Addison Darre Crabtre

GENEROSITY AND MEANNESS.

“Life’s better joys spring up thus by the wayside, And the world calls them trifles. ’Tis not so. Heaven is not prodigal, nor pours its joys In unregarded torrents upon man: They fall, as fall the riches of the clouds Upon the parched earth, gently, drop by drop. Nothing is trifling which love consecrates.”—Aylmere. “The art of our necessities is strange.”—King Lear.

THE WORLD UNMASKED.—A ROUGH DIAMOND.—DECAYED GENTILITY.—“THREE FLIGHT, BACK.”—SEVERAL ANECDOTES.—THE OLD FOX-HUNTER.—“STAND ON YOUR HEAD.”—KINDNESS TO CLERGYMEN.—RARE CHARITY.—OLD AND HOMELESS.—THE “O’CLO’” JEW.—DR. HUNTER’S GENEROSITY.—“WHAT’S THE PRICE OF BEEF?”—A SAD OMISSION.—INNATE GENEROSITY.—A CURB-STONE MONEY-MANIAC.—AN EYE-OPENER.—AN AVARICIOUS DOCTOR.—ROBBING THE DEAD.

Side by side, hand in hand, through the world, go generosity and meanness. If these could but be personified, and the individuals compelled to stand before men in broad daylight, O, what a staring would there be! Those whom we thought the very embodiment of generosity and kindness would “crop out” in their true hideousness of character—unmasked meanness and selfishness; yes, men too high in the estimation of the world, in church and in state.

On the other hand, we should be equally astonished to find amongst those in the humbler walks of life, as well as some in the more exalted, people, whom the world counted as mean and penurious, now standing forth adorned in robes bleached like the snow-drift, shining bright as the golden sunrise, yet blushing to find that their hidden charities, and secret, self-denying generosities, had been suddenly brought to light.

And when the secret works of this world shall be revealed, no class of men will stand forth more blessed in deeds of generosity and self-sacrifice than the physicians. There is an occasional black sheep in the great flock.

A Rough Diamond.

There is no better authority for the truth of the many queer stories told about the rough benevolence of Dr. Abernethy, the great English surgeon, than the author of his memoirs—Sir George Macilwain.

PHYSICIANS’ CHARITY.

“His manner [Dr. Abernethy’s], as we shall admit, was occasionally rough, and sometimes rather prematurely truthful. One day he was called in consultation by a physician to give an opinion in a case of a pulsating tumor, which was pretty plainly an aneurism. On proceeding to examine the tumor, he found a plaster covering it.

“‘What is this you have on it?’ asked Abernethy.

“‘O, that is only a plaster.’

“‘Pooh!’ exclaimed the doctor, pulling it off and flinging it aside.“‘The “pooh” was all well enough,’ said the attending physician, afterwards, ‘but it took several guineas out of my pocket.’”

“Up Three Pair, Back.”

A surgeon—pupil of the above—was requested to visit a patient in a low quarter of the suburbs of the metropolis. When he arrived, and mounted several flights of crazy stairs, he began searching for the designated number, which was so defaced by time that he was only enabled to determine it by the more legible condition of the next number.

SEARCH FOR A PATIENT.

An old woman answered the shake of the dilapidated knocker.

“Does Captain Blank live here?”

“Yes, sir,”—trying to penetrate the darkness.

“Is he at home?”

“Yes, sir. Please, may I make so bold as to ask, are you the doctor?”

“Yes.”

“O, then please to walk in, sir.”

In the ill-furnished, narrow room sat an old man, in a very shabby and variegated dÉshabille, who rose from his chair, and, with a grace worthy of a count, welcomed the stranger. His manner was extremely gentlemanly, his language well chosen, and the statement of his complaint particularly clear and concise.

The surgeon, who like most of us see strange things, was puzzled to make out his new patient, but concluded that he was one of the many who, having been born to better things, had become reduced by misfortune to these apparently very narrow circumstances.

Accordingly, having prescribed, the surgeon was about taking his leave, when the gentleman said,—

“Sir, I thank you very much for your attention,” at the same time offering his hand with a fee.

The benevolent surgeon declined the fee, simply saying,—

“No, I thank you, sir. I hope you will soon be better. Good morning.”

“Stay, sir!” exclaimed the old gentleman. “I shall insist on this, if you please,” in a tone which at once convinced the surgeon that it would be more painful to refuse than accept the fee; he accordingly took it.

