said the spatting and cold water treatment would save her, and I was anxious to try it, and did, till the poor, dear soul begged us, with tearful eyes, not to punish her further, but to let her die in peace."

The ignorant scoundrel is still at large, preying upon the invalid public. It is a burning shame that the laxity of our laws permits such ignorant, heartless wretches to go about the country, imposing upon the credulity of invalidity.

The invalids, as we said in our opening, expect to be humbugged, and will believe no honest statement of a case and its probabilities, but will too often swallow the lies and braggadocio, and finally the prescriptions, of ignorant charlatans and impostors.

Mr. Jeaffreson, in the "Book about Doctors," before often quoted, says of the English travelling doctor of the last century,--

"When Dr. Pulsfeel was tired of London, or felt the want of country air, he adopted the pleasant occupation of fleecing rustic simplicity. For his journeys he provided himself with a stout and fast-trotting hack--stout, that it might bear weighty parcels of medical composition; fast, that in case the ungrateful rabble should commit the indecorum of stoning their benefactor as an impostor,--a mishap that would occasionally occur,--escape might be effected.

"In his circuit the doctor took in all the fairs, markets, wakes, and public festivals, not disdaining to stop an entire week, or even month, at an assize town, where he found the sick anxious to benefit by his marvellous wisdom.

"His manner of making himself known in a new place was to ride boldly into the thickest crowd of a town, and inform his listeners that he had come straight from the Duke of So-and-so, or the Emperor of Wallachia, out of an innate desire to do good to his fellow-creatures. He was born in that very town. He had left it when an orphan boy, to seek his fortune in the great world. His adventures had been wonderful. He had visited the Sultan and the Great Mogul; and the King of Mesopotamia had tried to persuade him to tarry and keep the Mesopotamians out of the devil's clutches by the offer of a thousand pieces of gold a month. He had cured thousands of emperors, kings, queens, princes, grand duchesses, and generalissimos. He sold all kinds of medicaments--dyes for the hair, washes for the complexion, lotions, rings, and love charms, powders to stay the palsy, fevers, croup, and jaundice. His powder was expensive; he couldn't help that; it was made of pearl-dust and dried violet leaves from the middle of Tartary. Still, he would sell his friends a package at bare cost,--one crown,--as he did not want to make money out of them.

"Nothing could surpass the impudence of the fellow's lies, save the admiration with which his credulous auditors swallowed his assertions. There they stood--stout yeomen, drunken squires, gay peasant girls, gawky hinds and gabbling crones, deeming themselves in luck to have lived to behold such a miracle of wisdom. Possibly a young student, home from Oxford, with the rashness of inexperience, would smile scornfully, and cry out, 'Quack!' (quack-salver, from the article he used to cure wens); but such interruption was usually frowned down by the orthodox friends of the student, and he was warned that he would come to no good end, if he went on as he had begun, a contemptuous unbeliever, and a mocker of wise men."

A MUSICAL DOCTOR.

Mr. Dayton, vocalist, told me of a fellow who cut a swell in various capacities a few years ago. He first knew him as a fiddler at fairs. The next time he turned up was under the following circumstances:--

"With Madam L. and some other renowned vocalist, he was giving concerts, when one day their pianist was taken suddenly sick. Madam was in great trepidation.

"'What shall I do? The concert cannot be postponed, and we cannot sing unless we have an accompaniment,' exclaimed the lady.

"I looked about, made some inquiry,--it was in a small town,--but no competent piano player could be found.

"'We must abandon the concert,' I said, which seemed inevitable, when there came a sharp knock at the door.

"'Come in,' I called.

"The door opened, and instead of a servant, as I had expected, there appeared a tall, stout specimen of the _genus homo_, with large black eyes, and long, dark hair flowing down on to his shoulders, making his best bow, and what he doubtless intended as his sweetest smile.

"I offered him a chair, and inquired how I could serve him.

"'You want a piano player?'

"'Yes.'

"'Well, I will undertake to assist you in your strait. Allow me to see your programme,' he continued, very patronizingly, waiting for us to make no reply whatever.

