Iron County register., 1888-01-12

brac establishments. She said that a
very polite individual had called on
her the beginning of last summer in
answer to an advertisement which she
had printed in a morning newspaper
and had told her that he was an En-
glish physician who, with an associ-
ate, wished to open an Office in New
York. He was perfectly willing to
pay handsome price for suite of
rooms with the use of the general re-
ception room for patients who were
waiting to see him. He entered into
contract and few days thereafter
moved in with his daughter As soon
as he was established in the house he
advertised through various mediums
that staff of English doctors
and surgeons. fourteen in number
had located themselves at this
house and as it was their first
visit to New York they were willing
in order properly to introduce them
selves before the public, to give medic
al advice free. Having spread this
announcement broadcast, the polite
gentleman, who had as yet no asso-
ciate whatever. went to the front door
and nailed large tin sign in con-
spicuous position. The magical prom
ise of medical advice free had its nat
ural effect The door-bell of the old
lady's boarding house was pulled and
jerked and tortured into condition of
unremitting activity. The girl whose
duty it was to open the door became
an involuntary professional pedestrian
and walked against time between the
kitchen and front stoop making in
Vulnerable laps to the hour. The
handsome parlor was ovcrrun with
crowds of poor. sick and many times
hopelessly diseased people. As
many as three hundred people day
rang the bell, and the staff of four
teen hospital surgeons. consisting
however, of the polite gentleman and
one associate, who finally appeared
upon the scene. talked with all of
them. They were all kinds of chronic
invalids, but the invariable represen-
tation of the Gilbertian staff of four
teen was that each case would be
cured in six months, if such medicine
was taken as the English physicians
would furnish. OF course the various
miserable specimens OF suffering
humanity declared that they would
take the medicine and when they were
informed that the cost of it was sc
much they paid for it then and there,
. or if they had no mon ey went
around among their friends and
borrowed it. In this way the
alleged staff of fourteen sold hun
dredS of bottles of their So
called medicine. collecting from the
miserably poor patients who came to
see them all the way from five dollars
to fifty dollars each. Within COM
paratively brief period the collections
of the polite gentleman aggregated
hundreds of dollars, all of which came
out of tenement houses and the poor
est and most wretched novels in the
upper part of the city. As he always
told his patients that nothing could be
effected under six months time, no
awkward questions were asked by the
miserable people who were scraping
together q few dollars from week to
week wherewith to pay him, and nc
CDiD DIdlIltS NSLC OtCR IIlt 4StCi
that no favorable changes in their
condition had been accomplished. AT
the end of month, long before the
time had elapsed for the medicine to
work its beneficial results, the
polite gentleman and his rs.
sociate left saying that they
were imperatively called to
Montreal They left hundreds of bot
ties of their medicines behind them
and scores of wretched victims, who
crawled. crept, limped and dragged
themselves for weeks afterward to the
house where the staff of hospital sur
geons had held forth. asking piteous
and plaintive questions as to the
| staff's whereabouts. Nearly every
visitor had some heartrending tale to
| tell, and at least half of them related
| how he or she had borrowed the money
| wherewith they satisfied the polite
gentlema man's demands.
Queer things turn up in a big city,"
concluded the boarder. land queer
ways to make living"