“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” the old gentleman then said; “for had you not taken your fee I could not have again had the advantage of your advice. I sent for you because I had understood that you were a pupil of Dr. Abernethy’s, for whom I could not again send, because he would not take his fee, and I was so hurt that I am afraid I was rude to the good man. I suppose he, judging from the appearances of things here, thought I could not afford it, hence refused the fee, on which I begged him not to be deceived by appearances, but take the fee. However, he kept retreating and declining, till, forgetting myself a little, and feeling vexed, I said, ‘By G——, sir, I insist on your taking it,’ when he replied as fiercely, ‘By G——, sir, I will not,’ and hastily left the room, closing the door after him.”

This gentleman lived to the age of ninety. He was really in very good circumstances, but lived in this humble manner to enable him to assist very efficiently some poor relatives. The surgeon, after a while, changed his professional visits to friendly ones, and continued them up to the old man’s death. When, however, the gentleman died, about four hundred guineas were found in his boxes.

Sometimes Dr. Abernethy would meet with a patient who would afford a useful lesson. A lady, wife of a distinguished musician, consulted him, and, finding him uncourteous, said,—

“Sir, I had heard of your rudeness before I came, but I did not expect this.”

When Dr. Abernethy gave her the prescription, she asked,—

“What am I to do with this, sir?”

“Anything you like. Put it into the fire if you choose.”

The lady laid the fee on the table, went to the grate, threw the prescription on to the fire, and hastily left the room.

The doctor followed her to the hall, earnestly pressing her to take back the fee, or permit him to write her another prescription; but the lady would not yield her vantage-ground, and so withdrew.

The foregoing is well authenticated. Mr. Stowe, the informant, knows the lady well.

AN ECCENTRIC PATIENT.

A WOMAN’S REBUKE.

The Old Fox-hunter.

Sometimes, again, the ill usage was all on one side.

We know a hard-drinking old fox-hunter who abused Dr. Abernethy roundly; but all that he could say against him was this:—

“Why, sir,—will you believe me?—almost the first words he said, as he entered my room, was, ‘I perceive you drink a good deal.’

“Now,” continued the patient, very naÏvely, “supposing I did, what the devil was that to him?”

Another gentleman, who had a most unfortunate appearance on his nose, exactly like that which accompanies dram-drinking, used to be exceedingly irate against Dr. A. because, when he told the doctor that his stomach was out of order, Abernethy would reply,—

“Ay, I see that by your nose.”

The Duke, or the poor Gentleman.

One day, just as Dr. Abernethy was stepping into his carriage to make a professional visit to the Duke of W., to whom he had been called in a hurry, a gentleman stopped him to say that the ——, at Somers Town (mentioning a poor gentleman whom he had visited without fee), would be glad to have him visit him again at his leisure.

“Why, I cannot go now,” Dr. Abernethy replied, “for I am going in haste to see the Duke of W.” Then, pausing a moment before stepping into his carriage, he looked up to the coachman, and quietly said, “To Somers Town.”

The fidgety irritability of his first impression at interference, and the beneficence of his second thought, were very characteristic of Dr. Abernethy.

A pupil, who wished to consult him one day, took the very inauspicious moment when the doctor (and professor) was looking over his papers, but a few moments before lecture, in the museum.“I am fearful, sir, that I have a polypus in my nose, and want you to look at it,” said the student.

The doctor made no reply; but when he had completed the sorting of his preparations, he said, looking up,—

“Eh?”

To which the pupil repeated his request.

AFRAID OF A POLYPUS.

“Then stand on your head; don’t you see that all the light here comes from the skylight? How am I to look into your nose?”

(This was true, for there were no side-lights in the amphitheatre.)

“Where do you live?” continued the doctor.

“Bartholomew Close, sir.”

“At what time do you get up?”

“At eight.”“You can’t be at Bedford Row” (where Abernethy resided) “at nine, then?”

“Yes, sir, I can.”

“To-morrow morning, then.”

“Yes, sir; thank you.”

The pupil was punctual. Dr. Abernethy made a very careful examination of his nose, found nothing of the nature of polypus, made the pupil promise never to look into his nose again, and he, in after years, said, that there never was anything the matter.

Dr. Abernethy never took a fee from a student, brother doctor, nor full fee from a clergyman. His great labors seemed to be in the hospitals, and on his resignation as surgeon to St. Bartholomew, he presented for its use five hundred dollars. He never neglected his poor hospital patients for the richer ones outside.

One morning, on leaving his house for a visit to the hospital patients, some one wished to detain him, when he exclaimed, in terms more earnest than elegant,—

“Private patients may go to the devil” (or elsewhere, another reports), “but the poor fellows in the hospital I am bound to care for.”

