The National Register.
London, England, 1812-09-06 00:00:00

SINGULAR CIRCUMSTANCE.

An interesting occurrence took place at Folkingbam on Tuesday
evening sennight —A poor woman, who had obtained a passobillet to
vinain there all night, was sitting by the tire of the kitohesi of the
Greyhound Lni, with an infant child at her breast, when two
CfitMNEY swr Les came in, who bad been engaged to sweep some
vt the climinew s belonging to. the inn early next motling. They were,
accord.ng to custom, treated with a supper,. which they had tr:glin to
eat, when the y. urger, a boy about seven years of age; happening to.
. cast his eyes up n the wontaniwbo had been likewise viewing them
w;th a.lixed attention from their first entrance) started up, and ex-
iffnel in a frantic tone—" THAT'S MT mo•rnsii !" and immediately
fi:-w into her arm.; ! It appeared that leer name is Mary Davis, and
tiuit is the 'cite of a p•ivate un the 2d regiment of Foot Guards,
n.,Ar serving iiithe Peninsula ; she resides in Westminster; her
husha:‘ti t:uitted her to embark to foreign service on the 20th of last
Tai nary, and on the 2.Sth of the same month she lett her son in th •
care or a woman who cccupted the t out rooms of her honer, While
she went to wash for a family in the nelghbouthoo.l ; on her re urn
in the tvenirtg, the 'woman had decamped with her son, and, not-
withstanding every effort was made to di .cower th it retreat, they had
riot binCe been heard of; but having lately been intormed that the
woman was a native of Leeds, she had come to the resolution of
Om,► there in search of her child, and with this vi, w had walked
fr:m I•nndon to FolkinOam. (1043 miles), with an infant not mole
than silt weeks old in her arms. [lie boy's master ,r.teit, that about
t.,e latter end of last January he met a woman and boy in the vicinity
of Aleaf,rd, where he resides; she appeared verve ral,ged, and other-
wise much diatrsirad, and was at that..tisne besting, the boy most se-

...,

SEPT. 6.

verely ; she then accos,ed him (the master), saying she was 111 ~;eat
distie4;s; and a long way from home, and atter s:-me Wilber
nary conversation, said, it he ‘vould give her two guineas to eiibl.!
her to get twine, she would bind her son apprentice to him ; this pro_
posal was agreed to, and the boy was regularly ..ndentured, the woman
having previously made atliiavit as to being h:s own nit4her. .1 ivs
testimony was corroborated by the boy himself; but as no tioni)t re-
mained in th! mind cr. any one re.peLting tl:e boy's HLAL inoti;,;r,
11 s master, wilh;,ut farther ccreitiory, resibiled turd to tier. „,_
iiatti!.lllt7i tiWalt;eIVCS Iftfy hirinaue:y in the poor veonian's
t, by. )1 old p irng tier coaCo.tair back. t..) London (h,r
heed by one of tile proprietors), but also ny Latte6ti.l6
fur 11‘t care Lum ct 21 0;

Dr. JENA' ER and Mr. BURNETT.

TO nu; EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER.
St R,—lf no aoswer is given to the Cow-Pox queries
in your paper, it tiny be conjectured that no answer
coil be givcti Dr. JENN ER has been ur:le..ted with so many
ivate and public addresses about the inoculatiou of his
own son, that be has published hi: reasons f)r it, sayiqg
that a t.;cnileman who had ju,t visited c. patient foil of Small-
pox,took his boy up a;:d kissed it, this so al.o ivied Mrs. J EN N Eli
that, having no vacciuc matter by him, he the child
the next day inoculated for Small-pox, which was full-,wed
by the usual success. Now, whether the fears of the
husband or of the wife were the immediate cause of the aer,
is not material, but to keep the act such a profound secret
for ten years, and then to feel so ashamed of i:, as to pre-
' varicate for a whole year after the accusation before the
truth was confessed, is a circumstance which yet remains to
be explained ; and how it happened that 0r..11.. NNER himself
could procure no Cow-pox lymph at Cheltenham, when it is
notoriously known that a friend's child w..is vaccinated the
same day his child was inoculated, is another as inexplicable

a matter.
I have watched the proceedings of both parties, I have
been, I confes4, surprised that the anti-vaccinists should he
so feeble in numbers, while circumstances and facts were
every year confirming their opinions, for, notwithstanding
the reports of all the medical colleges, and the information
received from the Continent and distant parts, the opinions
of the mass of people in this metropolis seem to have been
strongly against the experiment, and every year the college
has been obliged to confess that the assertions of the anti-
-1 %acclaims were in sonic degree realized. The destruction
of the Jennerian Societies, the enquiries of Parliament, and
the desertion of Dr. JENN ER from the post Mr. ROSE had
appointed him to occupy in the national establishment, ale.
enough to prove the weakness and fallacy of the practice.
With regard to the personal attack on a Mr. BURNETT,
whom I .only know by reputation, 1 need only answer, that
the labourer is worthy of his hire, and if, as it is said in the
parish of Mary le-bone, he has inoculated upwards of 8000
persons successfully, he entirely refutes the calculations of
1 the college of physicians, and sands next in reputation to
the SUTTONS and the Dr MSDALES.
, .
Certainly, I would rather trust such a practitioner with
the care of my child, than any Cow-pox pretender, who had
no experience in inovulation ; for if Mr. Bu ANET.T is not a
person of science and deep learning, his practice in inoce-
,i lation evinces there is more in observation-than in theory ;
l for the college overlooking the theory of SYDENti AM,
smothered two-thirds *of their - patients tor More than a
century, and none of the faculty ever understood the mat-
ter t:II the astonishing success of the SUTTON'S alarmed the
illuminati of Medicine.'
! Since the subject is srought forward in your paper, I will
beg leave to remark, Sir, that the report said to be printed
by order of...the Rouse Of Commons, is produced this yeAr