The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-31 00:00:00

Detector's Revelations of Quacks and
Quackery.

Having driven the nail well hoZne by his " Reve-
lations," Detector, otherwise Mr. F. 33. Courtenay,
has here effectually clinched it in his Second Edi-
tion, with an " Addenda." He had already hurled
the vagabonds down, so to speak, into the gutter
bordering the public highroad : and he now contents
himself with fairly smothering them in the
mire of their own dirty facts and cases, of their
own nefarious practices and disgusting publications.
It required some pluck to have anything at all to
do with such a set •of rogues, even in the way of
meting out to them the deadliest punishment
of all, meaning thereby the punishment of exposure.
But Detector has done his work, here, bravely and
well—he has spoken right out—he has entered from
the first uncompromisingly upon the untemptingland
unsavoury task which he had, with so signal a
self-abnegation, set himself to accomplish ! Set-
ting himself about its accomplishment, in effect,
not only with a determination to call a spade a spade,
but with a determination also to use it resolutely,
wheresoever it might be deemed needful, in the effec-
tual cleansing out, namely, of those fouler Cloaca, the
haunts of Quacks and Quackery ! Before Detector
began his raid against the evil-doers and against
the evil system which they had set on• foot and
were encouraging with such fearful success to them-
selves and with such pernicious consequences to
many members of the general community—the atro-
city he has since laid bare was already notorious. It
stank in the public nostrils. It was blatantly au-
dible and brazenly visible, to the right band and to
the left. There was no gainsaying the fact of its
existence. And yet—granting all this—Until De-
tector put a sharp point to his. pen and dipped it
into that searing ink of his of a gall and bitterness
doubly distilled—Until he had fairly written the
Quacks down, lower even than Dogberry wanted to
be written down by the Sexton, namely, not only as
Asses, of a densely illiterate stupidity, but as Sneaks
and Bullies to boot, as Swindlers and Extortioners of
the most degraded character imaginable—Until De-
tector had done all this the Quacks were virtually un-
denounced, they were certainly in no way formally
charged with their iniquities ! Quackery until then,
in fact, drove its villanous trade triumphantly in the
very midst of us. For what he has done, there-
fore, actually done, in his capacity as Detector-
General of Quacks and Quackery, we take Mr.
Courtenay to be nothing less than a Public Bene-
factor. His exposure of the rascals has been com-
plete and most effectual. He has stripped them
not simply of a mask or a domino, but of the whole
of their disguises : and, afterwards, taking into his
" honest hand" a "Whip" like that apostrophised
by Emelia in the play, he has relieved his own over-
wrought feelings and those we are sure of very many
others besides, by " lashing the rascals naked through
the world," through our own noisy, babbling
world, that is, of Vanity Fair! The additional Facts
and Cases he has here brought together in the form
of the " Addenda," appended to this Second Edition
of his " Revelations," are as telling, as pungent, as
acrid we might even say, as any with which the vaga-
bonds were, some months ago, pelted by him in the
original Revelations themselves. The Pamphlet as
it now stands—in its entirety—consisting as it now
does, that is to say, of Revelations and Addenda
combined—is for all the world like the application
to a most foul and loathsome ulcer, now of the knife, '
now of the cautery !