"'Are you--that is, do you play rapidly, and at sight?' asked madam.

"He replied only by a gesture, a sort of pitiful contempt for the ignorance of any person who should ask _him_ such a question....

"Half past seven came, and we went on the stage. I do not know what the fellow's prelude was; I was otherwise engaged; but his accompaniments were made up, and after he had heard the note sung to which he should have accompanied,--O, it was a horrid jargon, a consecutive blast of discords, a tempest of incomprehensibleness.

"Madam caught her breath at the first pausing-place, and signalled him to stop. He took a side glance at her, misinterpreted her, and played on the louder. It became ludicrous in the extreme. He played the minor strains, or what should have been minor, in the major key. He only stopped when he saw us leave the stage. The audience cheered. He took it all as a compliment to himself as a pianist, stopped, and made his most profound obeisance to the house. They laughed and cheered the harder. He mistook it for an _encore_, bowed again, and returned to the piano. Then the house came down. They stamped, they laughed, they shouted. The boys in the gallery cat-called; the building fairly shook. I ran back to see what it was all about, and there was the pianist (?) beating furiously at the keys, the perspiration pouring in streams from his face. But his playing could only be _seen_ to be appreciated; it could not be heard for the stamping of the audience. He finally desisted, and with repeated halts and smiles, he bowed himself off the stage.

"His grand _debut_ and retirement upon the stage occurred the same night. Madam would not permit him to go on again, and we sang the duets from ---- without accompaniment. I think the fellow knew nothing of music; he had 'cheeked' it right through.

"Perhaps it was two years afterwards--I was staying at the B. Hotel, Maine--when I heard a deal of talk about a great doctor then in town. After dinner the first day, I noticed a man sauntering leisurely from the dining-hall in embroidered slippers, white silk stockings, black pants, gaudy dressing-gown, with long hair falling down over his shoulders. I thought I recognized that face. I approached him after a while, and called him by name.

"'What? Why, I think you are mistaken. I do not know you, sir,' he stammered; and then I knew he had recognized me.

"'O, yes; I am Dayton. You remember you were our pianist once in a strait, in S.'

"'O, ah! Come up to my room,' he said, leading the way.

"I followed, when he told me he was doing a good thing at the practice of medicine about the principal towns of the state, and begged I would say nothing about his former occupation. He stated to me that he had been to Europe, and had been studying medicine meantime, which I have since ascertained was entirely untrue."

And this was the fellow over whom the town was running wild.

The idea of some men trying to become good physicians is as ridiculously absurd as Horace Greeley's farming, or trying to ascertain if "cundurango is explosive." The requisite qualities are not in them. They may keep along a few years, or possibly, in communities where there is no competition, succeed in making the people believe they are as good as the common run, and thus succeed on brass instead of brains.

Some of these brainless travelling impostors employ a female or two to precede them from place to place, and make diligent inquiry when the great doctor who performed such marvellous cures in some adjoining town mentioned was coming there. Thus putting it in the shape of an inquiry, it was less likely to excite suspicion.

Two females--one an elderly, lady-like looking woman, the other younger, and anything but lady-like--travelled for a doctor, on a salary, during the summer and autumn of 1868. A lady whose occupation took her from town to town, seeing the two females at various hotels where the doctor was advertised, inveigled the younger one into the confession, in her bad temper, and thus I got my evidence. Another travels on his hair; another on his face; and a fourth on his free advice and treatment; while a fifth succeeds by absurdity of dress.

XIV.

SCENES FROM EVERY-DAY PRACTICE.

"History, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this."--COWPER'S TASK.

"Let no one say that his task is o'er,
That bonds of earth are for him no more,
Until by some kind or holy deed
His name from forgetfulness is freed;
Until by words from his lips or pen,
Dying, he's 'missed' from the ranks of men."
ALICE LEE.

