The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-06 00:00:00

ABER.

NETHY.

About a year and a half befoke the death of Mr. Aber-
nethy, a big fellow, clerk in a brewer's establishment,
went to consult that eminent man, when the following
conversation took place between them:—
The patient, who had a very crazy frame, but a sound
understanding, said, upon entering the parlour, and see-
ing a little old-looking man, with the knees of his
breeches loose, "I want to speak to Dr. Abernethy."
Doctor. lam no doctor. What brings you here?"
" I came for advice, to be sure. You don't think I
came to ask you how you do ?"
" Hal!"
.(muttered Mr. Abernethy, evidently pleased
with meeting a congenial. customer.) " No; I hope not.
But there's no use in your coming to me for advice. You
won't take it"-,
" Yes, I will."
" .be d--;- if you do:"
" nr be ciL2--'L,AI don't."
" What trade are you? A butcher, or a publican, or
a costernionger?"
" Not a bit of it. Yon!re all wrong. I'm a brewer's
clerk."

" What they call a broad cooper."
"'MS. lam a collecting clerk."
"Worse and worse ! Nothing can satisfy fellows of
your kind. You drink beer till you burst. Show me
your tongue."
The patient immediately obeyed the command by
lolling a large yellow furry tongue ever his chin."
Bad," said Mr. Abernethy, " very bad. You were
drunk last night?"
" No, I wasn't."

" So much the worse,. for the state of your tongue
must then proceed from habitual drinking. You are
always drunk, and you don't know it. You drink what
you fellows call heavy wet ?"
" No, I don't ; I drink ale because I wish to serve my
employers."
"To serve your employers ! - Then you pay for what
you drink?"

" No, I don't; I happen to be in one of the first houses
tn London."

" Then if you stay much longer with them they will
be one of the last, Here (pulling some of his specific
pills out of a drawer) , take one of these every other
night, and diminish your draughts of ale from gallons
to half-pints. But you won't remember what I say to
you?"
" Yes, I will."
" No, you won't; you have no memory."
" Yes, I have as good a memory as you; I'll get off a
hundred lines in Milton's Paradise Lost' with you
any day."
Ay, Pandemonium! You are always dreaming of
the devil and all his angels. Isn't that it.
" No, it. is'nt it; but I often feel a palpitation of the
heart and a headache, without having been a bit lumpy."
" Nonsense! How can a fellow who lives upon ale
have either head or heart? You have stomach and guts
enough."
" Really, Sir, I get very depressed, particularly when
I can't get inithe debts of the house. It's always cold
morning with ra then."
" Well, I advise you to take the pills, and take exer-
cise, and have mercy upon your employers and yourself.
Good morning."
As the patient was walking out of the room, Mr.
Abernethy said " Stay. Where are you doing business?"
" Over the water."
" Well ! Take a cab."
" Why so ? You just said exercis3 is good for me."
" Yes ; but between this and your place of business,
there are twenty public-houses, and I am greatly afraid
of the shortness of your money."
" When shall I call again ?"
"Do as I tell you, anti I need never see your face
more."

" I'll come if I don't improve, but I trust we shall never
meet again at this side of the grave,"
"If ever we do, I hope you'll repeat the hundred lines
from Milton. I'll be satisfied with that instead of a fee.
There (ringing the bell and whistling), that'll do—but
give me another call."—Sunday Tunes.

