CHARLATANS AND IMPOSTORS.

“Every absurdity has a chance to defend itself, for error is always talkative.”—Goldsmith.

The City Charlatan.

A charlatan is necessarily an impostor. He is “one who prates much in his own favor, and makes unwarrantable pretensions to skill.” He is “one who imposes on others; a person who assumes a character for the sole purpose of deception.”

Originally the charlatan was one who circulated about the country, making false pretensions to extraordinary ability and miraculous cures; but he is now located in the larger cities, and is the most dangerous and insinuating of all medical impostors. You will find his name in the cheapest daily papers.

Name, did I say? No, never.

Of all the charlatans advertising in the papers of this city there is but one who has not advertised under an assumed name. This is prima facie evidence of imposition. Take up the daily paper,—the cheapest print is the one that the rabble patronize, a curse to any city,—and run your eye over the “Medical Column.” Of the scores of this class advertising therein none dare publish his real name. There is one impudent fellow, who, while he assumes respectability, and under his true name, has an up-town office, and obtains something bordering on an honorable practice, runs the vilest sort of business, under an assumed name, on a public thoroughfare down town.

These fellows usually advertise, “Advice Free.” This is not on the modest principle, that, having no brains, they are scrupulous in not charging for what they cannot give, however; but this is to get the unsuspecting into their dens, for they are shrewd enough to perceive that whatever is “free” the rabble will run after.

CONVINCING EVIDENCE OF INSOLVENCY.

When once the victim is within the web, flattering, intimidations, and extravagant promises, one or all, generally will accomplish their aim. As they never expect to see a special victim again, they squeeze the last dollar from the unfortunate wretch, giving therefor nothing—worse than nothing! I sent a pretended patient to one of these charlatans not long since, and, with crocodile tears in his eyes, he related his case to the soi-disant doctor, who with great sympathy heard his case, and assured him it was “heart-rending, and, though very dangerous, he could cure him;” but the knave compelled the patient (!) to turn his pockets inside out to assure him they contained but the proffered dollar. A small vial of diluted spirits nitre was the prescription, for which the doctor assured the patient he usually received twenty to forty dollars!

I have visited several of these places in disguise, including those of female doctors, and those advertising as “midwives,” every one of whom agreed to perform a criminal operation upon the mythical lady for whom I was pretending to intercede. Their prices ranged from five to two hundred dollars.

The following painfully ludicrous scene I copy from manuscript notes which I made some years ago, respecting a visit to one of these impostors. I vouch for its truthfulness.

“I next bought a penny paper of a loud-mouthed urchin on the street corner, and, reading it that evening, the words ‘Medical Notice’ attracted my attention. It was all news to me, and I resolved to visit this ‘very celebrated’ doctor on the following day, ‘advice free.’

“Accordingly I repaired to his office, as designated in the advertisement. There were several doors wonderfully near each other, about which were several doctors’ signs conspicuously displayed; and, since I had heard that ‘two of a trade seldom agree,’ I thought it remarkable that three or four of a profession should here be huddled together.

“‘Step in the Entry and Ring the Bell,’ I read on a sign, in big yellow letters. I did so, when a big burly Irishman answered the summons.

“‘An’ who’ll yeze like to see, sure?’ he inquired, with a broad grin.

“‘Dr. A.,’ I replied, eying this Cerberus with awakening suspicion.

“‘He’s just in, sure. Come, follow me.’“He led the way across a small room, and through a darkened hall, around which I cast a suspicious glance, noticing, among other things unusual, that the partitions did not reach the ceiling. Thence we entered another room, which, from the roundabout way we had approached, I thought must be opposite the outer door of Dr. B.’s or Dr. C.’s office.

“Here Pat left me, saying, ‘The ixcillint doctor will be to see yeze ferninst he gits through wid the gintleman who was before your honor.’

“AN’ WHO’LL YEZE LIKE TO SEE, SURE?”

