“Nor doctor epidemic.Stored with deletery med’cines,(Which whosoever took, is dead since,)E’er sent so vast a colonyTo both the under worlds as he.”Perhaps a few words said on the subject of the former occupations of some of the mountebank impostors, who are practising, and have practised their frauds and villanies on the community, may tend to open the eyes of this very gullable nation as to the extent and quality of their medical knowledge, unless it should be supposed that they acquired it by miraculous inspiration or divine influence, to which high pretensions, indeed, many of the vermin have had the audacity to lay claim, well knowing that the bolder their assertions were, the more gullable they would find their ninny patients.Know then that the “groundly learned physicians” —“of superior skill and judgement”—high character and situation,” theDoctorsMordecai J. and C. Jordan, were Jew pedlars; (and here, reader, recollect that more than one half of the mountebanks and impostors who have gulled and laughed at our gullable nation, are or were circumcised Jews, either of native or of foreign breed;)—the renownedDoctorEady, of cyprianic memory, and who owed his reputation to the joint exertions and recommendation of the saints of Providence Chapel, and the coal-heaving-preaching-and-praying-sinner-saved Huntingdon, was a bumpkin haberdasher and retailer of small wares in an obscure country village;—Monsieur John St. John Long, the celebrated curer of consumption, was a dauber in the miniature-line;—the once celebrated, and now warmly nestled and scoffing Doctors Brodum and Solomon were, by turns, porters either in a drug warehouse or Jew pedlars; the canting worm manufacturer in Long Acre was a staymaker and life-guardsman;—Yankee noodle do Whitlaw and Don celestial Graham filled the honourable posts of a day labourer and tom-fool to a strolling company of players;—and many of the by-gone mountebank vagabonds were cobblers, tailors, weavers, footmen, blacking-makers, cat’s-meat men, &c. &c. &c.: but they all, during their tremulous career of iniquity and canting,“———— Making sanctity the cloak of sin,Laugh’d at the fools on whose credulityThey fattened.”——The sanction and encouragement given to quacks and quackery in this country have long and loudly been stigmatized by foreign writers as a national opprobrium to Britain; and it must be allowed very justly. The increase of these vermin and pests of society has long been a disgrace to the legislature and government of the country. “They manage these things,” as Sterne says, “better in France.” How careful our neighbours are of the health of their community may be gleaned from the following paper lately read before the Royal Academy of Medicine, at Paris:—“1st. That for several centuries, by the vigilance of the administration, in concert with the most distinguished medical men, the strongest efforts have been made to rid society of the pestilence constantly springing up from secret remedies. 2dly. That the most favourable circumstances are at present combined to free them from the tribute of money and life, which, on no consideration, ought longer to be tolerated.”It is to be hoped that our government will be influenced by like motives and follow the glorious example of our neighbours. If they want precedent,—the great bugbear of improvement either in morals, politics, law, religion, or even common sense, in our error-ridden nation, history furnishes us with sufficient examples. But, while those methods and laws are being planned and prepared, let us, in the mean time, resort to the good old practices of correcting and punishing the jugglers of the present day.In the reign of Edward VI. one Gregg, a poulterer, in Surrey, was set in the pillory at Croydon, and again in the Borough of Southwark, during the time of the fair, for cheating people out of their money, for pretending to cure them with charms, by only looking at the patient, and examining his water. In the reign of James I., an order of council, founded on the statute of Henry, granted to the College of Physicians, was issued to the magistrates of the city of London, for the apprehension of all reputed empirics, to bring them before the censors of the College, in order to their being examined as to their qualifications to be trusted either with the lives or limbs of the subject. On that occasion several mountebanks, (among others, Lamb, Read, and Woodhouse,) water casters, ague charmers, and nostrum venders, were fined, imprisoned, and banished. This wholesome severity, it may be supposed, checked the evil for a time; but in the reign of William III. it became again necessary to put the laws in force against those vermin; in consequence of which many of them were examined, and confessed their utter ignorance even of reading and writing. Some of the miscreants were set in the pillory, and some were put on horse-back with their faces towards the horses’ tails, whipped, branded, and banished.In Stowe’s Annals is to be found an account of a water caster being set on horse-back, his face towards the horse’s tail, which he held in his hand, with his neck deckedwith a collar of urinals, and being led by the hangman through the city, was whipped, branded, and afterwards banished. One Fairfax, in king William’s time was fined and imprisoned for doing great damage to several people, by his aqua celestis. Antony, for his aurum potabile; Arthur Dee, for advertising remedies which he gave out would cure all diseases; Foster, for selling a powder for the green-sickness; Tenant, a water doctor, who sold his pills for 6l. each; Ayres, for selling purging sugar plumbs; Hunt, for putting up bills in the streets[T]for the cure of diseases; and many others, were all punished, and compelled to relinquish their malpractices.But it is not only the interloping quack—the irregular and illegitimate charlatan and self-dubbed doctor that does mischief and destroys the health of the public, but the “regular” and legitimate pretender to medical knowledge, or as they have been significantly and appropriately termed by Dr. Morrison, the “roturiers,” or dabblers in physic, often do not much less mischief. The following extract from the Manual for Invalids is so much to the purpose, that the wider its circulation can be promoted, the greater good will be produced to society at large.“In the restoration of health, the poor often try the efficacy of the wine vaults and the medical wisdom of the druggist, who flourishes greatly in low neighbourhoods, in the metropolis, and even in some large provincial towns. These men, whose solitary qualification for this honest mode of existence has been commonly an apprenticeship behind the counter, have often placed in imminent peril many a valuable life. Sometimes it has occurred that a shrewd boy, employed to clean bottles and sweep out the shop, has received an intuitive call, and has felt himself fully qualified for the important office of recovering and regulating the health of many invalids. The writer has a knowledge of a general practitioner of this description who was received behind a druggist’s counter in the manner before related, and perhaps, learning audacity from his late employer, has obtained, through the medium of puffing friends, a surreptitious reputation, and is cried up by those worthies as a very skilful, even a “delightful” and “fine” man, particularly for nervous invalids, and more especially for the disorders of women and children.”Thousands and thousands of the population of this blessedly gifted country in medical science, are killed by this disgraceful quackery of the drug-shop, and the iniquitous drug-jobbing of apothecaries. What murders, what numerous murders have those men to answer for by their careless and injudicious use of powerful medicines—calomel and opium! But perhaps they console their unfeeling and selfish hearts with the miserable subterfugethat they are merely removing that portion of the increasing population which is the great bugbear, that is hourly threatening to eat up Mr. Parson Malthus and his believing disciples by wholesale.But the prescribing druggist, the drugging apothecary, and the soi-disant surgeon are not the only regular and legitimate quacks; we have quack physicians, who by the remittance of the enormous sum of £15 to a Scotch university are entitled, legally and professionally, to tack the wonder-working cabalistical initials M.D. to their names, and are then entitled to kill the king’s liege and loving subjects, “secundum artem,” with licensed and legitimate potion, pill, and draught; who to return obligations to their “pals” the apothecary and surgeon, prescribe draughts by the quart and the gallon—bleeding, blistering, and purging, ad infinitum. By these mystified and jabbering doctors, whose little-or-no wisdom consists in foolish words of little or no meaning, and dog Latin, or disputes about precedence and the receipt of fees, the laws of vital existence and the astonishing functions of the animal economy, are understood by hearsay and inspiration!This statement of the general ignorance of the medical profession is not exaggerated. “Five sixths of the medical profession,” says Dr. Morrison, in Medicine No Mystery, “know little or nothing of the science of life.” The cause of this lamentable ignorance arises from the abominable and disgraceful system of medical education in vogue, according to which the bought andsale prices of the current drugs, and the art and mystery of dispensing medicines often constitute the whole and sole knowledge of those who are entrusted with the health and lives of their fellow-creatures; in whose bungling and self-interested practice hearsay and precedent supply the place of experience, and by whom signs and symptoms are mistaken for causes. Another cause is the deplorable deficiency of the public in the knowledge of medicine. Were the principles of medical science to form a part of general education, the public would be enabled to select well educated and honest medical men, and escape the fangs and delusions and murderous acts of quacks and impostors, whether interlopers, or those who are enrolled in one or other of the medical institutions of London. It really seems an anomaly in the pursuit and attainment of knowledge that a man should conceive it necessary to be able to judge whether his shoe or his cravat is made in a good and workman-like manner, but of that science which treats of himself, and with which his health, his life, and all his comforts are so intimately and seriously connected, he should be in the most abject state of ignorance, and, unhappily, not hesitate to avow that ignorance! But while it is an incontrovertible truth that the community in general should have some knowledge of medicine, in order to enable them to judge of the qualifications of their medical attendants, (to the attainment of which knowledge popular medical writings, such as Dr. Kitchener’s Art of Invigorating Life; Sir John Sinclair’s Code ofHealth and Longevity, Dr. Reece’s Medical Guide, and the Oracle of Health and Long Life, or Plain Rules for the Preservation and Attainment of Sound Health and Vigorous Old Age, and a few others, are calculated to afford the most effectual help;) it must be deeply regretted by every well disposed member of society, to observe books got up by rash and inexperienced persons, professing to give directions for the management of health, which are filled with the crudest and the falsest instructions, the nature and consequence of which are decidedly destructive of health, if not of life itself. And what must add to that regret, is that the title-page and covers should be blazoned with