To poor students whose funds were “doubtful,” he presented free tickets to his college lectures, afterwards showing them marked attention.

Everybody has heard of his rude kindness to a young fashionable miss, whom her mother took to Abernethy for treatment. It is said that the doctor ran a knife under her belt, in presence of the mother, instantly severing it, and exclaiming,—

“Why, madam, don’t you know there are upwards of thirty yards of ——” (what are more elegantly termed bowels) “squeezed under that girdle? Go home, give nature fair play, and you’ll have no need of a prescription.”

ABERNETHY’S SURGICAL OPERATION.

Kindness to Clergymen.

“Cynics have been found in plenty to rail at physicians for loving their fees; and one might justly retort that the railers love nothing but their fees. Who does not love—and who is not entitled to—the sweet money earned by labor, be it labor of hand, brain, or cloth? One thing is sure—doctors are unpaid.”—A Lawyer.

The above kind-hearted physician, having attended the child of a clergyman’s widow, without knowing her situation, returned all the fees he had received from her when he learned who she was, and added, in a letter, fifty pounds besides, with instructions to expend it in daily rides in the open air, for her health. To a clergyman he sent a receipt for his long services, and also enclosing ten pounds.

The generosity of Dr. Wilson, of Bath (now deceased), has before been recorded. He had been attending a clergyman, who, Wilson had learned, was in indigent circumstances, and he afterwards sent fifty pounds in gold to the minister, by a friend.

“Yes, I will take it to him to-morrow,” said the gentleman.

“O, my dear sir,” exclaimed Dr. Wilson, “take it to him to-night. Only think of the importance to an invalid of one good night’s rest.”

Rare Charity.

Another case of “three pair, back,” occurs in the memoirs of Dr. Lettsom, who is already made mention of in this work. On one of his benevolent excursions, the doctor found his way into the squalid garret of a poor old woman who had evidently seen better days. With the refined language and the easy deportment of a well-bred lady, she begged the physician to examine her case, and give her a prescription. (Alas! how often is poverty mistaken for disease, and does want foster malady!) But the kind doctor, after a careful inquiry, formed a correct diagnosis, and wrote on a slip of paper he chanced to have about him, the following brief note to the overseers of the parish:—

“A shilling per diem for Mrs. Moreton. Money, not physic, can cure her.

Lettsom.”

A shilling, in those days, was considered no mean sum per day.

“Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
O, it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.
“Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly
Feelings had changed;
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence,
Even God’s providence
Seeming estranged.”

“Alas, doctor,” said an unfortunate old gentleman, some seventy-four years old,—a merchant ruined by the American war, bowed down by the weight of his misfortunes, and by disease,—to Dr. Lettsom, “those beautiful trees you may see out of my bedroom window I planted with these now feeble hands. I have lived to see them bear fruit; they have become as part of my family. But with my children still dearer to me, I must quit this dear old home, which was the delight of my youth and the hope of my declining years, and become a homeless, joyless wanderer in my old age.”

The benevolent Quaker doctor was deeply affected by these words, and the utter despair and hopelessness with which the weeping old man uttered them; and, speaking a few words of consolation to his unfortunate patient, he wrote a prescription, and hastily retired.

On the old gentleman’s examination of the remarkable looking recipe, he found it to be a check for a large sum of money. The benevolence of the physician did not end here. He purchased the residence and grounds of the old man’s creditors, and prescribed them to him for life. (He is our young Quaker antipode, mentioned in another chapter.)

The old apothecary, Sutcliff, was right when he said of young Lettsom, while his apprentice, “Thou may’st make a good physician, but I think not a good apothecary.” An apothecary is not expected to give away his time or medicine. (They seldom disappoint one’s expectations.) A grocer is not expected to give away flour, rice, sugar, tea, to even a starving, languishing neighbor; nor the baker, nor the butcher, to give bread or meat to the perishing. Why, such demands upon them daily would be laughed to scorn. But the physician! These very same niggardly men (individually) would berate the doctor, be he ever so needy, or be his family ever so large, who would accept a fee for even cold-night services to any but the richest patients. All physicians do not have access to the “richest patients.” Many a good physician has been compelled to quit practice because of his too large “bump” of benevolence, and because of the limited amount of that article in his first few patients, while thousands of practitioners in this country struggle and labor on through a life of self-denial, wearing themselves out, dying prematurely, leaving their families penniless to the cold charities of an uncharitable world. (See Chapter XXX.)