- -- -
HIGH TlDE.—Yesterday another of those extraor-
dinary high tides, denominated spring tides, occurred at half-
past two o'clock in the afternoon. The tide, which was still
flowing, and would continue to do so for some minutes, had
risen so high that the towing-path between Putney and Ham-
mersmith was between two and three feet under water, so
that those barges which are dependent upon horses for tow-
ini; them up the river, were unable to proceed. At Putney-
bridge, a barge laden with timber got jammed in, in attempt-
ing to pass through the centre arch, and all efforts to extri-
cate her were, until the receding of the tide, deemed use-
less. The Thunder, one of the Putney and London steam-
boats, was obliged, instead of laying to at the pier off the
Bells Tavern until her time of starting (half-past two),
to quit her moorings, pass through the bridge, and anchor
off the College of Civil Engineers, the authorities of which
establishment kindly permitted passengers going to Lon-
don to pass through their grounds to the steam-boat. Wands-
worth and Putney fields were flooded, and the water side
at Wandsworth was rendered impassible for more than half
an hour, and the basement floors of such of the fishermens'
dwellings, the door-ways of which had not been effectually
barricaded by pieces of wood and clay, were from two to three
feet under water. Proceeding further down, the river pre-
sented the appearance of a sea. The Chelsea Lammas lands
and osier beds, that cover many acres, were indistinguishable ;
the whole was one great flood. That part of Cheyne-walk
contiguous to the old church, Chelsea, was also flooded, and
the omnibuses and other vehicles were obliged to go through
it with the water up to the horses' knees. Battersea-fields
were in many parts covered with the tide. At Chelsea Hos-
pital the tide rose to within a fey inches of the summit of
the sea-wall. Had it overtopped this, the damage done to
the gardens, which are greatly below high water mark, must
have been very great. At Vauxhall and Lambeth the tide
poured into the ground-floors of the factories and warehouses
along the river-side, and did considerable damage. Fore-
street, Lambeth, was flooded, and Bishop's-walk was rendered
inaccessible to foot-passengers, in consequence of the tide
flowing up to the very gates of the Archbishop's palace and
the old church. The Horseferry, Alillbank, was all under
water, and the tide even rose to within a foot of the level of
the river wall in front of the new Houses of Parliament, which
wall was understood to be three feet above the highest of the
tides.