the professed sanction and recommendation of a late eminent medical practitioner. But surely that gentleman could never have read, among many other dangerous fooleries and extravagancies, the silly and monstrous instructions to sleep with open windows, to swallow as much salt as possible, &c. &c. &c. or if he did read them, it is but an act of courteous feeling towards him to suppose that he did not comprehend their purport. Another circumstance deserving reprobation respecting the means which have been taken to get that ill-judged little book into circulation has been the profuse and repeated attempts of a portion of the public press to give it notoriety and circulation. It certainly savours a little of presumption, that those who have not made the science of medicine a study or a profession, should venture to give opinions of the merits or demerits of a work professing to treat of themomentous subjects of health and life. These remarks are not made in any petulant feeling. I believe the author to be a well-intentioned though a misguided man, and as he hints that he published his work with the hope of adding to his income from the profits, I sincerely wish that he had chosen a subject for which he may be more competent, as then I should have been relieved from the necessity of making these remarks, in the expression of which a sense of public duty has alone actuated me. It gives me, however, great satisfaction to draw the public attention to the masterly abstract of Cornaro’s Treatise appended to the book, and which, from its disparity of style, is evidently written by another person. It is no extravagant praise to say that the public is under infinite obligations to the able and experienced writer who made that valuable addition to the book. Comaro’s works may now be read with advantage by every one, as it is freed from the disagreeable prosings, tautologies, and incongruities which pervade that work. It is to be hoped that the proprietor of the book will favour the community with its publication in a separate form.Considering the severity of the remarks I have made in the preceding pages on the medical profession, it may be supposed I have set myself up in opposition to medical men of all descriptions. I have no such intention. The intelligent and skilful physician and surgeon I reverence, and only wish that the following observationswere not a true portrait of their often unsuccessful progress.It is certain no body of men can produce more noble instances of integrity, liberality of mind, and strength of intellect, than the Professors of Physic; but, as with other bodies of men, this high character will not apply diffusedly. To find, therefore, a fit person with whom to intrust our health, is not an easy matter. Fortunately, however, for the profession, people are not very fastidious on this point; and if they or their friends are but sent to the grave in a regular way, they bear the load of ills which their own follies and the ignorance of the practitioner may have heaped upon them, with great philosophy, imputing the whole to the natural order of things. Indeed, to judge of the merits of a medical man is extremely difficult; and, when we see one man ordering away, with contempt, the medicine which another has thought a specific, and pursuing a totally different course, we are forced to conclude that education alone will not make a physician. Reputation is not unfrequently got without merit, for who is to judge? Accident, solely, both with the drug and the doctor, has often been the maker of their fame. This may be exemplified by an anecdote of a deservedly eminent physician, which, though perhaps it has been often related, is not less to the point. The doctor happened to be sent for one evening, after having indulged at a convivial meeting, so that by the time he had been whirled to his patient’s door, he was very ill qualified to decide in a caseof difficulty. Having made shift to reach the drawing room, and seeing a lady extended on a sofa, assisted by a female attendant, he, by a sort of mechanical impulse, seized her hand; but finding himself utterly unable to form an opinion on the case, he exclaimed, “D—— d drunk, by G—d!” (meaning that he was in that unfit state) and immediately made the best retreat he was able. Feeling rather awkwardly at this adventure, he was not impatient to renew his visit; but being sent for on some other occasion, he took courage, and was preparing an apology, when the lady presently removed his apprehensions, by whispering these words in his ear—“My dear doctor, how could you find out my case so immediately the other evening?—It was certainly a proof of your skill, but for God’s sake not a word more on that subject.” Thus, the doctor added to his repute by a circumstance which might have endangered that of a less fortunate man. This, though a ludicrous event, may serve, as well as a graver one, to elucidate the fact that many owe their celebrity, not so much to anyjudgement of their own, as to a want of it in others. As it is with other professions, so it is with physic. Many of its professors possessing great skill are doomed to pass their lives in obscurity, whilst they see others, of inferior knowledge and judgement, rise to importance. It has been truly said by one who was not unacquainted with the causes of medical success or failure, that, “Even among the regularly bred physicians accident will often accomplish what merit strivesfor in vain; and those coincidences of circumstances which frequently elevate one man and depress another in the medical art, are more the production of what is called chance, than from any extension of mind, or any peculiar tact or skill in the art of intellectual combinations.”SECTION IX.COALS.There are few trades in which greater frauds are practised than in “the coal trade.” The dealers in the “black diamonds” are versed in all theallowablelegerdemain and trickery of “auldEngland’s honest tradesmen:” the most skilfully initiated in the art of sleight-of-hand would find himself at fault in attempting to rival the dexterity of the true “son of the coalshed,” under the old régime of measuring, in ingeniously tossing his “spadefuls” into the measure so as to enable “the darlings” to lie lightly and “go far,” and assume the form of a solid cone, while the hollow cavity within proved as treacherous to any one treading on its “well raised summit,” as if he had put his foot on the surface of a quagmire. Nor was the well-fed, gaily clothed, richly lodged coal-merchant, with his “extensive concerns” to be easily “out-done” in well devised craft and contrivance: nicely pinched sacks, not foolishly flapping inwards so as tobetray the precise amount of their contents,—well planned deliveries, either so early in the morning that the heads of the family might prefer the arms of Morpheus to the hazard of being choked with volumes of coal dust, or so late in the evening, that there might be a possibility of their being engaged in the “solid recreation” of their dinner, were a few of the demonstrations of generalship frequently exhibited by this portion of “the monied interest” and “great capitalists of the nation.”But to come to the point in hand. An honest writer on the subject, Mr. Eddington, in his Treatise on the Coal Trade, p. 94, informs us that the keeper of a coalshed felt himself dissatisfied with his measure, if in doling out his article to his poor, half-starved, shivering neighbours, in pecks, half pecks, or bushels, he could not measure out at the rate of forty-two bushels from every chaldron of thirty-six bushels; without taking into consideration the gain to be obtained from vending the inferior coal, and the consequent increase of quantity by throwing a few bushels of sifted ashes, pieces of stone, bones, or any other commodity which will assume a black form after having been well rummaged among the heap of coals.Another great source of unfair profit arising to the vender of coals is the “Macadamizing” of them, and like true “nursing fathers” carefully and sedulously giving them their due quantum of moisture. For under the old régime of measuring, the cunning varlets knew full well that by the greater number of angular pointsthat they were able to produce, they filled their measure with the least possible quantity of coals. This paternal fulfilment of the command “to increase and multiply” they still piously and faithfully observe, as the greater progeny of small bits and dust that they can produce from a lonely and solitary lump, the more they will be able to increase the weight by their considerate and frequently repeated waterings and drenchings. Accordingly they set their shoulders to the work, and patriotically and radically proscribe every rebellious lump in their shed, by smashing it into as many figures as possible, often exceeding in number the ever varying mutations of the kaleidoscope, orOratorHunt’stwo hundred thousand unitytales. Nor are their “betters” “the merchants” less skilled in the art. Those considerate and sharp-sighted gentry, foreseeing that the large masses and blocks which are delivered out of the ships into their barges,roundas they came from the mine, would be an inconvenience to their customers, and probable tumble on some fair and delicate damsel’s toes, kindly set to work, and smash away; so that whenthe round coalsof every chamber, containing the ingrain of five chaldron and a half, have undergone the process of their friendly thumpings and republican equalization, they will measure out again from six to six and a half chaldrons. The increase by breakage appears by the following statement from Dr. Hutton’s Mathematical Dictionary: “If one coal measuring exactly a cubic yard (nearly equal to five bolls)be broken into pieces of a moderate size, it will measure seven bolls and a half; if broken very small, it will measure nine bolls.”And even after the coals have gone through the conjuring process of being increased in bulk by the aforesaid smashing or Macadamising art, and have reached their destination at the wharf, the ingenuity of “the monied interest” and “the great capitalists” is still at work. Careful that the purchaser may not be put to the trouble of wetting his coals to make them cake and burn well, those considerate and obliginggentlemenrelieve him from the task byscientificallywetting the commodity; and as a reward for their well intentioned and meritorious labours they generally contrive to produce, as Mr. Eddington informs us, “from six to six and a quarter, or even six and a half, chaldrons from each room,” containing five and a half chaldron of smashed or “macadamized” coals. A correspondent to the World newspaper for September, 1829, who signs himself a Coal Merchant, says that instances are on record where eighty and even ninety sacks have been measured out of a room of coals!According to the new régime of weighing, (which has already proved one of the most deceitful hoaxes that ignorance and cupidity ever contrived against the interests of the poor,) the quantity is increased in a like proportion in favour of the coal dealer.Another hint or two on this matter may be of some service to thee, friend Bull. Always recollect, John, inthe purchase of your coals, that you pay attention to the season of the year; for there is with every article a cheap season and a dear one, and with none more than with coals: by purchasing at the proper season, often from twenty to thirty per cent. are saved. The method of purchasing should always be considered; for by purchasing a room of coals, which is calledpool measure, two fourths of a chaldron is often obtained in every five chaldrons; for a room of coals contains