The Old Jew.

“Ah me,” exclaimed a Jew, one day, as he reluctantly drew out his wallet to pay three dollars for his examination, prescription, and advice, “if I could only make money like the doctors of medecene! Ah me.” Then, taking two dollars from his purse, he asked, “Won’t that do?”

This Jew was a merchant, reputed rich, and penurious as he was wealthy, and I demanded the accustomed fee.

“Let me see,” said he; “how many patients have you seen to-day?”

“Nine,” I replied.

“Let me see,” counting his fingers as a tally. “At least twenty-seven dollars a day, and nothing out but a bit of paper. Ah, I wish I had been a doctor in medecene,” he added, with a sigh, and a woful look at the money, as he reluctantly handed it over.

This was casting pearls before worse than swine, prescribing for such a wretch. Brains, education, anxiety, all went for nought, with him. Money was his all. A shilling before his eyes would shut out even God’s sunlight. If the shilling only shone, glistened,—sunlight enough for such a wretch.

RECKONING A DOCTOR’S FEES.

“Let me see,” I said, after his miserable body had taken his penurious soul out of my office; “nine patients, one three miles away. Horse-tire and carriage-wear, time, advice, and medicine given, because the patient was a widow. No. 2 patient, the sick child of an invalid mother; no fee. No. 3, an Irishman. The Irish never wish to pay anything; did pay one dollar. No. 4, a merchant. “Charge it.” That was his fee. No. 5, a young sewing girl, who, in sewing on army cloth, had sewed her life’s blood into the seams. In consumption. Could I take her fee? God forbid. No. 6, a “lady,” who, having so much upon her back, had nothing in her purse. I may get my fee at the end of the quarter. “You know my husband. Good morning.” It was near two o’clock then. She had occupied my time a whole hour. My dinner was cold; my wife was out of sorts, waiting so long. Nos. 7 and 8, two sick children. Visit them daily; pay uncertain. The ninth was the wealthy Jew. Nine patients; four dollars! Don’t I sometimes wish I kept an “O’ clo’” store, like the old Jew? This actually occurred when I practised medicine in Hartford.

PATIENT NUMBER FIVE.

Dr. Hunter’s Generosity.

No man cared less for the profits of the medical profession, or more for the honor thereof, than the great Dr. John Hunter. He was honest, honorable, and simple in his every day life. His works, which contributed more to the science of medicine than any other writings during a thousand years, were simply announced as by John Hunter. A plain door plate, with the same name, announced his residence. Money was a secondary consideration to him. The following shows that he desired a professional brother to so consider it:—

To a poor tradesman from whom he had received twenty guineas for performing a surgical operation upon his wife, he returned nineteen guineas, having learned with what difficulty and extreme self-denial the husband had raised the money.“I sent back nineteen guineas, and kept the twentieth,” said he, in apology for retaining even the one, “that they might not be hurt with an idea of too great an obligation.”

Where is the other man, or class of men, who would have returned the money, honestly earned, as agreed upon beforehand, unasked?

Generous at Another’s Expense.

It is all very nice when one can exercise a benevolent spirit, and not draw upon his own pocket.

A well-authenticated story is repeated in this line of Dr. M. Monsey.

Passing through a market one day, he noticed a miserable old woman looking wistfully at a piece of meat hanging just within a stall.

“What is the price of this meat, sir?” she timidly inquired.

“A penny a pound, old woman,” replied the butcher, sneeringly, disdaining a civil answer to the wretched-looking woman, who probably had not a penny to pay for the chop.

“Just weigh that piece of meat, my friend,” said the doctor, who had been attentively watching the proceedings.

The butcher cheerfully complied with the request of so respectable-looking a customer.

“Ten pounds and a half, sir,” replied the butcher.

“There, my good woman,” said the doctor, “hold up your apron;” and he dumped the whole into it, saying, “Now make haste home and cook it for your family.”

After blessing the very eccentric but benevolent old man over and again for the timely provision, she drew up the corners of the apron, and ran speedily down the market.

“Here, my man,” said the doctor, turning to the smiling butcher, “here is ten pence ha’penny, the price of your meat.”

“What? What do you mean?” asked the butcher.“I mean, sir, that I take you at your word. You said the meat was a penny a pound. At that price I bought it for the poor old woman. It’s all I’ll pay you. Good morning, sir.”

THE ASTONISHED BUTCHER.

I can imagine the “chop-fallen” butcher, standing, in his long frock, with a beaten expression of countenance, alternating his gaze between the pence in his palm and the retreating form of the wigged and laughing old doctor.