THE BEGGAR BOY AND THE GOLDEN-HAIRED HEIRESS.--MY MIDNIGHT CALL.--THE
CONSCIENCE-STRICKEN MOTHER.--"OLD SEROSITY."--THE ILLEGITIMATE
CHILD.--DEATH OF THE BEAUTIFUL.--WHO IS THE HEIR?--A TOUCHING
SCENE.--FATE OF THE "BEGGAR BOY."--THE TERRIBLE CALLER.--AN IRISH
SCENE, FROM DR. DIXON'S BOOK.--BIDDY ON A RAMPAGE.--TERRY ON HIS DEATH
BED.--THE STOMACH PUMP.--BIDDY WON'T, AND SHE WILL.--THE BETRAYED AND
HER BETRAYER.--"IS THERE A GOD IN ISRAEL?"--THE HUSBANDLESS
MOTHER.--THE CRISIS AND COURT.--ANSWER.--THERE IS A "GOD IN ISRAEL."

Ill-clad poverty, benumbed with cold, was abroad alone, exposed to that winter's night, as the white snow fleeced the frost-hardened ground. But never mind earth's cold bosom. The rich man's heart warms _him_, making him merry, however blows the wind or rages the storm. Shiver, shiver on, beggar poor! Starvation and sense-dulling cold alone belong to you.

Through the crunching snow-drifts trudged a weary boy, with alms-basket on his shivering arm. From his figure, he seemed not over ten years old; but his face was so wan and melancholy, that it was difficult to tell how many year-blights the beggar child had experienced. Summer clothes were still clinging to him; a tattered comforter was the only winter article he wore.

A gay carriage rolled noiselessly by, with a beautiful girl within, well wrapped in fur and cloak, whilst the snow was dashed from the rapid wheels like white dust. She saw, through the dim light, the weary, thin-clad boy, as he stopped, with face bent aside to the flake-burdened blast, to gaze at the smoking horses, as they plunged through the fast-deepening sheet. She dropped the sash, and threw the boy a coin. It sank from her warm hand deep into the drifted snow. It might have brought him bread and a cheering fagot, but the smitten child never found it. The snow closed over the coveted prize, while the blast grew keener.

On, on toiled the beggar boy, through drift and darkness, more weary as night gathered on. Thus is it ever with the humble poor; their load grows heavier as life lessens. No light or warming hearth is there--things that make house a home--to welcome the wandering boy.

The clock had just struck two as I was summoned to the house of Mrs. T. The same carriage that, in the evening, had borne the beautiful young girl, awaited at my door, with its impatient horses snorting against the frosted air. A few minutes later I entered the house. Mrs. T. met me in the hall, with her face deadly pale, and manner much excited. Her singular nervousness had before struck me on my visits, whenever her daughter ailed. She informed me that her "darling Emily" was very ill with a high fever.

We entered the chamber. The young girl lay with her head turned aside upon the pillow, her golden-brown hair scattered in wild profusion upon its white cover, while the nurse was gently moistening the fevered palm of her outstretched hand. The pulse was beating wildly at the wrist and temples, and fever heat glowed from her lustrous eyes. Whilst the nurse held the light to her face, the traces of dried tears were revealed upon her suffused cheeks.

"Heartache surely is here," I said to myself.

There was something in the whole appearance of my patient that excited my curiosity and surprise. Only eight or ten hours had passed since she, from her carriage, had thrown the snow-claimed alms to the beggar boy, and _now_ a high fever was running hot through every artery of her body.

Silently seated by the bedside, after administering a cooling draught I awaited and watched for the changes that might ensue. Her mother sat near the fire, its blaze lighting up every feature of her once beautiful face, which still remained very pale. In all my intercourse with Mrs. T., I never before had so prolonged an opportunity of examining in detail the expression of her countenance. The longer I gazed on her, the more satisfied I became that she had not passed through life without a fearful history.

It was this sensation which struck me when I first became acquainted with her. A few vague rumors had floated about relative to her history; that a strange desertion of her husband had taken place, and that he afterwards was found drowned in the river, near his residence, and that by his death Mrs. T. had become possessed of an immense estate. These stories had, however, soon subsided; and as her means were ample, and her charities liberal, the gossips of the town quietly dropped the past, and speculated upon the future, as should all respectable gossips.