in general from sixty-three to sixty-eight sacks. Therefore, where the quantity is too much for the consumption of one family, two or more should join together in the purchase.But the legislature, that is, “thecollective wisdomof the nation,” aware of thy disposition to gullibility, has, John, taken thy affair of coals into its paternal and law-making consideration, and has made some regulations, as to the possibility of thy receiving “goodandlawful” weight. They are as follow:—To ensurelawfulweight to the purchaser, and prevent frauds in the sale and delivery of coals, the vender of all coals exceeding 560lbs. is to cause the carman to deliver a paper or ticket to the purchaser before he shoots any of the coals out of his cart or waggon, specifying the number of tons, the description of the coals, and the weight of the sack. And a weighing machine is to be carried in such cart or waggon, with which the carman is directed to weigh gratis the coals contained in any one or more of the sacks which the purchaser or his servant may require to be so reweighed. But no ticket is necessary to be delivered with coals purchased at the “Coal Market,” or with coals exceeding 560lbs. purchased in bulk from any vessel or wharf, if purchasers do not require a ticket. The seller of the coals not sending a ticket and a weighing machine with the coals, and the carman not delivering the ticket, or neglecting or refusing to weigh the coals, are subject to distinct penalties.No less than seventy-seven kinds of sea coal are brought to the London market; forty-five of which are imported from Newcastle, and the rest from Sunderland. The best of the Sunderland produce are Stewart’s main, Lambton’s main, and Hetley main, or as they are more generally termed in imitation of the old Russell Walls End, Stewart’s Walls End, &c. The Scotch and Staffordshire coals are inferior to the sea coal both in durability and the heat which they give, being about one-third less productive in those qualities than the Newcastle and Sunderland varieties.The test of good coal depends on the burning, and the quantity of bitumen it affords in its combustion; and no bad signs of its inferiority are that it is dull, small, stony, or slaty. But the quality of coals is in a great measure determined by the weight; for there often occurs a difference of 30lbs. weight in two sacks of different qualities, though equally filled: largeness of size is no proper criterion, for the inferior coals are often of the largest size.SECTION X.Painters’ Colours or Pigments, Hats, Broad Cloth, Kerseymeres, Linens, Laces, Cambrics, Silks, Jewellery, Stationary, &c.The spirit of adulteration pursues poor John even into his domestic arrangements. Should he design to decorate his dwelling—“his neat suburban cottage”—and have the walls or wainscot of his drawing-room painted a delicate pink colour to rival the carnation tints of the cheek of his “cara sposa,” or those of his breakfast parlour, to imitate the lively blue of the bright eyes of his “lovely cherubs,” the vile sophisticators mar all his wishes, and he is able to obtain nothing else than dull and darkling daubs. In fewer words, he cannot obtain genuine colours wherewith to have his house painted. And this sophistication does not only extend to the common house-paints, (as where white lead is mixed with carbonate or sulphate of barytes; vermilion with red lead, and a long et-cetera;) but should honest John wish that his hopeful progeny may rival the Zeuxis or Apelles of antiquity, or confine his paternal longings to the more modern artists—a Reynolds, a Gainsborough, a Moreland, or a David,—he has the mortification of seeing his fond illusions dissipated by the adulterating manufacturers ofultramarine, carmine, lake, Antwerp blue, crome yellow, Indian ink, and all the other et-ceteras of artist-decoration.The covering of even John’s sconce is not exempt from sophistication. In the room of the dear bought, far fetched beaver, the adulterators adorn John’s pate with a strange combination of wool and the homely and cheaply purchased fur of the rabbit and mole. This, it must be admitted, is cruel usage of the good old gentleman, and must, as the witty author of the Indicator says, bring to his mind an odd association of ideas, (namely, of cheatery and forgiveness,) in one of those communings with his hat’s lining, while, like a polite worshipper, he is whispering his preparatory ejaculations, before he turns round with due gravity and composure, and makes a bow of genteel recognition of the Mr. and Mrs A. and the Misses B. who have assembled in the pew before him.Nor is he better treated by his clothier or man’s mercer. Not to mention the slight texture of the articles, and the substitution of inferior materials for the “best superfineSpanish” and the “super-extraSaxony,” the sly varlet artfully stitches the selvage of broad cloths, kerseymeres, and ladies’ “extra superfine,” dyed of a permanent colour, to the edge of cloth dyed with a fugative or fading dye; and this operation is performed with so much skill and nicety as to elude John’s most penetrating optics.Neither are Mrs. Bull and her “lovely daughters” more exempt from the knaveries of the linen-draper, the dealers in laces, veils, silks, “Cashmere shawls,” French cambrics, and the other paraphernalia of the female wardrobe: they are all sophisticated, and often no more like the native article than “the moon is like green cheese.” Like “a true bred knight,” I shall not forget to furnish the female part of Mr. Bull’s family with the means and criteria for judging of the goodness of those commodities, in the work which, as I have before said, I have nearly ready for press. Nor shall I omit to take notice in the same publication, to give directions for the proper selection of the articles of furniture of the old gent’s house; such as feathers, blankets, carpets, &c. &c.While gallantly professing my knight-errantry in the cause of Mrs. Bull and “her lovely daughters,” I find that I have made an unpardonable omission—not a word on laces and muslins! To propitiate their “kind consideration,” I hurry to supply the unpardonable omission. Let then every “lovely fair one” know that laces are now generally made from single cottons (instead of good double thread, as was formerly the case), and in order to make them look fine and clear, they are stiffened with starch, which occasions the delusive articles, as soon as they are washed, to fall to pieces. In some articles of lace, particularly veils, many of the springs and flowers are fastened on with gum, which, as soon as they are wetted, immediately fall off and betray the cheatery. Caps and other articles of female habiliments sold in thestreets, are often united together in the most ingenious manner by means of gum or paste.Muslins are not free from sophistication-ingenuity. Poor, thin, rough specimens are rendered stiff, high glazed, and thick with a quantum sufficit of pipe-clay, &c.; sometimes a paper-pulp is spread over the deteriorated article; and the fibres of the cotton which ought to be dressed off, are left in order to hold the composition put in.Stockings are often rendered stiff and thick to the feet, by bleaching them with brimstone. And coarse woollen cloth receives the addition of large quantities of fuller’s-earth to give it body and closeness; while the right or pressed side is finished off with oil, in order to give the cloth a fine, soft, and smooth appearance. Never choose woollen cloth which is glossy and stiff.“The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and their conversion into leather; and in the manufacture of cutlery and jewellery,” says Mr. Accum, “exceed belief.” And I can assure my readers that that gentleman is not mistaken in his assertion; and, had he added that of cabinet wares and silver plate of all sorts, he would not have over-stepped the limits of truth. To those acquainted with the manufacture of silver goods, it is well known that you cannot always be sure that the various costly articles are of the legal standard with which Pride and Vanity, Luxury and Fashion, when they “set up forGentryandStylishpeople,” and have a desire for “shewing off,” gratify their whims and fantasticnotions of gentility, and their ambition of “outplating and outdishing” their friends and neighbours. The prosecution instituted some years ago against a “legitimate” son of Crispin for the manufacture of shoes, the soles of which were ingeniously united to the welts by only six stitches in each shoe, while the external parts of the soles exhibited evident traces of a multiplicity of stitches rivalling the number of the stars of the firmament of the heavens in extent and variety, and their exact mathematical precision seemed to display the exertion of the genius of a Euclid, cannot have slipped the recollection of all my readers.And to complete the climax of sophistication, even the paper on which John gives birth to his “winged words,” and expresses his indignant feelings at the extent and the audacity of the frauds and impositions practised on his good-nature and credulous disposition, is sophisticated. In the manufacture of paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is often mixed up with the paper-stuff, instead of its consisting of good linen rags only, and the foreign substance is added to increase the weight of the commodity. Nor is he, when, like ourselves, desirous of having his thoughts and discoveries rendered “enduring for ages,” (monumentum ære perennius,) by having them cast in stereotype, and thus “save a penny,” exempt from the designs and contrivances of sophistication;—the founder deceives him by casting his “words that breathe and thoughts that burn” in a metal as soft and ductile as lollipop. Thus honest Bull is circumventedin all his intents, and surprised and overpowered at every turn by the Genius of Sophistication.CONCLUSION.Friend Bull! if thou hast carefully and dispassionately (that is, if thou hast sufficiently divested thy honest mind of its usual scepticism—videlicet, its unwillingness to be convinced against its constitutional prejudices,) read my disclosures, I am willing to believe that thou wilt readily admit that I have established all my allegations of the frauds and impositions to which thou art subject in this sophisticating age, and that I have proved the truth and propriety of the title of my little book, “Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle.” What remedy (for a good advocate seldom forgets that prospective part of his duty,) to recommend thee to adopt, in order to free thyself from the knavery and effrontery of the sophisticators, I know not, except, hermetically to close thy jaws so as to prevent the entrance of any of the sophistications into them, or the more pleasurable remedy of preferring a petition to thy “gracious Sovereign,” who “can do no wrong,” praying “the omnipotency of Parliament,”—in its “collective and superlative wisdom” to take thy deplorable case into consideration,” and to devise some means, in the plenitude of its conjoint wisdom, to protect thee and thy “little ones,” in this “land of equal law,” from the arts and devices of slow poisoning. In the success of thy humble and righteous remonstrance believe me, thy fellowsufferer, and “enemy of fraud and villany,” will heartily and sincerely join.THE AUTHOR.Postscript.—In reviewing my well-meant, and, I trust, useful denunciations of fraud and villany, I find that I have omitted to speak of false weights and measures. But as the proverb says, better late than never. Not to mention the trick of clapping a piece of weight or other metal underneath the scale in which the commodity to be sold is weighed; commercial balances are frequently misconstructed for fraudulent purposes, by making the arm from which the substance to be weighed is suspended longer than that from which the counterpoise is hung, thereby giving the substance to be weighed a greater leverage.