“Why, what on earth can this be?” I asked of the man who stood next me in the Foregate some ten days ago, as we paused at a crossing to allow the strange object which had drawn from me the above ejaculation to pass on, with its attendant crowd. It was a mighty gilded waggon, certainly fourteen feet long by six feet or seven feet broad. It was drawn by four handsome bays. On two raised seats at the front sat eight men, English, I fancy, every man of them, but clad over their ordinary garments in long leather coats with fringes, such as our familiar Indians wear in melodrama, and in the broad-brimmed, soft felts of the Western cowboy. They were all armed with brass instruments and made the old streets resound with popular airs. Behind these raised seats, in the body of the waggon, rode some half dozen, including three strapping brown men, Indians, I fancy they pose for, but they looked to me more like the half-castes whom one sees on the Texan and Mexican ranches on the Bio Grande. They also were clad in fringed leather coats, and wore sombreros over their long black locks. The sides of the waggon, where not gilt, were panelled with mirrors, on which were emblazoned the Stars and Stripes and other coloured devices. Altogether, the thing seemed to me well done in its way, whatever it might mean; and I turned inquiringly to my neighbour and repeated my question, as the huge gilded van and its jubilant followers passed away down the station road. “Oh! ’tis the ‘Merikin chap, as cures folks’s rheumatics and draws their teeth.”

“He must draw something more than their teeth,” I said, “to keep up all that show.” My neighbour grinned assent. “He’ve drawed pretty nigh all the loose money as is going hereabouts already,” he said as we parted. “One more quack to fleece the poor,” I thought, as I walked on. “Well, anyhow, they get a show for their shillings; that van beats Barnum!”

In this mind I reached the vicarage of one of our biggest city parishes to which I was bound. “I don’t know about quack,” said the vicar, when I had detailed my adventure on the way, using that disparaging phrase; “but this I do know, that I have given over writing certificates for my poor from downright shame, the demand is so great.” And then he explained that the “medicineman,” whose stage name was Sequah, made no charge to any patient who brought a clergyman’s certificate of poverty; that the van had now been in the town above a week; and at first he, the vicar, had given such certificates freely, both for treatment (tooth-drawing) and for the medicines, but now refused except in the case of the very poorest. No! not because Sequah was an impostor; on the contrary, he had done several noteworthy cures—at any rate temporary cures—on some of the vicar’s own parishioners: notably in the case of one old man who had been drawn up to the van in a wheel-chair. He had had rheumatism for two years, which had quite disabled him, and was in great pain when he got on the platform. After he had been treated he walked down the steps without help, and wheeled his chair home himself. Unluckily, Sequah had advised him to get warm woollen underclothing, and on his pleading that he had not the money to buy it, had given him a sovereign. This so elated him that he felt quite a new man, and could not help breaking his sovereign on the way home to give the new man a congratulatory glass at a favourite pot-house. This had thrown him back, and his knees were a little stiff again, but the pain had not returned even in this case.

After such testimony from a thoroughly trustworthy and matter-of-fact witness, I resolved to see this strange thing with my own eyes, and went off straight from the vicarage to the scene of action, to which the vicar directed me. This was an old tan-yard about half an acre in extent, and was full of people when I arrived, the space immediately round the waggon being densely crowded. It was drawn up in the middle of the plot. The eight brass-bandsmen had wheeled round so as to look down from their raised benches on the floor of the waggon, on which was a large leather chair. In front of the chair, speaking to the crowd from the end of the waggon, stood a tall figure, in a finer kind of leather-fringed coat, ornamented with rows of blue, red, and white beads. At first glance I thought it was a woman from the fineness of the features, and masses of long, light hair falling on the shoulders. A second glance, however, showed me that it was a man, and a vigorous and muscular one too. He was explaining that the medicines he was going to sell presently were not “scientific,” but “natural” medicines, “compounded of the water of a Californian spring and certain botanic ingredients”! I will not trouble you with a list of all the ailments they will cure if taken steadily and in sufficient doses, but get on at once to the performance. Having finished his speech, he put on his sombrero, took up a pair of forceps from a table on which a row of them were displayed, and stood by the chair. Upon this, advanced an apparently endless line of men, women, and children, marshalled by the Indians who stood at the foot of the steps. One by one they came up, sat down in the chair, passed under Sequah’s hands, and descended the steps on the other side of the waggon into the wondering crowd, while the band discoursed vigorous and continuous music. I watched him draw at least fifty teeth in less than as many minutes. The patient just sat down, opened his mouth, pointed to the peccant tooth, and it was out in most cases before he could wink. There were perhaps three or four cases (of adults) in which things did not go quite so smoothly, and one—that of a young woman, who seized her bonnet and rushed down the steps in evident pain and rage—after which he stopped the band, and explained to us that her tooth was so decayed that he had had to break the stump in the jaw. This he had done, and should have taken the pieces out without causing any further pain, if she had just waited a few more seconds. There are rumours flying round that the infirmary is crowded daily with patients in agonies from broken fangs which have been left in by Sequah. On the other hand, two of our doctors whom I have met admit that he is a very remarkable “extractor,” and has first-rate instruments.

There were still crowds waiting their turn when he finished his tooth-drawing for the day, and announced that he would now treat a case of rheumatism. Thereupon, an elderly man—who gave his name and address, and stated that he had been rheumatic for twelve years, unable to walk for two, and was now in great pain—was carried up the steps and put in the chair. Then buffalo-robes were brought by the Indians, two of whom held them up so as to conceal Sequah and the third, a rubber, who remained inside with the patient. Then the brass band struck up boisterously, the buffalo-robe screen was agitated here and there, and a strong and very pungent smell (not unlike hartshorn) spread all round. I timed them, and at the end of eighteen minutes the buffalo-robes were lowered, and there was the old man dressed again and seated in the chair. The band stopped. Sequah asked the old man if he felt any pain now. He replied, “No,” and then was told to walk to the front of the platform, which he did; then to get down the ladder, walk round the waggon amongst the crowd, and come up on the other side, which he did, looking, I must say, as astonished as I was, at his own performance. Then six or seven men, mostly elderly, came up and declared that they had been similarly treated, and were wonderfully better, some of them quite cured and at work again. Then Sequah invited any person who had been treated by him or taken his medicines and were none the better, to come up into the waggon and tell us about it, as that was their proper place and not below. This offer seemed quite bona fide, but it did not impress me, as I doubt whether any protesting patient would have had much chance of ascending the steps, which were kept by the Indians and their able-bodied confederates. No one answering, two big portmanteaus were brought up, out of which he began to sell his medicines at a dollar (4s.) the set—two bottles and two small packets. The rush to be served began, people crushing and struggling to get near enough to hand up their hats or caps with 4s. in them, which were returned with the medicines in them. I watched for at least ten minutes, when, there being apparently no end to the purchases, I strolled away, musing on the strange scene, and wondering what the attraction can be in the Bohemian life which could induce a man of this evident power to wander about the world in a gilded waggon, in a ridiculous costume, and talking transparent clap-trap, to sell goods which apparently want no lies telling about them.

I may add that I went again last Saturday, when there was even a greater crowd, and an older and more severe case of rheumatism was treated with quite as great (apparent) success.