“I took a look about the room. The partitions on two sides were temporary. On one side of the apartment stood an old mahogany secretary. Through the dingy glass doors I took a peep. The shelves contained several volumes of ‘Patent Office Reports,’ odd numbers of an old London magazine, and such like useless works. On the walls were a few soiled cheap anatomical plates, such as you will see in ‘galleries’ or ‘museums’ fitted up by quack doctors, to intimidate the beholder. I could look no farther, as the door opened, and a man entered, who, looking nervously around, at once asked my business.

“‘Are you Dr. A.?’ I asked.

“‘I am. Please be seated. You are sick—very sick,’ he said hurriedly, and in a manner intended to frighten me.

“Five minutes’ conversation satisfied us both—him that I had no money, and me that he had no skill. After vainly endeavoring to extort from me my present address, he unceremoniously showed me out.

“As I closed the door I looked to the name and number, and, as I had anticipated, found myself at Dr. B.’s entrance.

“Turning up my coat collar, and tying a large colored silk handkerchief over the lower part of my face, I knocked at the third door, Dr C.’s.

“The same Irishman thrust out his uncombed head and unwashed face; the same words in the same vernacular language followed.

“‘I wish to see Dr. C.,’ I replied, changing my voice slightly.

“‘He’s in, jist. It never rains but it pours. Himself it is that has a bully crowd of patients the day; but coome in.’

“He did not recognize me—that was certain; so I followed, and was led through a labyrinth of rooms and halls, as before, and ushered into a small room, where the polite and loquacious Pat offered me a chair, and giving the right earlock a pull and his left foot a slip back, he said, with his broadest grin and most murderous English,—

“‘I’ll be shpaking the doctor to come to yeze at once intirely.’

“‘But he has others with whom he is engaged, you said but a moment ago.’

“‘Ah, yeze niver mind. Theyze ben’t gintlemen like yerself, if yeze do come disguised;’ and with a ‘whist’ he tip-toed across the room, applied his ear to the keyhole of the door a moment, and returned in the same manner.“‘It’s all right; now I’ll go for the doctor;’ but still he lingered.

“‘Well, why the d——l don’t you go?’ I said, impatiently.

“‘Ah, gintlemen always come disguised to see Dr. A.—no—Dr. B., I mean.’

“‘’Tis Dr. C. I asked for,’ I interrupted.

“‘Yis, yis,’ he replied, collecting his muddled senses. ‘Yis, sure, you did, an’ gintlemen always swear—two signs yeze a gintleman. Could yeze spare a quarter for a poor divil? By the howly mither, I git narry a cint, bating what sich gintlemen as yeze gives me. I have a big family to ate at home. There’s Bridget’ (counting his fingers by the way of a reminder), ‘she’s sick with the baby; then there’s the twins,—two of thim, as I’m a sinner,—and little lame Mike, what’s got the rackabites, the doctor says—’

“‘Got the what?’ I interrupted.

“‘The rackabites, or some sich dumbed disease,’ he replied, scratching his head.

“‘O, you mean rickets. But how old are the twins, and Mike, and the baby?’

“‘Will, let me see. The baby is tin days, and not christened yit, for we’ve not got the money for Father Prince, and there’s Mike is siven, and Mary is four, and Bridget junior is five.’

“‘And the twins?’ I asked, not a little amused.

“‘Yis, them’s Mary and Bridget junior,—four and five.’

“I interrupted him by a laugh, gave him the desired quarter, and told him to hasten the doctor, which request he proceeded to execute.

“On the heels of retiring Pat the door opened, and the same doctor I had before seen entered.

“‘I want to consult Dr. C.,’ I drawled out.

“‘I am Dr. C.,’ he replied, measuring me from head to foot sharply.

“Fearing he would penetrate my disguise, I hastened my errand. ‘Having an ulcerated and painful tooth I wish removed, or—’

“‘This ain’t a dentist’s office; but if you have any peculiar disease, I am the physician of all others to relieve you.’

“I being sure now of my man, that this same villain was running three offices under as many different aliases, my next object was to get safely out of his den.