⁂Authenticatedcommunications of adulterations thankfully received, and liberally paid for.APPENDIX.Note topage 28.I have said at the above mentioned page that “the perfection of adulteration is in gin;” and on reviewing that passage I have no cause to modify the expression; but must, with all my heart and soul, assent to the declaration of honest Jonas Hanway, that it is “a liquid fire;” and must further agree with the said true-hearted old Englishman, that “it should be sold only in quart bottles, sealed up with the king’s seal, with a very high duty, and never sold without being mixed with a strong emetic.” This I admit is a very harsh prescription, and no doubt every true lover of “blue-ruin” will exclaim, notwithstanding that he or she is aware that their “comfort” is in the most abandoned state of adulteration, and is a rank slow poison, equally ruinous to the health and the purse;—What! a gin-drinking nation, and yet not a drop of “the genuine”—of the popular English beverage, the diurnal consumption of which in the metropolis alone, would inundate the largest parish within the bills of mortality—not a drop of “the genuine” to be had for money! Yes, Bull, whether thou beest of the masculine or feminine gender, this is the truth; and it is a circumstance, the reformation of which would well become the labours of the informing tribe and the bellowers of radical reform. Here there would be a fine field for radicalism and “informing” to exercise themselves in.Note topage 83.I have stated at page 83, that fish out of season is unwholesome. The following fact will confirm the truth ofthis assertion. It is well known that in Ireland and Scotland, where great facility is presented to the country people in catching salmon, both during and after the spawning season, the eating of the fish in that state has been productive of very serious consequences to the health of the consumers. Probably the unwholesome consignments of noxious fish obtainedexclusively, as the fashionable fishmongers phrase it, out of season, and to be purchased only at extravagant prices, often occasion to their epicurean customers and the legitimate gourmands much of the illness assigned to other causes.Note topage 87.At page 87, I have said that the quantity of tea consumed in this country is between twenty and thirty millions of lbs. weight; but I forgot to state that between two and three millions of pounds sterling are drawn out of the pocket of the public yearly in its purchase, either in the form of price or of duty. Surely the expenditure of this enormous sum by the good people of this country, and considering that tea has become so essential a part of the diet of every person in the kingdom, imposes an obligation on the sovereign company of tea dealers in Leadenhall Street to take care that the inhabitants of “this land of milk and honey,” who pay nearly eight times as much as their neighbours do for the same article (namely bohea tea), have a good and fresh commodity, instead of the tasteless, parched, insipid, and scentless rubbish which they retail out to the public, after having remained in the warehouse long enough to perish its good qualities even were its flavour and taste ten times more delicious and grateful than they are. Would it not, as it has been well said, be to the credit of some of our genuine members of the legislature to endeavour to procure the sale of a pure and good article, instead of the trash that is foisted upon the public at present, and which they cannot appeal from, by introducing a law into parliament legalizing the purchase of the article from other hands than the Leadenhall Street monopolists.Note topage 89, &c.An experienced friend in the tea trade who has read over and approved of the various tests I have mentioned at page 89, &c. for detecting the qualities of tea, has kindly furnished me with the following valuable communication:“As a ready test of black tea being manufactured from old tea-leaves, dyed with logwood, &c. moisten some of the tea, and rub it on white paper, which it will blacken when not genuine. If you wish to be more particular, infuse a quantity of the sample in half a pint of cold soft water for three or four hours. If the water is then of an amber colour, and does not become red when you drop some oil of vitriol or sulphuric acid into it, you may presume the tea to be good. Adulterated black tea, when infused in cold water, gives a bluish black tinge, and it becomes instantly red with a few drops of oil of vitriol.Note topage 154.I observe that I have forgotten to give “a local habitation and a name” among the morning water and Sir Reverence doctors, to hisDoctorship DoctorLaing, of Newman Street, Oxford Street. And I have to beg pardon, most humbly and reverently, for passing over the quondam Greenwich Crumples, aliasDoctorCameron, aliasMisterColey, in Berners Street, Oxford Street;—theDoctorto a new patient with his morning water and “shiners” in hand, butMister, when the said “humbugged” patient, having discovered the fraud practised upon him, returns to “blow up” theDoctorfor his tricks and ignorance.Note topage 166.After all the vapouring and drivelling nonsense that has been said, sung and trumpeted forth by a certainportion of the Periodical Press respecting the “Simplicity of Health,” it is really consoling to find at last a man of sense and critical acumen having spirit and honesty enough to relieve the public from the delusions under which it is suffering from the book in question.“An immense quantity of drivel,” says the spirited Editor of The Edinburgh Literary Journal, 1829, “has found its way into books professing to give an account of the best mode of preserving health; but of all the drivel it has ever been our lot to peruse, that contained in the work entitled the “Simplicity of Health,” is the most pre-eminent.” The ingenious and honest reviewer, after having pointed out several of the fooleries and extravagancies of the book, adds, “We have no patience with a piece of humbug like this; we shall not insult the good sense of our readers with more of this doting nonsense.” It must be admitted that this sentence is dictated in the strictest and the justest sense of criticism, and that had all those who have ventured to laud and recommend that dangerous little book adopted somewhat of its spirit, much bodily and mental suffering might have been saved to many people who will become the victims of its misjudged and culpable directions.The burst of indignation and ridicule expressed by the Critic respecting Hortator’s foolish directions for “Squirting water briskly into the eyesbya syringe,” is too fraught with truth and utility to be omitted: “Is it not plain from this, that the poor squirting wretch must have bleared and blood-shot eyes? Imagine a beautiful girl at her morning toilette, presenting one of this dirty old booby’s squirts at her clear blue laughing eyes! But the fact is, this impudent old wife must be descended from a long line of tailors, who have bred in and in, till the imbecile race has ended in the scarecrow who has spawned the “Simplicity of Health.”It is with much satisfaction that I am able to support the opinion which I have expressed at page 166, by sojust and judicious a criticism as the above; had I stood alone in opinion, that opinion would have been assigned to any other than its true cause—a sense of public duty, which ought with every true patriot to be paramount to every other consideration.I shall now close my well meant, and I hope I may say, useful and patriotic little volume, with a few words respecting those pests and scourges of society, the sharking and extortionate part of the pawnbroking trade, and those banes of human comfort and existence the madhouses.PAWNBROKERS.It has been well said, that as the poorest, the most distressed, and the most friendless are those who are compelled to have dealings with, and are exposed to the “tender mercies” of pawnbrokers, it is of the utmost consequence that such men as follow the calling should be honest, correct, and even humane characters. For the sake of honesty it is to be hoped that there are many of this description; but a little, and but a little unhappy experience when urgent necessity may compel the unfortunate to have recourse to shops of this description, will convince the most thoughtless person alive, that there are numbers of heartless, griping, and extortionate scoundrels in that trade, whose conduct and dealings are a disgrace to the most contemptible sharper and swindler alive,—who by every species of fraud, extortion, and oppression, rob, harass, and plunder the poor and the miserable, and add to the distresses of those whose misfortunes have reduced them to have dealings with the detestable harpies. The taking of illegal and excessive interest is comparatively the least important of their delinquencies, though this to the poor and unfortunate is grinding in the extreme, as these knaves in their dealings with those who have neither money nor friends, treat the act of Parliament for the regulation of thePawnbroking trade as a mere dead letter. The substitution of articles of inferior description for such as are of a greater value,—the taking off the gold hands and removing the interior works of watches, and replacing them with others which resemble them, of base metal or inferior value,—and the scraping or diminishing articles of plate and the cases of watches, are well known to those whose wants or emergencies compel them to send their property on its travels up the spout of the pop-shop. And through the defect of the law, and as the poet Crabbe says, “the protection of a drowsy bench,” sufferers but rarely obtain any redress. A periodical writer, in expressing his abhorrence of the frauds of these vermin, recommends the sufferers to lay “incessant informations against the malpractices of these villains.” But had that kind-hearted man been acquainted with the fact that informations have been repeatedly laid, and have always miscarried, and will always miscarry while the law remains in its defective state, he would, no doubt, have recommended a petition to Parliament, praying to subject the infamous impostors to the punishment of transportation for their audacious and daily frauds and swindlings practised “on the children of sorrow and the heirs of unnumbered woes and wants.” The fate of informations has been fully proved in the numerous instances in which a scoundrel in the neighbourhood of Snow Hill has defeated the purposes of justice by the contemptible quibbles, evasions, and subterfuges resorted to by his attorney in all cases in which he has been summoned before the magistrates at Guildhall, and by whose very disgraceful objections as to technicalities, he has contrived as hitherto, to laugh at and hold in contempt both Law and Justice!!!PRIVATE BEDLAMS.“Where the noble mind’s o’erthrown.”How true is the remark that “the history of theRedandWhite Houses,” like that of the Red and White Roses, would afford many interesting though appalling particulars were they collected in a detailable form.
“Nor doctor epidemic.Stored with deletery med’cines,(Which whosoever took, is dead since,)E’er sent so vast a colonyTo both the under worlds as he.”
“Nor doctor epidemic.Stored with deletery med’cines,(Which whosoever took, is dead since,)E’er sent so vast a colonyTo both the under worlds as he.”
