""Well, why the d----l don"t you go?" I said, impatiently.
""Ah, gintlemen always come disguised to see Dr. A.--no--Dr. B., I mean."
""Tis Dr. C. I asked for," I interrupted.
""Yis, yis," he replied, collecting his muddled senses. "Yis, sure, you did, an" gintlemen always swear--two signs yeze a gintleman. Could yeze spare a quarter for a poor divil? By the howly mither, I git narry a cint, bating what sich gintlemen as yeze gives me. I have a big family to ate at home. There"s Bridget" (counting his fingers by the way of a reminder), "she"s sick with the baby; then there"s the twins,--two of thim, as I"m a sinner,--and little lame Mike, what"s got the rackabites, the doctor says--"
""Got the what?" I interrupted.
""The rackabites, or some sich dumbed disease," he replied, scratching his head.
""O, you mean rickets. But how old are the twins, and Mike, and the baby?"
""Will, let me see. The baby is tin days, and not christened yit, for we"ve not got the money for Father Prince, and there"s Mike is siven, and Mary is four, and Bridget junior is five."
""And the twins?" I asked, not a little amused.
""Yis, them"s Mary and Bridget junior,--four and five."
"I interrupted him by a laugh, gave him the desired quarter, and told him to hasten the doctor, which request he proceeded to execute.
"On the heels of retiring Pat the door opened, and the same doctor I had before seen entered.
""I want to consult Dr. C.," I drawled out.
""I am Dr. C.," he replied, measuring me from head to foot sharply.
"Fearing he would penetrate my disguise, I hastened my errand. "Having an ulcerated and painful tooth I wish removed, or--"
""This ain"t a dentist"s office; but if you have any peculiar disease, I am the physician of all others to relieve you."
"I being sure now of my man, that this same villain was running three offices under as many different _aliases_, my next object was to get safely out of his den.
""I have no need of any such services as you intimate. "Tis only the tooth--"
"Here he interrupted me by an impatient gesture, intimating that only a descendant of the monosyllable animal once chastised by one Balaam would have entered his office to have a tooth drawn. Admitting the truth of his a.s.sertion, and offering my humblest apology, I hurriedly withdrew from this _triplet_ doctor.
"Safely away, I reflected as follows: Here, now, is this scoundrel, by the a.s.sistance of an equally ignorant Irishman, conducting at least three offices on a public thoroughfare, under as many a.s.sumed names.
""Why, the fellow is a perfect chameleon!" I exclaimed, walking away. "He changes his name to suit the applicants to the various rooms. You want Dr.
A.,--he is that individual. You desire to see Dr. B.,--when, _presto!_ he is at once the identical man. And so it goes, while his amiable a.s.sistant seems to be making a nice little thing of it on his own account. Why all these intricate pa.s.sages? and why was I each time taken around through them, and out through a different door from that which I entered? Did a legitimate business require such mazy windings as I had just pa.s.sed through? Did Dr. A., B., or C., or whatever his name might be, rob his patients in one place and thrust them out at another, that they might not be able to testify where and by whom they had been victimized? Was not the newspaper proprietor who advertised these several offices a _particeps criminis_ in the transaction? And with these facts and suggestions I leave the fellow, who by no means is a solitary example of this sort of fraud.""
On another street in this city is another branch from the Upas tree. I do not wish to advertise for him, hence omit his _names_, which are legion.
Two of them begin with the letter D. The true name of this impostor commences with an M. He is old enough to be better. I know of patients who have been fleeced by him without receiving the least benefit, when the knowledge necessary to prescribe for their recovery, or of so simple a case, might be possessed by even the office boy.
You go to his first office and inquire for the first _alias_. The usher, a boy sometimes, takes you in, and, slipping out the back door, he calls the old doctor from the next office. They are not connected. Through a gla.s.s door he takes a survey of you, to a.s.sure himself that you have not been victimized by him already under his other _aliases_.
If he so recognizes you, he summons a convenient "a.s.sistant" to personate the doctor, and thus you are robbed a second time.
HISTORY OF A KNAVE.
The following is a brief and true history of one of the vilest charlatans and impostors now practising in Boston. He has ama.s.sed a fortune within a few years by the most barefaced villanies ever resorted to by man. He is one of the most abominable charlatans, who, for the almighty dollar, would willingly sacrifice the lives of his unfortunate victims, who, by glowing newspaper statements and seductive promises, have been drawn into his murderous den. By the side of such unprincipled villains, the highwaymen, the d.i.c.k Turpins, with their "Stand and deliver!" or "Your money or your life!" are angels of mercy, for the former rob you of your last dollar, and either endanger your life by giving you useless drugs that check not the disease, or hasten your demise by poisonous compounds given at random, the virulent properties of which the vampires know but little and care less.