“‘I have no need of any such services as you intimate. ’Tis only the tooth—’

“Here he interrupted me by an impatient gesture, intimating that only a descendant of the monosyllable animal once chastised by one Balaam would have entered his office to have a tooth drawn. Admitting the truth of his assertion, and offering my humblest apology, I hurriedly withdrew from this triplet doctor.

“Safely away, I reflected as follows: Here, now, is this scoundrel, by the assistance of an equally ignorant Irishman, conducting at least three offices on a public thoroughfare, under as many assumed names.

“‘Why, the fellow is a perfect chameleon!’ I exclaimed, walking away. ‘He changes his name to suit the applicants to the various rooms. You want Dr. A.,—he is that individual. You desire to see Dr. B.,—when, presto! he is at once the identical man. And so it goes, while his amiable assistant seems to be making a nice little thing of it on his own account. Why all these intricate passages? and why was I each time taken around through them, and out through a different door from that which I entered? Did a legitimate business require such mazy windings as I had just passed through? Did Dr. A., B., or C., or whatever his name might be, rob his patients in one place and thrust them out at another, that they might not be able to testify where and by whom they had been victimized? Was not the newspaper proprietor who advertised these several offices a particeps criminis in the transaction? And with these facts and suggestions I leave the fellow, who by no means is a solitary example of this sort of fraud.’”

On another street in this city is another branch from the Upas tree. I do not wish to advertise for him, hence omit his names, which are legion. Two of them begin with the letter D. The true name of this impostor commences with an M. He is old enough to be better. I know of patients who have been fleeced by him without receiving the least benefit, when the knowledge necessary to prescribe for their recovery, or of so simple a case, might be possessed by even the office boy.

You go to his first office and inquire for the first alias. The usher, a boy sometimes, takes you in, and, slipping out the back door, he calls the old doctor from the next office. They are not connected. Through a glass door he takes a survey of you, to assure himself that you have not been victimized by him already under his other aliases.

If he so recognizes you, he summons a convenient “assistant” to personate the doctor, and thus you are robbed a second time.

History of a Knave.

The following is a brief and true history of one of the vilest charlatans and impostors now practising in Boston. He has amassed a fortune within a few years by the most barefaced villanies ever resorted to by man. He is one of the most abominable charlatans, who, for the almighty dollar, would willingly sacrifice the lives of his unfortunate victims, who, by glowing newspaper statements and seductive promises, have been drawn into his murderous den. By the side of such unprincipled villains, the highwaymen, the Dick Turpins, with their “Stand and deliver!” or “Your money or your life!” are angels of mercy, for the former rob you of your last dollar, and either endanger your life by giving you useless drugs that check not the disease, or hasten your demise by poisonous compounds given at random, the virulent properties of which the vampires know but little and care less.

Their boast that their remedies are “purely vegetable,” “hence uninjurious”, is as false as their pretensions to skill, and is counted for nothing when we know that vegetable poisons are more numerous, and often more rapid and violent in their action, than minerals. Both calomel and other minerals are often given by these charlatans. I say given, for few of them know enough to write a legible prescription, much less to write the voluminous works which they put forth on “manhood,” “physiology of woman,” etc., which are but so many advertisements for their vile trade and criminal practices, and are intended to alarm and corrupt the young and unwary into whose hands they may unfortunately fall.

This fellow, whom I am now to describe, who sometimes prefixes “professor” to his name, was born in the State of New Hampshire, and when a young man came to this city to seek his fortune. After various ups and downs, he became boot-black, porter, and general lackey in the Pearl Street House, then in full blast. He was said to be a youth of rather prepossessing, though insinuating address, and being constantly on the alert for odd pennies and “dimes,” succeeded in keeping himself in pocket-money without committing theft, or otherwise compromising his liberty. But the odd change, and his meagre salary, did not long remain in pocket, for the courtesans, who are ever on the alert for unsophisticated youth who throng to the cities, managed to obtain the lion’s share from this embryo doctor, whose future greatness he himself never half suspected. Disease, the usual result of intercourse with such creatures, was the consequent inheritance of this young man.