“Nor doctor epidemic.Stored with deletery med’cines,(Which whosoever took, is dead since,)E’er sent so vast a colonyTo both the under worlds as he.”
“Nor doctor epidemic.
Stored with deletery med’cines,
(Which whosoever took, is dead since,)
E’er sent so vast a colony
To both the under worlds as he.”
Perhaps a few words said on the subject of the former occupations of some of the mountebank impostors, who are practising, and have practised their frauds and villanies on the community, may tend to open the eyes of this very gullable nation as to the extent and quality of their medical knowledge, unless it should be supposed that they acquired it by miraculous inspiration or divine influence, to which high pretensions, indeed, many of the vermin have had the audacity to lay claim, well knowing that the bolder their assertions were, the more gullable they would find their ninny patients.
Know then that the “groundly learned physicians” —“of superior skill and judgement”—high character and situation,” theDoctorsMordecai J. and C. Jordan, were Jew pedlars; (and here, reader, recollect that more than one half of the mountebanks and impostors who have gulled and laughed at our gullable nation, are or were circumcised Jews, either of native or of foreign breed;)—the renownedDoctorEady, of cyprianic memory, and who owed his reputation to the joint exertions and recommendation of the saints of Providence Chapel, and the coal-heaving-preaching-and-praying-sinner-saved Huntingdon, was a bumpkin haberdasher and retailer of small wares in an obscure country village;—Monsieur John St. John Long, the celebrated curer of consumption, was a dauber in the miniature-line;—the once celebrated, and now warmly nestled and scoffing Doctors Brodum and Solomon were, by turns, porters either in a drug warehouse or Jew pedlars; the canting worm manufacturer in Long Acre was a staymaker and life-guardsman;—Yankee noodle do Whitlaw and Don celestial Graham filled the honourable posts of a day labourer and tom-fool to a strolling company of players;—and many of the by-gone mountebank vagabonds were cobblers, tailors, weavers, footmen, blacking-makers, cat’s-meat men, &c. &c. &c.: but they all, during their tremulous career of iniquity and canting,
“———— Making sanctity the cloak of sin,Laugh’d at the fools on whose credulityThey fattened.”——
“———— Making sanctity the cloak of sin,Laugh’d at the fools on whose credulityThey fattened.”——
“———— Making sanctity the cloak of sin,Laugh’d at the fools on whose credulityThey fattened.”——
“———— Making sanctity the cloak of sin,
Laugh’d at the fools on whose credulity
They fattened.”——
The sanction and encouragement given to quacks and quackery in this country have long and loudly been stigmatized by foreign writers as a national opprobrium to Britain; and it must be allowed very justly. The increase of these vermin and pests of society has long been a disgrace to the legislature and government of the country. “They manage these things,” as Sterne says, “better in France.” How careful our neighbours are of the health of their community may be gleaned from the following paper lately read before the Royal Academy of Medicine, at Paris:—
“1st. That for several centuries, by the vigilance of the administration, in concert with the most distinguished medical men, the strongest efforts have been made to rid society of the pestilence constantly springing up from secret remedies. 2dly. That the most favourable circumstances are at present combined to free them from the tribute of money and life, which, on no consideration, ought longer to be tolerated.”
It is to be hoped that our government will be influenced by like motives and follow the glorious example of our neighbours. If they want precedent,—the great bugbear of improvement either in morals, politics, law, religion, or even common sense, in our error-ridden nation, history furnishes us with sufficient examples. But, while those methods and laws are being planned and prepared, let us, in the mean time, resort to the good old practices of correcting and punishing the jugglers of the present day.
In the reign of Edward VI. one Gregg, a poulterer, in Surrey, was set in the pillory at Croydon, and again in the Borough of Southwark, during the time of the fair, for cheating people out of their money, for pretending to cure them with charms, by only looking at the patient, and examining his water. In the reign of James I., an order of council, founded on the statute of Henry, granted to the College of Physicians, was issued to the magistrates of the city of London, for the apprehension of all reputed empirics, to bring them before the censors of the College, in order to their being examined as to their qualifications to be trusted either with the lives or limbs of the subject. On that occasion several mountebanks, (among others, Lamb, Read, and Woodhouse,) water casters, ague charmers, and nostrum venders, were fined, imprisoned, and banished. This wholesome severity, it may be supposed, checked the evil for a time; but in the reign of William III. it became again necessary to put the laws in force against those vermin; in consequence of which many of them were examined, and confessed their utter ignorance even of reading and writing. Some of the miscreants were set in the pillory, and some were put on horse-back with their faces towards the horses’ tails, whipped, branded, and banished.
In Stowe’s Annals is to be found an account of a water caster being set on horse-back, his face towards the horse’s tail, which he held in his hand, with his neck deckedwith a collar of urinals, and being led by the hangman through the city, was whipped, branded, and afterwards banished. One Fairfax, in king William’s time was fined and imprisoned for doing great damage to several people, by his aqua celestis. Antony, for his aurum potabile; Arthur Dee, for advertising remedies which he gave out would cure all diseases; Foster, for selling a powder for the green-sickness; Tenant, a water doctor, who sold his pills for 6l. each; Ayres, for selling purging sugar plumbs; Hunt, for putting up bills in the streets[T]for the cure of diseases; and many others, were all punished, and compelled to relinquish their malpractices.
But it is not only the interloping quack—the irregular and illegitimate charlatan and self-dubbed doctor that does mischief and destroys the health of the public, but the “regular” and legitimate pretender to medical knowledge, or as they have been significantly and appropriately termed by Dr. Morrison, the “roturiers,” or dabblers in physic, often do not much less mischief. The following extract from the Manual for Invalids is so much to the purpose, that the wider its circulation can be promoted, the greater good will be produced to society at large.
“In the restoration of health, the poor often try the efficacy of the wine vaults and the medical wisdom of the druggist, who flourishes greatly in low neighbourhoods, in the metropolis, and even in some large provincial towns. These men, whose solitary qualification for this honest mode of existence has been commonly an apprenticeship behind the counter, have often placed in imminent peril many a valuable life. Sometimes it has occurred that a shrewd boy, employed to clean bottles and sweep out the shop, has received an intuitive call, and has felt himself fully qualified for the important office of recovering and regulating the health of many invalids. The writer has a knowledge of a general practitioner of this description who was received behind a druggist’s counter in the manner before related, and perhaps, learning audacity from his late employer, has obtained, through the medium of puffing friends, a surreptitious reputation, and is cried up by those worthies as a very skilful, even a “delightful” and “fine” man, particularly for nervous invalids, and more especially for the disorders of women and children.”
Thousands and thousands of the population of this blessedly gifted country in medical science, are killed by this disgraceful quackery of the drug-shop, and the iniquitous drug-jobbing of apothecaries. What murders, what numerous murders have those men to answer for by their careless and injudicious use of powerful medicines—calomel and opium! But perhaps they console their unfeeling and selfish hearts with the miserable subterfugethat they are merely removing that portion of the increasing population which is the great bugbear, that is hourly threatening to eat up Mr. Parson Malthus and his believing disciples by wholesale.
But the prescribing druggist, the drugging apothecary, and the soi-disant surgeon are not the only regular and legitimate quacks; we have quack physicians, who by the remittance of the enormous sum of £15 to a Scotch university are entitled, legally and professionally, to tack the wonder-working cabalistical initials M.D. to their names, and are then entitled to kill the king’s liege and loving subjects, “secundum artem,” with licensed and legitimate potion, pill, and draught; who to return obligations to their “pals” the apothecary and surgeon, prescribe draughts by the quart and the gallon—bleeding, blistering, and purging, ad infinitum. By these mystified and jabbering doctors, whose little-or-no wisdom consists in foolish words of little or no meaning, and dog Latin, or disputes about precedence and the receipt of fees, the laws of vital existence and the astonishing functions of the animal economy, are understood by hearsay and inspiration!
