The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-12-28 00:00:00

WINDFALLS FOR DOCTORS.

(From the " Romance of Medicine," in Landon Society.)

The curiosities of medical life and practice are end.
less. If we hear very often of medical men doing
arduous work for very scanty remuneration, sometimes
there is an a,reeable obveree of receiving very splendid
remuneration fir very scanty services. We know of a
medical man whose duty it is to take lunch every day
at a great castle belonging to a noble lord. The
household is immense; and there is just the chance
that there may be some case of indisposition demanding
attention. Ile gets some of the best company and beat
lunches in England, and duly charges a guinea for
each attendance.
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There is a very wealthy man near a great city, who
cannot bear to be left for the night. There is a phy-
sician of great ability who drives out of town nightly
to sleep at his residence; he is consequently debarred
evening society, and if he goes out to dinner he has to
leave his friends before wine. He has to charge his
patient a thousand a year; and, I think, he works
hard for his money.
Sometimes the services are such that money cannot
repay them. A friend of mine, a young medicos, had
a standing engagement of four hundred a year to look
after the health of an old lady. She required to be in-
spected three times a day, and make an exhibition of
tongue and pulse. What made matters no augravating
was, that she was as strong as a horse, while the
doctor was a delicate man. She was so selfish
and perverse, that he was obliged to tell her that he
would have nothing to do with her case. Similarly,
I know the eon of a rich man who proposed to pay a
clergyman several hundred pounds a year for leave to
spend his evenings with labn. The parson, however,
was obliged to tell his rich friend that he talked such
intolerable twaddle, that he could not accept his com-
pany on any terms that could be named.
hut the oddest of these arrangements is the follow-
ing. A medical man has been attending a patient
several years, and yet he has never seen his patient.
The gentleman firmly believes that he has an
escephagua of peculiar construction, and that he
is accordingly liable at any moment to be choked,
That help may be at hand whenever any sudden
emergency may occur, he has a physician in
the house night and day. The physician, being
human, must needs take his walks abroad, and it
becomes necessary to provide a substitute for him two
hours a day. Accordingly a doctor attends daily from
twelve to two, fills up his time by disposing of an ad-
mirable lumh, and finds the gold and silver coin, in
their usual happy combination, neatly put by the side
of his plate in tissue-paper. Up to the present date
he has never had the pleasure of exchanging words
with his interesting patient.

MEDITATIONS UPON MATRIMONY.
(By a Married Man.)

Life is beset with dangerous temptations. When
you take your wife down Regent street always leave
your purse at home.
In connubial arithmetic, &husband must be reckoned
as less than half a man when his better half is with him.
Pity the poor gentleman whose wife will have a
latch key I
Marriage would in many cases be • blissful state, if
it were not for cold mutton.
When you detect a wife's unusual affection for her
husband, you may expect to see her before Img in a
new bonm t
Pleasant is the Derby Day with bachelor acquaint-
ances • but a trip to a West enl jeweller's is a costly
price io pay for it.
If your wife says, "Dear Mamma is coming for •
week or so," you may prepare your mind to receive her
for amooth or two.
Lovers sometimes rave about the sunshine that gilds
Itnarrie 1 life; but when they collie to bask in it they
find it is mere m oonshine.—Punch's Almanack.

A "special telegram" to the Chicago Tribune, dated
Detroit November 2lith, says :—" The trial of Walter Scott,
charged with the murder of his fatberdn-law, Oliver Crom.
well, at Pontiac, results in his discharge." This is the way
they make history In America.
A Soffeicrree CASE —A fat al gentleman was bit-
ten In the calf of the leg by a dog. lie at once [wheat to
the office of the Justice of the peace, and meferrvd a com-
plaint against a man lathe neighbourhood whom he an, po,ed
to be the owner of the off, ndlng cur. The following was the
defence offered on the trial :—"1. By testimony In favour of
the general good character of my dog, I shall prove that to-
lling could make him Sc forgetful of his canine dignity as to
bite a calf. 2. Be is blind, and cannot see to bite. 3.
Even if he could see to bite, it would be utterly impouthle
for him to go out of his way to do so, on account of his
severe toneness. e. Granting his eyes and less to be geod,
be lies be Weld I I nem Me ow dog."