“What, in the name of Heaven, shall I now do?” he asked himself, in his distress and despair. “Money I have none. O God! what shall I do?”“Drown yourself,” replied the tempter.

Such fellows seldom drown. Females, their victims, drown; but who ever heard of a natural-born villain committing suicide, unless to escape the threatening halter?

No, he did not drown, though it had been better for humanity if he had. He went to an old advertising charlatan, who then kept an office in a lower street of this city, a mercenary old vampire, named Stevens. Into the august presence of the charlatan young M. entered, and, trembling and weeping, told his history.

A BOSTON QUACK EXAMINING A STUDENT.

“Have you got any money, young man?” growled the old doctor, wheeling around, and for the first time condescending to notice the poor wretch.

“No,” he sobbed in a pitiful voice.

“Then what do you come here for, sir?” roared the doctor, whose pity was a thing of the past. His soul was impenetrable to the appeal of suffering as the hide of the rhinoceros to a leaden bullet.

The young man, fortunately, did not know this fact, and persevered.

“I thought I might work for you to pay for treatment. O, I’ll do anything—sweep your office, wash up the floors and bottles, black your boots, do anything and everything, if you’ll only cure me. O, do! Say you will, sir!” and the young man writhed in agony of suspense.

“Humph!” grunted the old doctor, contemplatingly.

Doubtless he was considering the advantages which might accrue from accepting the proposition of this earnest applicant, for, after eying him sharply, and beating the devil’s tattoo for a few moments upon his table, the doctor condescended to “look into his case,” and finally to treat the young man’s disease upon the proposed terms.

M. began his apprenticeship by sweeping the office, and the old doctor held him to the very letter of the agreement, keeping him at the most menial service,—boot-blacking, bottle-washing, door-tending, etc.,—protracting his disease as he found the young man useful, till the old knave dared no longer delay the cure, for thereby the victim might go elsewhere for help. When cured, M. engaged to continue work for the small compensation that the doctor offered, especially since he and the old man had begun to understand each other pretty well, and each was equally unscrupulous as to the sponging of the unfortunate victims who fell into their hands.

When the doctor was observed to prescribe from any particular bottle, M. took a mental memorandum thereof till such time as he could take a look at the label, thereby learning the prescription for such disease; and the result was a decision that if this was the science of healing, “it didn’t take much of a man to be a”—doctor.When the old doctor was absent, M. would prescribe on his own account, charge an extra dollar or two as perquisites, and deposit the balance in the doctor’s till.

In course of time, by this process of extortion, solicitations, and the increasing perquisites, M. was enabled to set up doctoring on his own account. The old doctor died, and M. had it all his own way.

The young self-styled doctor saw no particular need of making effort to acquire medical knowledge, but a diploma to hang upon his office walls, with the few disgusting anatomical plates (appropriated from Dr. S.), which were admirably adapted to intimidate his simple-minded dupes,—a diploma from some medical society would give character to the “institution,” and such he would obtain.

Being cited to court as defendant in a certain case, this soi-disant “M. D.” was compelled to retract a former statement that he had attended medical lectures in Pennsylvania College, where he graduated with honors, and come down to the truthful statement, for once in his life, and swear that he had obtained his diploma by purchase.

His present rooms—house and office—are located in the heart of the city, and are not exceeded for convenience and neatness by those of the respectable practitioner. Having amassed a great fortune out of the credulity, misfortunes, and passions of the unfortunate, he has settled down to the plane of the more respectable advertising doctors, and the terrifying plates no longer cover the walls of the best reception-room; but a few valuable pictures and the Philadelphia diploma are conspicuously displayed above the elegant furniture and valuable articles of virtu.

The same extortions and reprehensible practices are still resorted to in order to keep up this “institution.” His earlier history is gathered from his own statements, by piecemeal, by a confidential “student,” the latter portion by personal investigation of the writer.Respecting the matter of purchasing diplomas, I will state that I have seen a “Regular Medical Diploma” advertised in the New York Herald for one hundred dollars. The name originally written therein is extracted by oxalic acid, or other chemicals. I knew a physician who parted with his Latin diploma for fifty dollars.