The voice of the patient diverted my thoughts; a few words were murmured, and then the lips pressed tremblingly together, and the tear-drops again started to her cheeks. Suddenly springing up in bed, and threading her long, curling hair through her slender fingers, she exclaimed, in a thrilling, delirious tone,--

"It cannot be true! O, mother--tell me, mother!"

Mrs. T. fairly leaped to the bedside, and placing her hand over the daughter's mouth, with affrighted gestures, she exclaimed,--

"What is it? What does she mean? My God, doctor, she raves!"

The girl fell back on her pillow; the mother stood, pale and trembling, by the bedside, with a nameless terror depicted on every feature. Turning to me, in a quick, restless voice, she bade me hasten to give her child a quieting draught.

"O, anything that will keep her from raving!"

The room was not over warm for such a bitter night, yet the perspiration stood upon the brow of the excited mother like the fallen dew.

"Conscience must lie here," I thought to myself.

In the course of an hour the sufferer slumbered heavily; her breathing was hurried and oppressed, the fever had increased, and her moanings were constant.

Day was breaking, as I left my young patient to return home through the falling snow. As I looked out of the carriage window, I saw a little boy sitting on the cold walk. It was the poor beggar boy of yesterday, as thinly clad, with his pale cheek as white as the snowdrifts through which he had toiled. I ordered the coachman to stop.

"What brought you out, and where are you going, on this cold winter morning, my poor boy?" I exclaimed.

He raised his beautiful dark eyes to my face, and my heart grieved at their look of utter hopelessness, as he faintly answered, "To beg for me and old grandma."

"Are you not very cold, in those thin clothes?" I asked.

His little teeth chattered, as he replied, "O, I am very--cold--sir."

The impatient horses plunged violently in the traces, and the coachman asked to be allowed to drive on. I gave the poor boy the few silver coins that were in my pocket, and we passed on.

I never saw that boy but once again; his look haunts me to this day.

As I rode on, memory was busy tracing where I had ever seen features like his. The dark hair, that lay in uncombed curls upon his forehead, and clustered warmly about his neck, as though in protection against the bitter cold; his large, black eyes, with their long lashes; the finely-chiselled outlines of his mouth and nose,--these all impressed me that I had somewhere seen a face which strikingly resembled his. Poor boy! beauty was his only possession.

At breakfast a letter was handed me, summoning me immediately to one of my own children, who lay sick in a distant town. Before leaving I wrote a hurried note to Mrs. T., stating the cause of my sudden departure, desiring her to call another physician, during my absence. The young girl's fate and the poor beggar boy's face were almost forgotten in my own cares.

On the sixth day following, I again found myself at home. My first thought was for poor Emily. I dreaded to ask; there was something whispering to my heart that all was not well.

My suspense was not long; a messenger had just left, stating that the dear girl was fast failing; that her physician had pronounced her laboring under typhus fever. My God, how my heart sank under these words! I had dreaded this mistake after I left. Alas! how many have fallen by the name of a disease, and not by the disease itself!

After a hurried meal, I drove rapidly to Mr. T.'s residence. The house door was quietly opened by a servant, and in another minute I stood in the chamber of the invalid. The mantel was crowded with numerous vials. The close atmosphere of the sick-room was sickening. By the bedside, with her face bowed over one of the pale hands of the daughter, which she held in both of her own, sat the wretched mother. It seemed to me as though ten years had passed over her faded and care-worn countenance, since I last gazed upon it. I could not stir; my heart stood still. _Her hair had become entirely gray._

I gained heart to approach; the desolate mother heard me, and turning quickly she sprang from her chair, and placing her hands on my shoulders, she bowed her head: she sobbed wildly, as though her heart would break.

"Look, look, doctor! Would you have known her? O, my God, she is leaving me! Save her--O, save her!" and the wretched mother fell fainting to the floor. We gently raised and bore her to her own chamber. In a few moments I returned to Emily. She turned her head languidly towards me, while her right hand moved as if to take mine. How dry was the palm! Her color had faded away; the once rounded cheeks were sunken. O, I will not describe her!