This statement of the general ignorance of the medical profession is not exaggerated. “Five sixths of the medical profession,” says Dr. Morrison, in Medicine No Mystery, “know little or nothing of the science of life.” The cause of this lamentable ignorance arises from the abominable and disgraceful system of medical education in vogue, according to which the bought andsale prices of the current drugs, and the art and mystery of dispensing medicines often constitute the whole and sole knowledge of those who are entrusted with the health and lives of their fellow-creatures; in whose bungling and self-interested practice hearsay and precedent supply the place of experience, and by whom signs and symptoms are mistaken for causes. Another cause is the deplorable deficiency of the public in the knowledge of medicine. Were the principles of medical science to form a part of general education, the public would be enabled to select well educated and honest medical men, and escape the fangs and delusions and murderous acts of quacks and impostors, whether interlopers, or those who are enrolled in one or other of the medical institutions of London. It really seems an anomaly in the pursuit and attainment of knowledge that a man should conceive it necessary to be able to judge whether his shoe or his cravat is made in a good and workman-like manner, but of that science which treats of himself, and with which his health, his life, and all his comforts are so intimately and seriously connected, he should be in the most abject state of ignorance, and, unhappily, not hesitate to avow that ignorance! But while it is an incontrovertible truth that the community in general should have some knowledge of medicine, in order to enable them to judge of the qualifications of their medical attendants, (to the attainment of which knowledge popular medical writings, such as Dr. Kitchener’s Art of Invigorating Life; Sir John Sinclair’s Code ofHealth and Longevity, Dr. Reece’s Medical Guide, and the Oracle of Health and Long Life, or Plain Rules for the Preservation and Attainment of Sound Health and Vigorous Old Age, and a few others, are calculated to afford the most effectual help;) it must be deeply regretted by every well disposed member of society, to observe books got up by rash and inexperienced persons, professing to give directions for the management of health, which are filled with the crudest and the falsest instructions, the nature and consequence of which are decidedly destructive of health, if not of life itself. And what must add to that regret, is that the title-page and covers should be blazoned with the professed sanction and recommendation of a late eminent medical practitioner. But surely that gentleman could never have read, among many other dangerous fooleries and extravagancies, the silly and monstrous instructions to sleep with open windows, to swallow as much salt as possible, &c. &c. &c. or if he did read them, it is but an act of courteous feeling towards him to suppose that he did not comprehend their purport. Another circumstance deserving reprobation respecting the means which have been taken to get that ill-judged little book into circulation has been the profuse and repeated attempts of a portion of the public press to give it notoriety and circulation. It certainly savours a little of presumption, that those who have not made the science of medicine a study or a profession, should venture to give opinions of the merits or demerits of a work professing to treat of themomentous subjects of health and life. These remarks are not made in any petulant feeling. I believe the author to be a well-intentioned though a misguided man, and as he hints that he published his work with the hope of adding to his income from the profits, I sincerely wish that he had chosen a subject for which he may be more competent, as then I should have been relieved from the necessity of making these remarks, in the expression of which a sense of public duty has alone actuated me. It gives me, however, great satisfaction to draw the public attention to the masterly abstract of Cornaro’s Treatise appended to the book, and which, from its disparity of style, is evidently written by another person. It is no extravagant praise to say that the public is under infinite obligations to the able and experienced writer who made that valuable addition to the book. Comaro’s works may now be read with advantage by every one, as it is freed from the disagreeable prosings, tautologies, and incongruities which pervade that work. It is to be hoped that the proprietor of the book will favour the community with its publication in a separate form.
Considering the severity of the remarks I have made in the preceding pages on the medical profession, it may be supposed I have set myself up in opposition to medical men of all descriptions. I have no such intention. The intelligent and skilful physician and surgeon I reverence, and only wish that the following observationswere not a true portrait of their often unsuccessful progress.
It is certain no body of men can produce more noble instances of integrity, liberality of mind, and strength of intellect, than the Professors of Physic; but, as with other bodies of men, this high character will not apply diffusedly. To find, therefore, a fit person with whom to intrust our health, is not an easy matter. Fortunately, however, for the profession, people are not very fastidious on this point; and if they or their friends are but sent to the grave in a regular way, they bear the load of ills which their own follies and the ignorance of the practitioner may have heaped upon them, with great philosophy, imputing the whole to the natural order of things. Indeed, to judge of the merits of a medical man is extremely difficult; and, when we see one man ordering away, with contempt, the medicine which another has thought a specific, and pursuing a totally different course, we are forced to conclude that education alone will not make a physician. Reputation is not unfrequently got without merit, for who is to judge? Accident, solely, both with the drug and the doctor, has often been the maker of their fame. This may be exemplified by an anecdote of a deservedly eminent physician, which, though perhaps it has been often related, is not less to the point. The doctor happened to be sent for one evening, after having indulged at a convivial meeting, so that by the time he had been whirled to his patient’s door, he was very ill qualified to decide in a caseof difficulty. Having made shift to reach the drawing room, and seeing a lady extended on a sofa, assisted by a female attendant, he, by a sort of mechanical impulse, seized her hand; but finding himself utterly unable to form an opinion on the case, he exclaimed, “D—— d drunk, by G—d!” (meaning that he was in that unfit state) and immediately made the best retreat he was able. Feeling rather awkwardly at this adventure, he was not impatient to renew his visit; but being sent for on some other occasion, he took courage, and was preparing an apology, when the lady presently removed his apprehensions, by whispering these words in his ear—“My dear doctor, how could you find out my case so immediately the other evening?—It was certainly a proof of your skill, but for God’s sake not a word more on that subject.” Thus, the doctor added to his repute by a circumstance which might have endangered that of a less fortunate man. This, though a ludicrous event, may serve, as well as a graver one, to elucidate the fact that many owe their celebrity, not so much to anyjudgement of their own, as to a want of it in others. As it is with other professions, so it is with physic. Many of its professors possessing great skill are doomed to pass their lives in obscurity, whilst they see others, of inferior knowledge and judgement, rise to importance. It has been truly said by one who was not unacquainted with the causes of medical success or failure, that, “Even among the regularly bred physicians accident will often accomplish what merit strivesfor in vain; and those coincidences of circumstances which frequently elevate one man and depress another in the medical art, are more the production of what is called chance, than from any extension of mind, or any peculiar tact or skill in the art of intellectual combinations.”
There are few trades in which greater frauds are practised than in “the coal trade.” The dealers in the “black diamonds” are versed in all theallowablelegerdemain and trickery of “auldEngland’s honest tradesmen:” the most skilfully initiated in the art of sleight-of-hand would find himself at fault in attempting to rival the dexterity of the true “son of the coalshed,” under the old régime of measuring, in ingeniously tossing his “spadefuls” into the measure so as to enable “the darlings” to lie lightly and “go far,” and assume the form of a solid cone, while the hollow cavity within proved as treacherous to any one treading on its “well raised summit,” as if he had put his foot on the surface of a quagmire. Nor was the well-fed, gaily clothed, richly lodged coal-merchant, with his “extensive concerns” to be easily “out-done” in well devised craft and contrivance: nicely pinched sacks, not foolishly flapping inwards so as tobetray the precise amount of their contents,—well planned deliveries, either so early in the morning that the heads of the family might prefer the arms of Morpheus to the hazard of being choked with volumes of coal dust, or so late in the evening, that there might be a possibility of their being engaged in the “solid recreation” of their dinner, were a few of the demonstrations of generalship frequently exhibited by this portion of “the monied interest” and “great capitalists of the nation.”
But to come to the point in hand. An honest writer on the subject, Mr. Eddington, in his Treatise on the Coal Trade, p. 94, informs us that the keeper of a coalshed felt himself dissatisfied with his measure, if in doling out his article to his poor, half-starved, shivering neighbours, in pecks, half pecks, or bushels, he could not measure out at the rate of forty-two bushels from every chaldron of thirty-six bushels; without taking into consideration the gain to be obtained from vending the inferior coal, and the consequent increase of quantity by throwing a few bushels of sifted ashes, pieces of stone, bones, or any other commodity which will assume a black form after having been well rummaged among the heap of coals.
Another great source of unfair profit arising to the vender of coals is the “Macadamizing” of them, and like true “nursing fathers” carefully and sedulously giving them their due quantum of moisture. For under the old régime of measuring, the cunning varlets knew full well that by the greater number of angular pointsthat they were able to produce, they filled their measure with the least possible quantity of coals. This paternal fulfilment of the command “to increase and multiply” they still piously and faithfully observe, as the greater progeny of small bits and dust that they can produce from a lonely and solitary lump, the more they will be able to increase the weight by their considerate and frequently repeated waterings and drenchings. Accordingly they set their shoulders to the work, and patriotically and radically proscribe every rebellious lump in their shed, by smashing it into as many figures as possible, often exceeding in number the ever varying mutations of the kaleidoscope, orOratorHunt’stwo hundred thousand unitytales. Nor are their “betters” “the merchants” less skilled in the art. Those considerate and sharp-sighted gentry, foreseeing that the large masses and blocks which are delivered out of the ships into their barges,roundas they came from the mine, would be an inconvenience to their customers, and probable tumble on some fair and delicate damsel’s toes, kindly set to work, and smash away; so that whenthe round coalsof every chamber, containing the ingrain of five chaldron and a half, have undergone the process of their friendly thumpings and republican equalization, they will measure out again from six to six and a half chaldrons. The increase by breakage appears by the following statement from Dr. Hutton’s Mathematical Dictionary: “If one coal measuring exactly a cubic yard (nearly equal to five bolls)be broken into pieces of a moderate size, it will measure seven bolls and a half; if broken very small, it will measure nine bolls.”
And even after the coals have gone through the conjuring process of being increased in bulk by the aforesaid smashing or Macadamising art, and have reached their destination at the wharf, the ingenuity of “the monied interest” and “the great capitalists” is still at work. Careful that the purchaser may not be put to the trouble of wetting his coals to make them cake and burn well, those considerate and obliginggentlemenrelieve him from the task byscientificallywetting the commodity; and as a reward for their well intentioned and meritorious labours they generally contrive to produce, as Mr. Eddington informs us, “from six to six and a quarter, or even six and a half, chaldrons from each room,” containing five and a half chaldron of smashed or “macadamized” coals. A correspondent to the World newspaper for September, 1829, who signs himself a Coal Merchant, says that instances are on record where eighty and even ninety sacks have been measured out of a room of coals!
According to the new régime of weighing, (which has already proved one of the most deceitful hoaxes that ignorance and cupidity ever contrived against the interests of the poor,) the quantity is increased in a like proportion in favour of the coal dealer.