I here warn the youth, and the public in general, against those advertised “institutes,” though the name may be selected from that of some benevolent individual,—to give it a look of a benevolent character,—even though it be a “Nightengale,” or a “Peabody,” or a “St. Mary,” and managed, ostensibly, under the sanction of the church or state—beware of it. Without, it is the whited sepulchre, within, the blood, flesh, and bones of dead men, women, and children.

Some years since there was found, after the flight of one Dr. Jaques (?), in a vault in the city of Boston, the bones of some half score infants. The murderous charlatan escaped the halter he so richly deserved, and was practising in a New England village not above six years since.

Another impostor, who has been extensively advertised in this city under an assumed name—selected to correspond with the familiar name of a celebrated New York (also a late Boston) physician and surgeon—who not only cheekily claims to be an “M. D.,” but assumes the titles of F. R. S., etc., was but a short time before a dry goods seller on Hanover Street. He never read a standard medical work in his life. Although the villain has gone to parts unknown to the writer, the concern he recently represented as “consulting physician” is in full blast, and the same name and titles are blazoned forth daily in the public prints.

Men get rich in these “institutes,” take in an “assistant” for a few weeks, then sell out to the novus homo, and the thing goes on under the old name until the new man gains strength and confidence sufficient to carry it along under his own or his assumed title.

Female Harpies.

Under the name of “female physician,” “midwife,” etc., the most illicit and nefarious atrocities are daily practised by the numerous harpies who infest all our principal cities. The mythological harpies were represented as having the faces of women, heartless, with filthy bodies, and claws sharp and strong for fingers, which, once fastened upon human flesh, never relaxed till the last drop of life’s blood was wrung from their unfortunate victim.

Virgil thus expressively described them in the third book of the Æneid:—

“When from the mountain-tops, with hideous cry
And clattering wings, the filthy harpies fly;
Monsters more fierce offending Heaven ne’er sent
From hell’s abyss for human punishment;
With virgin faces, but with —— obscene,
With claws for hands, and looks forever lean!”

I will describe but one of the modern harpies of Boston, appealing to the reader if our text above is too severe.

More than forty years ago, a young, fair, and promising girl came to this city from the White Mountains of New Hampshire. From her maiden home, near Meredith Village, from under the humble roof of Christian parents, she wandered into the haunts of vice and the abodes of wretchedness and disease in the lower part of Boston.

Her maiden name was Elizabeth Leach. You will find her name in the City Directory (1871) “Madam Ester, midwife.”

We have not space to write out her whole history, nor inclination to spread before the refined reader the first years of the gay life of this attractive damsel, the seductive and sinful debaucheries of the fascinating, unprincipled woman, nor the more repulsive declination of the diseased and malevolent bawd!The writer has seen a picture of her home in New Hampshire, a daguerreotype of her in her virginity, and a painting, taken from her sittings, in middle life. In stature, she is tall and stout; in manner, coarse and repulsive. If ever I saw a woman carrying, stamped in every lineament of her countenance, a hard, heartless, soulless, murderous expression, that woman is Madam Ester. Neither the tears, the heart-anguishes, nor the life’s blood of the fatherless infant, the husbandless mother, the orphaned or friendless maiden, could draw a sympathizing look or expression from the hardened features of that wretched woman. She is the John Allen of Boston.

For years she has carried on, under the cloak of a “midwife,” the most cruel and reprehensible occupation which ever disgraced an outraged community. By extortionate prices she has gained no inconsiderable wealth, and her house, though located in a narrow, darkened alley, or court, is fitted up with an elegance equalling that of some of our best and wealthiest merchants. From parlor to attic, it is splendidly furnished.

She assured me she hated mankind with inexpressible hatred; that man had been her ruin, the instrument of her disease, and would eventually be the cause of her death. She cursed both man and her Maker!