A Report on Teeth.

Many stories are told of the eccentricities of Dr. Monsey, and

“No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill,
Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister,
Or draw a tooth out of your head,
Or chatter scandal by your bed,
Or tell a twister.”

Amongst the vagaries of Dr. Monsey, says Mr. Jeaffreson, was the way in which he proceeded to extract his decaying teeth. Around the tooth sentenced to be uprooted he fastened securely a strong piece of cord, or violin string, to the other end of which he attached a bullet. He then proceeded to load a pistol with powder and the bullet. By merely pulling the trigger of the pistol, the operation was speedily and effectually performed.

It was seldom, however, that the doctor could induce his patients to adopt this original mode of extracting undesirable achers.

One gentleman, who had agreed to try this novel process upon a tooth, got so far as to allow the whole apparatus to be adjusted, when, at the very last instant, he exclaimed,—

“Stop, stop! I have changed my mind—”

“I haven’t, though; and you’re a fool and a coward, and here’s go,” which saying, the doctor pulled the trigger.

“Bang!” went the pistol, and out flew the tooth, to the delight and astonishment of the patient.

Taking this anecdote alone, it is scarcely credible; but considered in connection with what we have already selected from the life of Dr. Monsey, and what we may write of his eccentricities in our chapter under that head, this may be believed as being nearly correct.

MODERN IMPROVEMENTS IN DENTISTRY.

CHARITY NOT SOLICITED.

A sad Omission.

Believing, as I do, that every reader of these pages is personally cognizant of the fact of the true benevolence of our present American physicians, and because of the silence of the few biographers respecting the generosities and benevolent deeds of those “who have gone before,” I have devoted more space to anecdotes of English surgeons and physicians than I otherwise would. I have searched throughout four volumes of biographies of American physicians without being able to find a single anecdote of generosity recorded therein worthy of notice. Also in the “Lives of Surgeons ——” I have to regret this almost unpardonable neglect. I am assured from my personal knowledge of some of these latter that there are a thousand instances, which, in justice to their benevolence, ought to be put upon record, as they are engraven upon the hearts of their suffering fellow-creatures, and not for the aggrandizement of the generous bestower so much as an example for the cynical and the uncharitable world.

A physician has just left my presence who has given away more than he has ever received from his practice. The good physician is always generous. A mean-souled man cannot become a successful practitioner. His success with his patients depends as much, or more, upon the kindly influences that beam from his eye, that flow from his soul, as upon the medicine that he deals out from his “saddle-bags.”

Generosity and kindness are innate to the man. They require little cultivation.

The following amusing anecdote from “Every Saturday,” I have reason to believe, has reference to one of our best physicians, who is also a man of letters, and illustrates my assertion:—

“Innate Generosity.”

“One hot August afternoon a gentleman, whose name attached to a check would be more valuable to the reader than if written here, was standing in front of the Revere House, waiting for a Washington Street car. He was a slim, venerable gentleman, with long white hair, and a certain dignity about him which we suppose comes of always having a handsome balance in the bank, for we never knew a poor man to have this particular air. It was a sultry afternoon, and the millionaire, standing on the curb-stone in the shade, had removed his hat, and was cooling his forehead with his handkerchief, like any common person, when the Cambridge horse-car stopped at the crossing at his feet. From this car hastily descended a well-known man of letters, whose pre-occupied expression showed at once that he was wrestling with an insubordinate hexameter, or laying out the points of a new lecture. Suddenly he found himself face to face with a white-haired old man, dejectedly holding a hat in one hand. As quick as thought the poet—to whom neither old age nor young appeals in vain—thrust his hand into his vest pocket, and, dropping a handful of nickel and fractional currency into the extended hat, passed on. The millionaire gazed aghast into the hat for an instant, and then inverted it spasmodically, allowing the money to drop into the gutter, much to the amusement of a gentleman and a tooth-pick on the steps of the Revere House, and very much more to the amusement of another party, who chanced to know that the supposed mendicant and the man of letters had been on terms of personal intimacy these twenty years.”

A Curb-stone Money-maniac.