Another hint or two on this matter may be of some service to thee, friend Bull. Always recollect, John, inthe purchase of your coals, that you pay attention to the season of the year; for there is with every article a cheap season and a dear one, and with none more than with coals: by purchasing at the proper season, often from twenty to thirty per cent. are saved. The method of purchasing should always be considered; for by purchasing a room of coals, which is calledpool measure, two fourths of a chaldron is often obtained in every five chaldrons; for a room of coals contains in general from sixty-three to sixty-eight sacks. Therefore, where the quantity is too much for the consumption of one family, two or more should join together in the purchase.
But the legislature, that is, “thecollective wisdomof the nation,” aware of thy disposition to gullibility, has, John, taken thy affair of coals into its paternal and law-making consideration, and has made some regulations, as to the possibility of thy receiving “goodandlawful” weight. They are as follow:—To ensurelawfulweight to the purchaser, and prevent frauds in the sale and delivery of coals, the vender of all coals exceeding 560lbs. is to cause the carman to deliver a paper or ticket to the purchaser before he shoots any of the coals out of his cart or waggon, specifying the number of tons, the description of the coals, and the weight of the sack. And a weighing machine is to be carried in such cart or waggon, with which the carman is directed to weigh gratis the coals contained in any one or more of the sacks which the purchaser or his servant may require to be so reweighed. But no ticket is necessary to be delivered with coals purchased at the “Coal Market,” or with coals exceeding 560lbs. purchased in bulk from any vessel or wharf, if purchasers do not require a ticket. The seller of the coals not sending a ticket and a weighing machine with the coals, and the carman not delivering the ticket, or neglecting or refusing to weigh the coals, are subject to distinct penalties.
No less than seventy-seven kinds of sea coal are brought to the London market; forty-five of which are imported from Newcastle, and the rest from Sunderland. The best of the Sunderland produce are Stewart’s main, Lambton’s main, and Hetley main, or as they are more generally termed in imitation of the old Russell Walls End, Stewart’s Walls End, &c. The Scotch and Staffordshire coals are inferior to the sea coal both in durability and the heat which they give, being about one-third less productive in those qualities than the Newcastle and Sunderland varieties.
The test of good coal depends on the burning, and the quantity of bitumen it affords in its combustion; and no bad signs of its inferiority are that it is dull, small, stony, or slaty. But the quality of coals is in a great measure determined by the weight; for there often occurs a difference of 30lbs. weight in two sacks of different qualities, though equally filled: largeness of size is no proper criterion, for the inferior coals are often of the largest size.
The spirit of adulteration pursues poor John even into his domestic arrangements. Should he design to decorate his dwelling—“his neat suburban cottage”—and have the walls or wainscot of his drawing-room painted a delicate pink colour to rival the carnation tints of the cheek of his “cara sposa,” or those of his breakfast parlour, to imitate the lively blue of the bright eyes of his “lovely cherubs,” the vile sophisticators mar all his wishes, and he is able to obtain nothing else than dull and darkling daubs. In fewer words, he cannot obtain genuine colours wherewith to have his house painted. And this sophistication does not only extend to the common house-paints, (as where white lead is mixed with carbonate or sulphate of barytes; vermilion with red lead, and a long et-cetera;) but should honest John wish that his hopeful progeny may rival the Zeuxis or Apelles of antiquity, or confine his paternal longings to the more modern artists—a Reynolds, a Gainsborough, a Moreland, or a David,—he has the mortification of seeing his fond illusions dissipated by the adulterating manufacturers ofultramarine, carmine, lake, Antwerp blue, crome yellow, Indian ink, and all the other et-ceteras of artist-decoration.
The covering of even John’s sconce is not exempt from sophistication. In the room of the dear bought, far fetched beaver, the adulterators adorn John’s pate with a strange combination of wool and the homely and cheaply purchased fur of the rabbit and mole. This, it must be admitted, is cruel usage of the good old gentleman, and must, as the witty author of the Indicator says, bring to his mind an odd association of ideas, (namely, of cheatery and forgiveness,) in one of those communings with his hat’s lining, while, like a polite worshipper, he is whispering his preparatory ejaculations, before he turns round with due gravity and composure, and makes a bow of genteel recognition of the Mr. and Mrs A. and the Misses B. who have assembled in the pew before him.
Nor is he better treated by his clothier or man’s mercer. Not to mention the slight texture of the articles, and the substitution of inferior materials for the “best superfineSpanish” and the “super-extraSaxony,” the sly varlet artfully stitches the selvage of broad cloths, kerseymeres, and ladies’ “extra superfine,” dyed of a permanent colour, to the edge of cloth dyed with a fugative or fading dye; and this operation is performed with so much skill and nicety as to elude John’s most penetrating optics.
Neither are Mrs. Bull and her “lovely daughters” more exempt from the knaveries of the linen-draper, the dealers in laces, veils, silks, “Cashmere shawls,” French cambrics, and the other paraphernalia of the female wardrobe: they are all sophisticated, and often no more like the native article than “the moon is like green cheese.” Like “a true bred knight,” I shall not forget to furnish the female part of Mr. Bull’s family with the means and criteria for judging of the goodness of those commodities, in the work which, as I have before said, I have nearly ready for press. Nor shall I omit to take notice in the same publication, to give directions for the proper selection of the articles of furniture of the old gent’s house; such as feathers, blankets, carpets, &c. &c.
While gallantly professing my knight-errantry in the cause of Mrs. Bull and “her lovely daughters,” I find that I have made an unpardonable omission—not a word on laces and muslins! To propitiate their “kind consideration,” I hurry to supply the unpardonable omission. Let then every “lovely fair one” know that laces are now generally made from single cottons (instead of good double thread, as was formerly the case), and in order to make them look fine and clear, they are stiffened with starch, which occasions the delusive articles, as soon as they are washed, to fall to pieces. In some articles of lace, particularly veils, many of the springs and flowers are fastened on with gum, which, as soon as they are wetted, immediately fall off and betray the cheatery. Caps and other articles of female habiliments sold in thestreets, are often united together in the most ingenious manner by means of gum or paste.
Muslins are not free from sophistication-ingenuity. Poor, thin, rough specimens are rendered stiff, high glazed, and thick with a quantum sufficit of pipe-clay, &c.; sometimes a paper-pulp is spread over the deteriorated article; and the fibres of the cotton which ought to be dressed off, are left in order to hold the composition put in.
Stockings are often rendered stiff and thick to the feet, by bleaching them with brimstone. And coarse woollen cloth receives the addition of large quantities of fuller’s-earth to give it body and closeness; while the right or pressed side is finished off with oil, in order to give the cloth a fine, soft, and smooth appearance. Never choose woollen cloth which is glossy and stiff.
“The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and their conversion into leather; and in the manufacture of cutlery and jewellery,” says Mr. Accum, “exceed belief.” And I can assure my readers that that gentleman is not mistaken in his assertion; and, had he added that of cabinet wares and silver plate of all sorts, he would not have over-stepped the limits of truth. To those acquainted with the manufacture of silver goods, it is well known that you cannot always be sure that the various costly articles are of the legal standard with which Pride and Vanity, Luxury and Fashion, when they “set up forGentryandStylishpeople,” and have a desire for “shewing off,” gratify their whims and fantasticnotions of gentility, and their ambition of “outplating and outdishing” their friends and neighbours. The prosecution instituted some years ago against a “legitimate” son of Crispin for the manufacture of shoes, the soles of which were ingeniously united to the welts by only six stitches in each shoe, while the external parts of the soles exhibited evident traces of a multiplicity of stitches rivalling the number of the stars of the firmament of the heavens in extent and variety, and their exact mathematical precision seemed to display the exertion of the genius of a Euclid, cannot have slipped the recollection of all my readers.
And to complete the climax of sophistication, even the paper on which John gives birth to his “winged words,” and expresses his indignant feelings at the extent and the audacity of the frauds and impositions practised on his good-nature and credulous disposition, is sophisticated. In the manufacture of paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is often mixed up with the paper-stuff, instead of its consisting of good linen rags only, and the foreign substance is added to increase the weight of the commodity. Nor is he, when, like ourselves, desirous of having his thoughts and discoveries rendered “enduring for ages,” (monumentum ære perennius,) by having them cast in stereotype, and thus “save a penny,” exempt from the designs and contrivances of sophistication;—the founder deceives him by casting his “words that breathe and thoughts that burn” in a metal as soft and ductile as lollipop. Thus honest Bull is circumventedin all his intents, and surprised and overpowered at every turn by the Genius of Sophistication.
Friend Bull! if thou hast carefully and dispassionately (that is, if thou hast sufficiently divested thy honest mind of its usual scepticism—videlicet, its unwillingness to be convinced against its constitutional prejudices,) read my disclosures, I am willing to believe that thou wilt readily admit that I have established all my allegations of the frauds and impositions to which thou art subject in this sophisticating age, and that I have proved the truth and propriety of the title of my little book, “Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle.” What remedy (for a good advocate seldom forgets that prospective part of his duty,) to recommend thee to adopt, in order to free thyself from the knavery and effrontery of the sophisticators, I know not, except, hermetically to close thy jaws so as to prevent the entrance of any of the sophistications into them, or the more pleasurable remedy of preferring a petition to thy “gracious Sovereign,” who “can do no wrong,” praying “the omnipotency of Parliament,”—in its “collective and superlative wisdom” to take thy deplorable case into consideration,” and to devise some means, in the plenitude of its conjoint wisdom, to protect thee and thy “little ones,” in this “land of equal law,” from the arts and devices of slow poisoning. In the success of thy humble and righteous remonstrance believe me, thy fellowsufferer, and “enemy of fraud and villany,” will heartily and sincerely join.