Last spring there appeared an advertisement in a city paper of a young girl who was lost, or abducted from the home of her parents, in which the young lady was described as being but sixteen to seventeen years of age, of light complexion, blue eyes, of but medium height, named Mary ——; and as she took no clothes but those she had on, never before went from home without her parents’ consent, and had no trouble at home, her absence could not be accounted for. Any information respecting her would be gratefully received by her distressed parents.

She was all this time at the home of Madam Ester.The young man who completed her ruin, like the contemptible cur he was, deserted her in her distress, leaving her in the hands of the miserable wretch above described. The girl had one hundred and twenty dollars. A part of it was her own money; some she borrowed, having some influential friends, and the balance her father gave her, ostensibly for the purchase of clothing.

The old vampire appropriated every cent of the sum, and in fourteen days turned the weak and wretched girl into the street, without sufficient money to pay her coach fare to her father’s house. A young girl then in the employ of the unfeeling old wretch gave her five dollars, and she informed her kind benefactress that she should go home and say that she had been at service in a family on Beacon Street, but being sick, could earn no greater wages than the sum then in her possession. “The pale and sickly countenance of the poor girl, after the abuse and torture she had undergone,” said my informant, “certainly would seem to corroborate her story.”

Since the above was written the wicked old wretch has died—died a natural death, sitting in her chair!

On the last day of July, 1871, she sent a girl, a well-dressed and very lady-like appearing young woman, to my office, to know if I could be at liberty to give her a consultation that afternoon. She sent no address; merely a “woman with a cancer of the breast.” She came. She introduced her business, not her name. I pronounced her case hopeless, advised her to “close up her worldly affairs, and make her peace with God and mankind, as she could live but a short time.” This was given the more plainly, since she “demanded to know the worst,” and because of her bold attempt to browbeat me into treating her hopeless case. The cancer was immense, had been cut once by Dr. ——, of this city. Her attendant told me that the old woman never ceased to berate me for my truthful prognosis, and that from that time she gave up all hope of recovery, and soon closed her nefarious practice. I have since gathered all the information respecting her that was possible. I knew at sight that I had a remarkable woman to deal with, and, agreeably to her invitation, I took another physician, a graduate of Harvard College, and went to her house, ostensibly to consult over her case....

A woman who has known madam for many years told me that the old woman was familiar with chemicals, and by the use of acids and alkalies could completely destroy the flesh and bones of infants. She had never seen her do it, but had seen the chemicals, and referred me to persons who had seen the dead body of a female brought out from the house at midnight, and taken away in a wagon. She said she practised great cruelty upon the unfortunate victims who had been placed under her hands, and that their cries had often been heard by the neighbors living in the court.

She said that madam claimed to have been the wife of a policeman who was killed at Fort Hill, and that she was also since married to a Captain ——. The latter was untrue. Madam told me she once thought she was married, but it was a deception on her—a mock marriage. She possessed great quantities of magnificent clothing,—rich dresses of silk, satin, velvet, etc.,—and a beautiful wedding trousseau, which, but a short time before her death, she caused to be brought out and displayed before her.

“O, take them away; I never shall wear them,” she said. And she never did.

There is another female physician now residing in this city, who I know has accumulated a considerable property as midwife; but if report, and assertions of victims, are true, she has gained it by threats and extortions. She is now out of practice, or nearly. Her modus operandi was to take the unfortunate female, treat her very tenderly, get hold of her secret, learn the gentleman’s name, business, and wealth, and then—especially if he was a family man before—make him “come down,” through fear of exposure. Men have “come down” with thousands, little by little, till they were ruined pecuniarily under this fearful blackmailing. I doubt if money could hire her to perform a criminal operation. She can make more money by keeping the unfortunate girl, and blackmailing the seducer, or any other individual who can be scared into the trap, provided the guilty one has no money. “Blessed be nothing,” said the Arab.

These people carry on their trade very quietly. Their very next door neighbors may know nothing of the unlawful acts committed right under their noses. It is for the interest of all concerned to keep everything quiet. Their customers, and even their victims, come and go after nightfall.