A man may possess large acquisitiveness and benevolence at the same time, like Sir Astley Cooper, and succeed both pecuniarily and professionally. Such are, however, scarce. Those with an excess of the grasping principle in their composition illustrate the truth that “where the treasure is the heart will be also.” Asleep or awake, drunk or sober, such men never lose sight of the almighty dollar. The annexed story, though irreverent to the doctors, is not irrelevant to the case:—

During the late “panic,” a fellow, whose prominent feature was in his Jewish nose, which presented the sign of acquisitiveness by the bridge widening on to the cheeks above the alÆ,—all men noted for accumulating have this sign, hung out by nature as a warning to the unwary,—was making a great noise, as he clung to a friendly lamp-post, to which he was arguing the state of the money market. “Come, sir, you are making too much noise,” said a policeman.

CAPTURE OF A WALL STREET BULL.

“Me? No, ’tain’t me that’s—hic—making the noise; it’s the bulls—the bulls, sir; them’s what’s making all the noise,” replied the fellow, skewing first one side of the post, then the other, trying to get a view of his new intruder.

“You are tight, sir—tight as a peep,” continued the watchman.

“Me tight? No, sir; it’s the money-market what’s—ti—tight,” replied the gentlemanly dressed individual, though much the worse for bad whiskey. “Go down Wall Street, and Fisk and Vanderbuilt—all of ’em—will tell you so. Everybody says money is—hic—tight. I never was more loose in my—hic—life;” and he demonstrated the assertion by swinging very loosely around the lamp-post, and falling down.

“There, you are down. Too drunk to stand up;” and the policeman helped him to his feet again, and walked him along towards the station.

“No, sir. There you are wrong again; it’s stocks that’s down. It’s the stockholders—hic—that’s staggering along; they’ve fallen and skinned their noses on the curb-stone of adversity. There! don’t you see them—crawling along?”

“O, you’ve got the tremens. Come on,” exclaimed the policeman.

“Me? No; it’s the shorts and bears what’s got the dol—hic—lar—tremens. I’ve caught the pan—hics—panics, sir; that’s all.”

The policeman thrust the money-maniac into a cell, and the last seen of him he leaned back against the wall, his feet braced out, while, hatless and the knot of his cravat round under his left ear, he stood arguing the money-market with an imaginary broker on the opposite side of his cell.

An “Eye-opener.”

“How much do you charge, sir?” asked a poor farmer, from Framingham, of a city doctor, who had just wiped a bit of dust from the eye of his son.“Twenty-five dollars, if you please,” was the modest reply.

“I cannot pay it, sir,” said the poor man. “It only took you a half minute. Our doctor was not at home; but I didn’t think you would charge me much, sir.”

So the M. D. very benevolently (?) accepted ten dollars—all the poor man had.

Can you wonder, after reading this statement, the truth of which is easily avouched for, that this doctor owns a whole block—stores, hotel—and is immensely rich?

From the English book “About Doctors,” here are three anecdotes:—

Radcliffe, the humbug, with a great effort at generosity, had refused his fees for visiting a poor friend a whole year. On making a final visit, the gentleman said, presenting a purse,—

“Doctor, here I have put aside a fee for every day’s visit. Let not your goodness get the better of your judgment. Take your money.”

The doctor took a look, resolved to carry out his attempt at benevolence, just touched the purse to restore it to his friend, when he heard “the chink of gold” within, and—put it into his pocket, saying,—

“Singly, I could have refused the fees for a twelvemonth, but collectively, they are irresistible. Good day, sir;” and the greedy doctor walked away with a heavier pocket and a lighter heart than he came with.

On visiting a nobleman, Sir Richard Jebb was paid in hand three guineas when he, by right, expected five. The doctor purposely dropped the three gold pieces on the carpet, when the nobleman directed the servant to find and restore them; but Sir Richard still continued the search after receiving the three coins.

“Are they not all found?” inquired the nobleman, looking about.“No, there must be two more on the carpet, as I have only three restored,” replied the wily doctor.

His lordship took the hint, and said, “Never mind; here are two others.”

DEATH’S FEE.

This sticking for a fee was all cast into the shade by the act of an “eminent physician of Bristol.” The doctor, entering the bedroom immediately after the death of his patient, found the right hand clinched tightly, and, pulling open the fingers of the dead man, the doctor discovered that the hand contained a guinea.“Ah!” exclaimed the doctor to the servant and friends around him, “this was doubtless intended for me;” and so saying he pocketed the coin.

“Three hungry travellers found a bag of gold.
One ran into the town where bread was sold.
He thought, ‘I will poison the bread I buy,
And seize the treasure when my comrades die.’
But they, too, thought, when back his feet have hied,
We will destroy him, and the gold divide.
They killed him, and, partaking of the bread,
In a few moments all were lying dead.
O world, behold what ill thy goods have done!
Thy gold thus poisoned two and murdered one.”