THE AUTHOR.
Postscript.—In reviewing my well-meant, and, I trust, useful denunciations of fraud and villany, I find that I have omitted to speak of false weights and measures. But as the proverb says, better late than never. Not to mention the trick of clapping a piece of weight or other metal underneath the scale in which the commodity to be sold is weighed; commercial balances are frequently misconstructed for fraudulent purposes, by making the arm from which the substance to be weighed is suspended longer than that from which the counterpoise is hung, thereby giving the substance to be weighed a greater leverage.
⁂Authenticatedcommunications of adulterations thankfully received, and liberally paid for.
Note topage 28.
I have said at the above mentioned page that “the perfection of adulteration is in gin;” and on reviewing that passage I have no cause to modify the expression; but must, with all my heart and soul, assent to the declaration of honest Jonas Hanway, that it is “a liquid fire;” and must further agree with the said true-hearted old Englishman, that “it should be sold only in quart bottles, sealed up with the king’s seal, with a very high duty, and never sold without being mixed with a strong emetic.” This I admit is a very harsh prescription, and no doubt every true lover of “blue-ruin” will exclaim, notwithstanding that he or she is aware that their “comfort” is in the most abandoned state of adulteration, and is a rank slow poison, equally ruinous to the health and the purse;—What! a gin-drinking nation, and yet not a drop of “the genuine”—of the popular English beverage, the diurnal consumption of which in the metropolis alone, would inundate the largest parish within the bills of mortality—not a drop of “the genuine” to be had for money! Yes, Bull, whether thou beest of the masculine or feminine gender, this is the truth; and it is a circumstance, the reformation of which would well become the labours of the informing tribe and the bellowers of radical reform. Here there would be a fine field for radicalism and “informing” to exercise themselves in.
Note topage 83.
I have stated at page 83, that fish out of season is unwholesome. The following fact will confirm the truth ofthis assertion. It is well known that in Ireland and Scotland, where great facility is presented to the country people in catching salmon, both during and after the spawning season, the eating of the fish in that state has been productive of very serious consequences to the health of the consumers. Probably the unwholesome consignments of noxious fish obtainedexclusively, as the fashionable fishmongers phrase it, out of season, and to be purchased only at extravagant prices, often occasion to their epicurean customers and the legitimate gourmands much of the illness assigned to other causes.
Note topage 87.
At page 87, I have said that the quantity of tea consumed in this country is between twenty and thirty millions of lbs. weight; but I forgot to state that between two and three millions of pounds sterling are drawn out of the pocket of the public yearly in its purchase, either in the form of price or of duty. Surely the expenditure of this enormous sum by the good people of this country, and considering that tea has become so essential a part of the diet of every person in the kingdom, imposes an obligation on the sovereign company of tea dealers in Leadenhall Street to take care that the inhabitants of “this land of milk and honey,” who pay nearly eight times as much as their neighbours do for the same article (namely bohea tea), have a good and fresh commodity, instead of the tasteless, parched, insipid, and scentless rubbish which they retail out to the public, after having remained in the warehouse long enough to perish its good qualities even were its flavour and taste ten times more delicious and grateful than they are. Would it not, as it has been well said, be to the credit of some of our genuine members of the legislature to endeavour to procure the sale of a pure and good article, instead of the trash that is foisted upon the public at present, and which they cannot appeal from, by introducing a law into parliament legalizing the purchase of the article from other hands than the Leadenhall Street monopolists.
Note topage 89, &c.
An experienced friend in the tea trade who has read over and approved of the various tests I have mentioned at page 89, &c. for detecting the qualities of tea, has kindly furnished me with the following valuable communication:
“As a ready test of black tea being manufactured from old tea-leaves, dyed with logwood, &c. moisten some of the tea, and rub it on white paper, which it will blacken when not genuine. If you wish to be more particular, infuse a quantity of the sample in half a pint of cold soft water for three or four hours. If the water is then of an amber colour, and does not become red when you drop some oil of vitriol or sulphuric acid into it, you may presume the tea to be good. Adulterated black tea, when infused in cold water, gives a bluish black tinge, and it becomes instantly red with a few drops of oil of vitriol.
Note topage 154.
I observe that I have forgotten to give “a local habitation and a name” among the morning water and Sir Reverence doctors, to hisDoctorship DoctorLaing, of Newman Street, Oxford Street. And I have to beg pardon, most humbly and reverently, for passing over the quondam Greenwich Crumples, aliasDoctorCameron, aliasMisterColey, in Berners Street, Oxford Street;—theDoctorto a new patient with his morning water and “shiners” in hand, butMister, when the said “humbugged” patient, having discovered the fraud practised upon him, returns to “blow up” theDoctorfor his tricks and ignorance.
Note topage 166.
After all the vapouring and drivelling nonsense that has been said, sung and trumpeted forth by a certainportion of the Periodical Press respecting the “Simplicity of Health,” it is really consoling to find at last a man of sense and critical acumen having spirit and honesty enough to relieve the public from the delusions under which it is suffering from the book in question.
“An immense quantity of drivel,” says the spirited Editor of The Edinburgh Literary Journal, 1829, “has found its way into books professing to give an account of the best mode of preserving health; but of all the drivel it has ever been our lot to peruse, that contained in the work entitled the “Simplicity of Health,” is the most pre-eminent.” The ingenious and honest reviewer, after having pointed out several of the fooleries and extravagancies of the book, adds, “We have no patience with a piece of humbug like this; we shall not insult the good sense of our readers with more of this doting nonsense.” It must be admitted that this sentence is dictated in the strictest and the justest sense of criticism, and that had all those who have ventured to laud and recommend that dangerous little book adopted somewhat of its spirit, much bodily and mental suffering might have been saved to many people who will become the victims of its misjudged and culpable directions.
The burst of indignation and ridicule expressed by the Critic respecting Hortator’s foolish directions for “Squirting water briskly into the eyesbya syringe,” is too fraught with truth and utility to be omitted: “Is it not plain from this, that the poor squirting wretch must have bleared and blood-shot eyes? Imagine a beautiful girl at her morning toilette, presenting one of this dirty old booby’s squirts at her clear blue laughing eyes! But the fact is, this impudent old wife must be descended from a long line of tailors, who have bred in and in, till the imbecile race has ended in the scarecrow who has spawned the “Simplicity of Health.”
It is with much satisfaction that I am able to support the opinion which I have expressed at page 166, by sojust and judicious a criticism as the above; had I stood alone in opinion, that opinion would have been assigned to any other than its true cause—a sense of public duty, which ought with every true patriot to be paramount to every other consideration.
I shall now close my well meant, and I hope I may say, useful and patriotic little volume, with a few words respecting those pests and scourges of society, the sharking and extortionate part of the pawnbroking trade, and those banes of human comfort and existence the madhouses.
It has been well said, that as the poorest, the most distressed, and the most friendless are those who are compelled to have dealings with, and are exposed to the “tender mercies” of pawnbrokers, it is of the utmost consequence that such men as follow the calling should be honest, correct, and even humane characters. For the sake of honesty it is to be hoped that there are many of this description; but a little, and but a little unhappy experience when urgent necessity may compel the unfortunate to have recourse to shops of this description, will convince the most thoughtless person alive, that there are numbers of heartless, griping, and extortionate scoundrels in that trade, whose conduct and dealings are a disgrace to the most contemptible sharper and swindler alive,—who by every species of fraud, extortion, and oppression, rob, harass, and plunder the poor and the miserable, and add to the distresses of those whose misfortunes have reduced them to have dealings with the detestable harpies. The taking of illegal and excessive interest is comparatively the least important of their delinquencies, though this to the poor and unfortunate is grinding in the extreme, as these knaves in their dealings with those who have neither money nor friends, treat the act of Parliament for the regulation of thePawnbroking trade as a mere dead letter. The substitution of articles of inferior description for such as are of a greater value,—the taking off the gold hands and removing the interior works of watches, and replacing them with others which resemble them, of base metal or inferior value,—and the scraping or diminishing articles of plate and the cases of watches, are well known to those whose wants or emergencies compel them to send their property on its travels up the spout of the pop-shop. And through the defect of the law, and as the poet Crabbe says, “the protection of a drowsy bench,” sufferers but rarely obtain any redress. A periodical writer, in expressing his abhorrence of the frauds of these vermin, recommends the sufferers to lay “incessant informations against the malpractices of these villains.” But had that kind-hearted man been acquainted with the fact that informations have been repeatedly laid, and have always miscarried, and will always miscarry while the law remains in its defective state, he would, no doubt, have recommended a petition to Parliament, praying to subject the infamous impostors to the punishment of transportation for their audacious and daily frauds and swindlings practised “on the children of sorrow and the heirs of unnumbered woes and wants.” The fate of informations has been fully proved in the numerous instances in which a scoundrel in the neighbourhood of Snow Hill has defeated the purposes of justice by the contemptible quibbles, evasions, and subterfuges resorted to by his attorney in all cases in which he has been summoned before the magistrates at Guildhall, and by whose very disgraceful objections as to technicalities, he has contrived as hitherto, to laugh at and hold in contempt both Law and Justice!!!
“Where the noble mind’s o’erthrown.”
How true is the remark that “the history of theRedandWhite Houses,” like that of the Red and White Roses, would afford many interesting though appalling particulars were they collected in a detailable form.