INUNDATIONS IN FRANCE..--We receive from dire-
rent parts of the country accounts of inundations, and acci-
dents resulting from them. A letter from Bar states that in
consequence of the continued rain and snow of last week, the
Ornain had overflowed its banks, and done much injury,
The valley between Bar and Bussv is nothing but a vast lake,
and the river rose so high on Monday night, that all the
ground on the right bank of the river was covered with water,
which carried off everything, and occasioned great loss..
Parts of the wall of the manufactory of MM. Cosquin were
overturned. The market gardeners near Bar have suffered
considerably. A letter from 'Verdun states that a bridge
between Dun and Stenay was carried off, and that there
was scarcely a house in the town which had not been
overflowed. The horses of the cavalry regiment were
obliged to be removed to a higher position. A washing-
boat was carried away with the iron gate to which it was at-
tached. The Meuse was full of beams, planks, and trees.—
From Tarascon, Feb. 28, we learn that the suspension-bridge
over the Rhone, near that town, had been unable to with-
stand the impetuosity of the current, and had been carried
off. Three persons lost their lives on the occasion, beins in
the act of passing over when the bridge gave way. rho
Rhone was no longer navigable. A letter from Bourg states
that. the mass of snow in the Jura and the Doubs was un-
usually great, and that apprehensions were entertained that
when it should melt the valleys would be inundated. From
Germany, also, we learn that all the mountains have been
covered with snow to a great depth, and in the Tyrol several
lives have been lost by avalanches. In Baden, nearly all
the rivers have overflowed their banks from the melting of
the' snow on the mountains. The Seine has overflowed a
great part of the country between St. Cloud and Suresne. In
one place the water appears like a vast lake, and covers an
extent of three-guarters of a league.— Galignani's Messenger.,
LONDON MARKETS AND STEAM-BOATS.— (From
" Martin Chuzzlewit.7)—" Many and many a pleasant stroll
they had in Covent-garden market : snuffing up the perfume
of the fruits and flowers, wondering at the magnificence of
the pine-apples and melons ; catching glimpses down side
avenues of rows and rows of old women, seated on inverted
baskets shelling peas ; looking unutterable things at the fat
bundles of asparagus with which the dainty shops were forti-
fied as with a breastwork ; and, at :the herbalists' doors,
gratefully inhaling scents as of veal-stuffing yet uncooked,
dreamily mixed up with capsicums, brown paper, seeds:
even with hints of lusty snails and fine young curly leeches,.
Many and many a pleasant stroll they had among the
poultry-markets, where ducks and fowls, with necks un-
naturally long, lay stretched out in pairs, ready for cook-
ing; where there were speckled eggs. in mossy baskets;
white country sausages beyond impeachment by surviving?,
cat or dog, or horse or donkey ; new cheeses to ally wild
extent ; live birds in coops and cages, looking much too
big to be natural, in consequence of those receptacles
being much too little ; rabbits, alive and dead, innumerable.
Many a pleasant stroll they had among the cool, refreshing,
silvery fish-stalls, with a kind of moonlight effect about their
stock in trade, excepting always for the ruddy lobsters.
Many a pleasant stroll among the waggon-loads of fragrant
hay, beneath which dogs and tired wagoners lay fast asleep,
oblivious of the pienian and 'the public-house. But never
half so good a stroll, as down among the steam-boats on a
bright morning. There they lay, alongside of each other;
hard and fast for ever, to all appearance, but designing to get
out somehow, and quite confident of doing it; and 111 that
faith shoals of passengers and heaps of luggage were pro-
ceeding hurriedly on board. Little steamboats dashed up
and down the stream incessantly. Tiers upon tiers of ves-
sels, scores of masts, labyrinths of tackle, idle sails, splashing
oars, gliding row-boats, lumbering barges ; sunken piles*
with ugly :lodgings for the water-rat within their mud-dis-
coloured nooks ; church steeples, warehouses, house-roofs,
arches, bridges, men and women, children, casks, cranes,
boxes, horses, coaches, idlers, and hard-labourers ; there
they were, all jumbled up together, any summer morning.,
far beyond Tom's power of separation. In the midst of all
this turmoil, there was an incessant roar from every packet's'
funnel, which quite expressed and carried out • the upper-
most emotion of the scene. They all appeared to be per-
spiring and bothering themselves, exactly as their pas-
sengers did ; they never left off fretting and chafing, in their
own hoarse manner, once ; but were always panting out,
without any stops, Come along do make haste I'm very
nervous come along oh good gracious we shall never get
there how late you are do make haste I'm off directly come
along .!' Even when they 'had left off, and had got safely
out into the current, on the smallest provocation they began
again ; for the bravest packet of them all, being stopped by
some entanglement in the river, would immediately be,i4in
to fume and pant afresh, 'Oh here's a stoppage what's ho
matter do go on there I'm in a hurry it's done on me did
You ever oh my goodness do go on there !' And so, in a
state of mind bordering on distraction, would be last seen
drifting sloivly through the mist into the summer light be-
yond, that made it red."

We understand that Lord Ravensworth and Sir
John Paul succeed to one hundred and twenty thousand
pounds each, Tight of their respective ladies, by the death
of M;55 Sinipson, of Bradley Durham ; and not one
innared and fifty thougavi: each, as has been incorrectly
stated.

be andmeiattgeedd into the school be-
e-- ....Or
The T - a Mayor and Aldermen. have. given orders
inmates are to have
longing to Ent!l
their 'ns increased to 24/. a year, to be paid monthly in_
theff pensions
stead of quarterly; and ten more pensioners are to be placed
on the foundation.
01. twenty i.norenuel
childrenlos hospital. l.
Woommu.—Yesterday Ralph Thompson, an en-
gineer belonging to Woolwich Dockyard, was accidentally
killed on board of her Majesty's steam-frigate Styx.; whit
engaged_ in- rePairing'' the- fleets ,of the paddle-wheel, th©
wheel was accidentally set in motion, and he was so crushed
that he died almost immediately.