The physician who had been called, after my departure, had found her with high fever and delirium. He mistook the excitement of the brain for its inflammation. O, fatal error! A consultation was called. The second comer was notedly a man who viewed every excitement as caused by "an over-action of the vessels," and bleeding was its only relief. The nervous system he entirely ignored. From his theory, man was a mere combination of blood, blood-vessels, and biliary secretions, more or less deranged. Calomel, salts, and the lancet were his Hercules. The grand _causa mortis_ amongst the human family was "serosity." Hence some evil-minded wag amongst his brethren had named him "Old Serosity."

The poor child had been bled, cupped, and purged, in order to subdue this "over-action of the blood-vessels." Verily it may cure the vessels, but it certainly kills the patient.

The life current was nigh exhausted; there was no blood left for renewal of brain, nerve, or vital tissue. My heart was bitter against this murderous adherence to a false principle. Here a human life, that of a young and spotless girl, was the forfeit.

But to return to the thread of the narrative.

"O, I am glad you have come back to me. Do try to save me, doctor," she said, with great effort. Sending the nurse from the room, I quickly pressed the young girl's hand within my own, and said to her,--

"Do you really wish to live, Emily?"

"Yes, yes," she murmured; "I am very young to die."

"Then, my dear, tell me truly what has so terribly shocked your nervous system; tell me." With a strength that startled me, she searched under the mattress side, and drew forth a small note, which she silently placed in my hand. It was discolored by time. I opened it; the date was above twelve years back. It ran thus:--

"When you receive this, Mira (Mrs. T.'s given name), my career will have ended. By my death you will inherit all. Let my unborn child have its just, legal claim. Your child, Emily, take to your home as though she were an adopted orphan. Let not her youth be blighted by the knowledge of her unblest birth. I forgive you. Adieu, forever. H. T."

"O my God, the doomed child is illegitimate," I said. I stooped down and kissed the sufferer's forehead, and promised that I would be a father to her. "Come, cheer up," I whispered, "for your mother's sake. If she has sinned she has suffered much for your sake; forgive her."

"I do forgive her," she whispered, "but can I forget myself, unblessed as I am? But I must know the whole truth. O, where is the right heir of all this wealth? My memory returns now, indistinctly, to my earlier days. A cloud intervenes. I remember but a small cottage, in a deep wood, where mother often came to see me, and a tall woman took care of me. Then came a gay carriage, and took me to a large house; but I never again returned to the cottage in the wood. There, at the large house, mother left me a long time; and when she came back--O, doctor, I can speak no longer. Do give me something to strengthen me, and I will try yet to live."

A cordial was administered by my own hands, and in a short time sleep overcame her. Night again closed in; the wind had sunk to rest with the setting sun. Another night of bitter cold was ushered in. Woe to the poor! Woe to the hungry and the fireless.

* * * * *

As I entered the mother's apartments I found her sitting by a private secretary, which had been brought from the library. Its lid was open, and as I seated myself she took from a package of tied letters a sealed paper, and placing it in my hands, said,--

"Read this at your leisure, doctor. My pilgrimage of life is nigh ended. You will judge how great my sin, and how severe has been my punishment. I ask no forgiveness, _for there will be none left to forgive me_."

Well, I knew her heart was nigh crushed!

I sought the daughter's chamber. How still was everything! The very candle, with its long flame, parted by the thickened wick-char, seemed not to flicker, as it burned dimly on. I looked at the bed; the sweet girl lay with both hands crossed upon her bosom, as though in prayer. An orange-blossom had dropped from her grasp, and lay neglected by her side; her life-hand never touched it more! Death had claimed his bride!

A wild shriek sounded through the house. The erring mother now knew that she was alone in the great world.

Whilst the shrouding of the dead took place I retired and opened the sealed package. It briefly told its tale of sin and sorrow.