Their boast that their remedies are "_purely vegetable_," "hence uninjurious", is as false as their pretensions to skill, and is counted for nothing when we know that vegetable poisons are more numerous, and often more rapid and violent in their action, than minerals. Both calomel and other minerals are often _given_ by these charlatans. I say _given_, for few of them know enough to write a legible prescription, much less to write the voluminous works which they put forth on "manhood," "physiology of woman," etc., which are but so many advertis.e.m.e.nts for their vile trade and criminal practices, and are intended to alarm and corrupt the young and unwary into whose hands they may unfortunately fall.
This fellow, whom I am now to describe, who sometimes prefixes "professor"
to his name, was born in the State of New Hampshire, and when a young man came to this city to seek his fortune. After various ups and downs, he became boot-black, porter, and general lackey in the Pearl Street House, then in full blast. He was said to be a youth of rather prepossessing, though insinuating address, and being constantly on the alert for odd pennies and "dimes," succeeded in keeping himself in pocket-money without committing theft, or otherwise compromising his liberty. But the odd change, and his meagre salary, did not long remain in pocket, for the courtesans, who are ever on the alert for unsophisticated youth who throng to the cities, managed to obtain the lion"s share from this embryo doctor, whose future greatness he himself never half suspected. Disease, the usual result of intercourse with such creatures, was the consequent inheritance of this young man.
"What, in the name of Heaven, shall I now do?" he asked himself, in his distress and despair. "Money I have none. O G.o.d! what shall I do?"
"Drown yourself," replied the tempter.
Such fellows seldom drown. Females, their victims, drown; but who ever heard of a natural-born villain committing suicide, unless to escape the threatening halter?
No, he did not drown, though it had been better for humanity if he had. He went to an old advertising charlatan, who then kept an office in a lower street of this city, a mercenary old vampire, named Stevens. Into the august presence of the charlatan young M. entered, and, trembling and weeping, told his history.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BOSTON QUACK EXAMINING A STUDENT.]
"Have you got any money, young man?" growled the old doctor, wheeling around, and for the first time condescending to notice the poor wretch.
"No," he sobbed in a pitiful voice.
"Then what do you come here for, sir?" roared the doctor, whose pity was a thing of the past. His soul was impenetrable to the appeal of suffering as the hide of the rhinoceros to a leaden bullet.
The young man, fortunately, did not know this fact, and persevered.
"I thought I might work for you to pay for treatment. O, I"ll do anything--sweep your office, wash up the floors and bottles, black your boots, do anything and everything, if you"ll only cure me. O, do! Say you will, sir!" and the young man writhed in agony of suspense.
"Humph!" grunted the old doctor, contemplatingly.
Doubtless he was considering the advantages which might accrue from accepting the proposition of this earnest applicant, for, after eying him sharply, and beating the devil"s tattoo for a few moments upon his table, the doctor condescended to "look into his case," and finally to treat the young man"s disease upon the proposed terms.
M. began his apprenticeship by sweeping the office, and the old doctor held him to the very letter of the agreement, keeping him at the most menial service,--boot-blacking, bottle-washing, door-tending, etc.,--protracting his disease as he found the young man useful, till the old knave dared no longer delay the cure, for thereby the victim might go elsewhere for help. When cured, M. engaged to continue work for the small compensation that the doctor offered, especially since he and the old man had begun to understand each other pretty well, and each was equally unscrupulous as to the sponging of the unfortunate victims who fell into their hands.
When the doctor was observed to prescribe from any particular bottle, M.
took a mental memorandum thereof till such time as he could take a look at the label, thereby learning the prescription for such disease; and the result was a decision that if this was the science of healing, "_it didn"t take much of a man to be a_"--_doctor_.
When the old doctor was absent, M. would prescribe on his own account, charge an extra dollar or two as perquisites, and deposit the balance in the doctor"s till.
In course of time, by this process of extortion, solicitations, and the increasing perquisites, M. was enabled to set up doctoring on his own account. The old doctor died, and M. had it all his own way.
The young self-styled doctor saw no particular need of making effort to acquire medical knowledge, but a diploma to hang upon his office walls, with the few disgusting anatomical plates (appropriated from Dr. S.), which were admirably adapted to intimidate his simple-minded dupes,--a diploma from some medical society would give character to the "inst.i.tution," and such he would obtain.
Being cited to court as defendant in a certain case, this _soi-disant_ "M.
D." was compelled to retract a former statement that he had attended medical lectures in Pennsylvania College, where he graduated with honors, and come down to the truthful statement, _for once in his life_, and swear that he had obtained his diploma by _purchase_.
His present rooms--house and office--are located in the heart of the city, and are not exceeded for convenience and neatness by those of the respectable pract.i.tioner. Having ama.s.sed a great fortune out of the credulity, misfortunes, and pa.s.sions of the unfortunate, he has settled down to the plane of the more respectable advertising doctors, and the terrifying plates no longer cover the walls of the _best_ reception-room; but a few valuable pictures and the Philadelphia diploma are conspicuously displayed above the elegant furniture and valuable articles of _virtu_.