There is still another class, mostly males, practising in this city, who, under fair pretences and great promises, get the patients’ money, and give them no equivalent therefor. Beyond the robbery,—for that is what it is; no more nor less,—and the protracting of a disease (or giving nature more time, as the case may be),—they do the applicant no injury. They receive a fee, calculating it to a nicety, according to the depth of your pocket, give some simple mixture, and bow you out.

Many an honest patient, seeing their high-flown advertisements in the dailies, weeklies, even religious (!) papers, from month to month, is induced to visit these impostors. Their offices may be in a less public street, in a private residence, and have every outward appearance of respectability.

There is a class of male practitioners, not unusually having a Latin diploma, who never appear in the prints. They are the “Nurse Gibbon” class, who employ one or more females to drum patients for them. The following is a truthful statement respecting a visit to one in 1850:—

“On my arrival on the steamer Penobscot at Boston, the lady met me, and, according to arrangement, took me to see ‘her physician.’ His office was on Chambers Street, left side, a few doors from Cambridge Street, Boston. The doctor was an elderly, pompous individual, who wore gold spectacles, an immense fob chain, and chewed Burgundy pitch. Let this suffice for his description. Poor man! for if his own theology is true, he has gone where Burgundy pitch will be very likely to melt. Excuse this passing tribute to his memory, my dear reader.

“Notwithstanding my friend’s lavish praise of her doctor, the first sight of him failed to inspire me with confidence. I was introduced, and the doctor swelled up with his own importance, and said, impressively,—

“Those physicians—amiable men, no doubt—who have treated your case-ah have been all wrong in their diagnosis-ah.” This was his prelude, as he counted my pulse by a large gold watch, which he held conspicuously before me.

“Your kind friend and benefactress has saved your life-ah, by conducting you to me before too late-ah.” He stopped to watch the effect of this bid for a high fee before proceeding.

“Ah, sir, had you but come to me first-ah, you would now be rejoicing in perfect health-ah; whereas you have narrowly escaped death and eternal torments-ah.”

He again took breath, looking very solemn.

“But, sir, I never heard of you before this lady wrote to me,” I said.

“True-ah. I do not advertise myself. The veriest quack may advertise-ah. Your case is very dangerous. Hepatitis, cum nephritis-ah,” he soliloquized, shaking his head very wisely, while my friend nodded, as if to say, “There! I told you so. He knows all about it.”

“Yes, very dangerous-ah. But take my medicines; my pills—hepatica-lobus, and my neuropathicum-ah, and they will restore you to health and happiness-ah, in a few weeks-ah;” and he rubbed his palms complacently, as if in anticipation of a good fat fee for his prescription.“Will they cure this?” I asked, turning my head, and placing a finger upon a tumor on the right hand side of my neck.

“O-ah, let me see.” And so saying, he took a brief survey of the protuberance, and coolly remarked that it was of no material importance. As that was, to my mind, of great consequence, I was dumbfounded by his indifference to its importance.

Selecting a box of pills, and a vial of transparent liquid, the doctor presented them to me with a flourish, saying, in his blandest manner,—

“All there; directions inside-ah; ten dollars-ah.”

“What!” And I arose in astonishment, gazing alternately at the doctor and my friend, but could not utter another word. I was but a country greenhorn, you know, and quite unused to city prices.

My friend took the doctor aside, when, after a moment’s conversation between them, he returned, and said that “in consideration of the recommendation of the lady, he would take but five dollars-ah.”

I paid the bill, and, quite disgusted, took my departure.

That evening I carried the medicines to a druggist, requesting him to inform me what they were. After examining them, he replied,—

“The liquid is simply sweet spirits of nitre, diluted,” looking over his glasses at me suspiciously, I thought. “These, I should say, are blue pills, a mild preparation of mercury,” returning me the pills. A second druggist, to whom I applied, told me the same, and, knowing they were not what I required for a scrofulous tumor, I threw them into the gutter. Ah!

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