It told how from the first love Emily was the fruit, and how, unknown to all, the child had been secreted; how, about three years after Emily's birth, the mother was married to Harold T., whom _she never loved_; and how, by a singular accident, the knowledge of her transgression became known to her husband; that, after violently cursing her for her sin and deception, he left her, and shortly afterwards committed suicide; that the letter (written by him just before his death), which was so fatal to the peace and life of Emily, had accidentally dropped from the secretary, and was picked up by her (that night after her return in the carriage), unknown to the mother until the sixth day after my return, when she missed it.

The narrative went on to state that a male child was born after T.'s death, and that, seized with an insane fury, she resolved that he never should inherit its father's name and wealth; and that, through the assistance of a nurse, it was placed with a sum of money at a beggar's door, and a dead child laid beside the mother instead; that before sending the infant away, the nurse tattooed its father's initials on its left arm. The beggar had died, and all traces of the child had been lost. At length her guilty conscience so reproached her that the mother had instituted search for the child, but all in vain.

As I read this tale of crime and repentance, busy memory traced out the features of the _beggar boy_! Like a sudden light it burst upon me--those features that had so tormented my memory to recall were those of the unhappy mother.

Quickly I went to her room. She was not there. I hastened to Emily's. The mother was wildly clasping the enshrouded form of her daughter, and weeping as though her heart would break asunder. Gently removing her to her own chamber, I intimated that another child, long lost, might yet be restored to her.

She listened as one bewildered. I then informed her of my adventure with the beggar boy.

It was hardly day-dawn as I entered the carriage. My breath froze against the window panes. After a short ride the horses stopped before the wretched snow-covered hovel (where he had seen the beggar child once enter). I opened the carriage door, leaped out, and placed my hand on the latch. The door opened. It was neither bolted nor locked; for no thief would enter there. In the corner of the room lay a bundle of rugs, with some straw, but it was unoccupied. Near the fireplace, where nought but a little well-charred bark remained upon the cold ashes, half reclining in a large wooden chair, lay the beggar boy.

His cap had fallen on the ground, and his dark, curling hair fell clustering over his extended arm, as his head rested upon it. He had seemingly fallen asleep the night before, for his thin summer clothes were on his person, and his basket, yet filled with the fragments of broken feasts, remained untouched at his feet. I placed my hand upon his beautiful head; it was icy cold. Quickly brushing back the fallen ringlets from his face, the unmistakable evidence of death met my gaze.

He had apparently fallen asleep weeping, for a tear-drop lay frozen between the long lashes that fringed the eyelids.

I raised the stiffened body of the ill-fated youth, and tearing away the thin sleeve from his left arm, I distinctly discovered the letters 'H. T.' thereon.

Deserted, famished, and frozen, death had claimed the darling, lone boy before he knew a mother's love!

This sad tale is taken from "_Scenes in Northern Practice by Dr. Dewees_, N. Y."--_Scalpel_, 1855. (And like all the stories herein, it has the merit of being true to the letter.)

THE TERRIBLE CALLER.

It was about half past nine in the morning.

My office door suddenly opened, and looking up from my writing, I saw, standing in the passage-way, a very tall man, in a long white frock, reaching to his knees, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a slouched hat set back on his head, his face painted or bedaubed with some white substance, and his eyes gleaming upon me most intensely!

There he stood, looking almost fiercely upon me, while he held the door-knob with his left hand, and grasped with his right a long carving-knife, which was thrust through his belt.

"Are you the doctor?" he shouted with excitement.

"I am the doctor," I replied, calmly awaiting my fate.

He instantly stepped inside the room, when close behind him was revealed the form of a very short man, who held a Kossuth hat in one hand, while with a handkerchief in the other, he stanched the blood that had evidently been flowing pretty freely from his head.

"This man has cut himself very bad on the head; big iron wheel come down on him: can you fix him up?" asked the first. This accounted for his excited manner. But how about the bedaubed face and the huge knife?

I examined the wound, only through the scalp, less than three inches in length; and washing away the surplus clotted blood, I clipped off the hair, and soon secured the edges of the gaping wound by taking a stitch or two through the scalp.

