Morning journal and courier., 1891-12-08

the town. and now, in one more fortnight, we must expect to be left candleless in the | unbroken night of December. It is the | same with everything. All our life is made up of a thousand pitisble wants and | hardships. Altogether, our housekeeping | is very original; on the one hand, an out | of-the-way Arctic hole where we are mo- body's business and nobody cares what we | do or how we manage; on the other, our | stern jailer, nature, who forces us to live | quite in prison style, to sleep in general | barracks, to eat at general mess, and so | on. If we did not submit to this we | should all have died of cold and hunger | before now. Another feature of our life | is the hard manual labor-labor as of | besst of burden-such ss even the all en- | during Russian peasant has no idea of. | For instance, for two persons to drag @ | loaded barge along with towing ropes for | forty miles is regarded here as the merest trihe, and, as there are no sails here, haul ing and rowing are the only means of nav igation. Then there is the autumn fish ing, standing knee-deep in the water and floating ice, and pulling at a frozen rope that cuts your hands till the blood comes;
 then moving in the deep swamp mud, at
 the mercy of the mosquito, often without
 any food or any drink but the water from
 the bog pools; then, again, the hewing of
 trees in winter, and in summer the towing
 of rafts for forty miles or more; and so on
 indefinitely.
 "Our intellectual life is no better. For
 tunately we have books in various Ian
 guages. Almost all of us read 6 good
 deal; many spend whole months in read
 tug; some even study seriously. But there
 is Q life, no encouragement, no freshness
 in it all; nothing to animate the dull, me
 chanicsl 'cramning up of English words
 or solving of mathematical problems. The real interest of our intellectual life gathers round quite another center. For
 us the first of all things is the arrival of news from the outer world. Once in three
 or four months the district post brings us | 8 bundle or two. Some of the letters are
 lost, the packages are broken open, many things are missing, the books are torn and soiled, at least third of the pages are gone from the newspapers and magazines; but what does that matterl The post brings, st least, few number of periodi- calls with fresh news or few new books; | it brings to each of us half-a-dozen letter. | from our relatives and friends. If you people in Europe could only know with | what agitation we wait for the coming of the post-how morbidly impatient we grow during the last month of expectation with what nervous anxiety we count the hours-the minutes, The arrival of the | post is a positive epoch in our life. It is piteous sight when some unfortunate gets | nothing; the way his lips will begin to | quiver, and the convulsiys efforts he will make to force a smile and not break down. There is a great deal of difference in the | way that people read their letters. Some ! rush up, seize upon their prey, and hur- | riedly escape, as though afraid that some one would snatch it from them: others | collect all their letters, examine the envel- | opes and seem afraid to open them; oth- | CTS, again, are regular epicures; they open | their letters, look at the handwriting, run | through 8 passage here and there, then | finally hide their letters until they can get | alone in their own rooms, and, in the meantime, try to pick up scraps of other | peoples news.
 How the Doctor BiaEnosed a Case. | From Csmraoa Sens in Surgery" by Helen H- Gardener. in Harper's MAgazine.'' "A doctor and a surgeon may be the
 same person." remarked the philosophical
 trainer, orscularly, "but they seldom are.
 If ysu whine-as the dogs do when their feet hurt after hunt-or if you limp or complain, a doctor guesses what is the
 matter with you. Then he guesses what will cure you. If both gussses are right, | you are in luck, and he is s skillful doctor. In nine cases out of ten he is giving you
 something harmless, while he is taking a
 second and third look at you (at your sI-
 pense, of course) to guess over after him.
 self"
 His medical pessimism and his surgical | optimism amused and entertained me, and
 I encouraged him to go on.
 | "Now with a surgeon it is different. Sur | gerry is an exact science. Before I took
 this position was A surgeons assistant in
 hospital In some places we gre called | trained nurses. In our places we are called
 surgeons assistants. That's why I make
 such a distinction between doctors and
 | surgeons. I've seen the two work side by | side so long. I've seen some of the funni- est mistakes made, and I've seen mistakes that were not funny. I've seen post nor
 tenn examinations that would have made 6
 surgeon ashamed that he had ever besr , born, looked upon by the doctor who treat ed the case as not at all strange; didn't
 ssagger him a bit in his own opinion ot himself and his scientific knowledge next
 time. I remember one case. It was Jap , anese boy. He was as solid as a little or . but he told MT. G. that he had beer } taking homoeophatic prescription for , } cold. That was enough for Dr. c.. red rag in the van of bovine animal il l nothing to the word homeopathy to Dr 5 e.. Hydropsthy gives him fits, ana eclectism almost lays him out. Not lon! r ago he sat on jury which sent a man tt 3 cure.' That gave deep delight to his reg ular' soul. Well, pr. G. questionet
 the little Jap, who could not speak gool g English, and had the national inclination = to agree with whatever you say. Ever beel ] | in Japanl Noi We'll, they are 6 droll lot g Always strive to agree with all you say O g suggest
 7 ".Did you ever spit bloodr asked Dr G. by-and-by, after he could find noth ing else wrong except the little cold fo f which the homeopathic physician wa @ treating the boy. Once, replied that youtl l ful victim.
 - "tAhal we are getting st the root of thi
 matter now,' said Dr. G.. Now, tel
 me truly Be careful: Did you spi; mucl !. bloodf
 D "'Yes, sir; a good deal.'
 a "The doctor sniffed. He always kney ' that a homeopathic humbug could no diagnose a case, and would be likely to ge
 just about as near the facts as light col d would come to tuberculosis
 d "'How long did this lasti' he inquired c
 the smiling boy.
 "I think-it seem to me-
 f GA half-hourf queried the doctor t twenty minutesf
 l. "I think so. Yes, sir. About half a
 hour-trenty minutes responded th u obliging youth.
 s heard that talk Common sense tol Il me the boys lungs were all right; but n was none of my business, and so 1 watchs r him treated, of and on, for lung troubl :. for over a month before got chance | k ask him any questions. Then l asked ir "a cidentslly.
 V "'whst made you spit that blood tn. time, Gihif
 v "I didn't know I ought to sw&llo' v him. he replied, wide-eyed and hnIiou, 7 7 Dentist pull tooth. He say to me, "Spi ss blood here" do like he tell me. You ,- doctor gay yer bad for lungs,spit blood II Next time I swallow him
 n "I helped another practitioner, in goo "a and regular standing, to examine A man ;1 heart He found pretty bad wheezs i !, the left side I had to nurse that man. H ,t had been on a bar, and all on earth ths ,f ailed him WAS that spree, but he got treai J ed for heart trouble. It scared the man a " most to death.
 {, "Id learned how a heart should sound - so one day tried his He WAS in bed the ,r and it sounded all right, so when the dot "a tor came in, I took him aside, and told hil , that I didn't want to interfere, but that ma p' was scared about to death over his hear ~ and it seemed to me it was all right oA lol haarie-and hfa ls