While so doing, the young man rolled his eyes up to his tall companion,--who had explained that they were cooks at Young's Hotel, and that the spit wheel and shaft used for turning meat had fallen eight feet; by which the assistant had barely escaped being killed,--and with a commendable show of thought for his employer's interest, rather than his own comfort or safety, he anxiously exclaimed,--

"Jim, do you think that gentleman's 'order,' what I had in the spit, is overdone yet?"

AN IRISH SCENE.

A young Irish girl, with a wild shriek, an "Och, hone!" and "Ah, murther!" and "Hulla-boo--a--hulla-boo, poor Terry! Ah, why did I taze ye?" burst into my office one evening, upsetting the servant, and actually laying hold on me with her hands, as she exclaimed,--

"Ah, docther, docther, come now, for the love o' the moother that bore ye; come this blessed minute. I've killed poor Terry, an' niver shall see him again. Ah, murther, murther! Why did I taze ye?"

Trying in vain to calm her, I hastily drew on my boots, and almost ran after her to a wretched tenement, some quarter of a mile off, and found the object of the girl's solicitude alive and kicking, with his lungs in the best of order, standing on the stairs that led to his miserable chamber, with a broken scissors in his hand, stirring busily the contents of a tea-cup.

It seems that he had been courting my fair guide, and after the period she had fixed for her final answer to his declaration, she had bantered him with a refusal, which her solicitude for his life plainly showed was far enough from her real intentions.

In his despair he had swallowed an ounce of laudanum, which he had procured from some injudicious druggist, which act had sent Biddy off after me in such terror. He was now mixing a powder which he had obtained from another druggist, who, knowing of his love affair, it will be seen acted with more wisdom than the first, as Terry let slip enough in his hearing to show what he wanted to do with the "ratsbane" for which he inquired; and Biddy, like a true daughter of Eve, had made no secret in the neighborhood that she valued her charms beyond the poor fellow's bid.

As soon as she approached, he, by some inopportune remark, re-excited her wrath, and she again declared she wouldn't have him, "if he wint to the divil."

Poor Terry, in his red shirt and blue stockings, and an attitude of the grandest kind, but covering, as we soon found, a desperate purpose, flourished his tea-cup, and stirred its contents with the scissors, constantly exclaiming,--

"Ah, Biddy, will ye have me? Ye'll have me now--will ye not?"

Still Biddy refused.

"Divil a bit will I let the docther come near me till ye say yis! Sure, weren't we children together in the ould counthry? and didn't we take our potaties and butthermilk out o' the same bowl? And yer mother, that's now dead, always said ye were to be me wife; and now ye're kapin' coompany with that dirty blackguard, Jim O'Connor,--divil take him for a spalpeen. Ah, Biddy, will ye have me?"

And he flourished the cup, and stirred away vigorously with the scissors.

Biddy's blood was up at the disrespectful mention made of Jimmy's name, for "he had a winnin' way wid him," and she shouted at the top of her voice,--

"No, be the St. Patrick, I'll niver have ye."

With an awful gulp, Terry drained the cup, rolled up his eyes, and with one most impassioned yet ludicrous look at her, he fell upon his knees on the step.

Biddy followed, in strong hysterics.

The whole affair was so irresistibly ludicrous that I scarce could keep from laughing; but on observing the bottle, labelled "laudanum," and looking into the bottom of the tea-cup, and discovering a white powder, I changed my prognosis, and hastened to the druggist's near, to see what it was, and procure an antidote, should it really prove "ratsbane."

To my great relief, the man of drugs informed me, laughingly, that he had given Terry a quantity of chalk and _eight grains of tartar emetic_, as he learned that Terry was already in possession of the ounce of laudanum, and all the neighbors knew that Biddy had driven him to desperation by flirting with his rival, Jim O'Connor. The young man had judiciously told Terry that the powder would make the laudanum sure to operate more effectually.

"How long will it take?" he asked, and bagged all for use when the refusal should come.