Where is the other man, or cla.s.s of men, who would have returned the money, honestly earned, as agreed upon beforehand, unasked?
GENEROUS AT ANOTHER"S EXPENSE.
It is all very nice when one can exercise a benevolent spirit, and not draw upon his own pocket.
A well-authenticated story is repeated in this line of Dr. M. Monsey.
Pa.s.sing through a market one day, he noticed a miserable old woman looking wistfully at a piece of meat hanging just within a stall.
"What is the price of this meat, sir?" she timidly inquired.
"A penny a pound, old woman," replied the butcher, sneeringly, disdaining a civil answer to the wretched-looking woman, who probably had not a penny to pay for the chop.
"Just weigh that piece of meat, my friend," said the doctor, who had been attentively watching the proceedings.
The butcher cheerfully complied with the request of so respectable-looking a customer.
"Ten pounds and a half, sir," replied the butcher.
"There, my good woman," said the doctor, "hold up your ap.r.o.n;" and he dumped the whole into it, saying, "Now make haste home and cook it for your family."
After blessing the very eccentric but benevolent old man over and again for the timely provision, she drew up the corners of the ap.r.o.n, and ran speedily down the market.
"Here, my man," said the doctor, turning to the smiling butcher, "here is ten pence ha"penny, the price of your meat."
"What? What do you mean?" asked the butcher.
"I mean, sir, that I take you at your word. You said the meat was a penny a pound. At that price I bought it for the poor old woman. It"s all I"ll pay you. Good morning, sir."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ASTONISHED BUTCHER.]
I can imagine the "chop-fallen" butcher, standing, in his long frock, with a _beaten_ expression of countenance, alternating his gaze between the pence in his palm and the retreating form of the wigged and laughing old doctor.
A REPORT ON TEETH.
Many stories are told of the eccentricities of Dr. Monsey, and
"No man could better gild a pill, Or make a bill, Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister, Or draw a tooth out of your head, Or chatter scandal by your bed, Or tell a twister."
Amongst the vagaries of Dr. Monsey, says Mr. Jeaffreson, was the way in which he proceeded to extract his decaying teeth. Around the tooth sentenced to be uprooted he fastened securely a strong piece of cord, or violin string, to the other end of which he attached a bullet. He then proceeded to load a pistol with powder and the bullet. By merely pulling the trigger of the pistol, the operation was speedily and effectually performed.
It was seldom, however, that the doctor could induce his patients to adopt this original mode of extracting undesirable achers.
One gentleman, who had agreed to try this novel process upon a tooth, got so far as to allow the whole apparatus to be adjusted, when, at the very last instant, he exclaimed,--
"Stop, stop! I have changed my mind--"
"I haven"t, though; and you"re a fool and a coward, and here"s go," which saying, the doctor pulled the trigger.
"Bang!" went the pistol, and out flew the tooth, to the delight and astonishment of the patient.
Taking this anecdote alone, it is scarcely credible; but considered in connection with what we have already selected from the life of Dr. Monsey, and what we may write of his eccentricities in our chapter under that head, this may be believed as being nearly correct.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MODERN IMPROVEMENTS IN DENTISTRY.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARITY NOT SOLICITED.]
A SAD OMISSION.
Believing, as I do, that every reader of these pages is personally cognizant of the fact of the true benevolence of our present American physicians, and because of the silence of the few biographers respecting the generosities and benevolent deeds of those "who have gone before," I have devoted more s.p.a.ce to anecdotes of English surgeons and physicians than I otherwise would. I have searched throughout four volumes of biographies of American physicians without being able to find a single anecdote of generosity recorded therein worthy of notice. Also in the "Lives of Surgeons ----" I have to regret this almost unpardonable neglect. I am a.s.sured from my personal knowledge of some of these latter that there are a thousand instances, which, in justice to their benevolence, ought to be put upon record, as they are engraven upon the hearts of their suffering fellow-creatures, and not for the aggrandizement of the generous bestower so much as an example for the cynical and the uncharitable world.
A physician has just left my presence who has given away more than he has ever received from his practice. The good physician is always generous. A mean-souled man cannot become a successful pract.i.tioner. His success with his patients depends as much, or more, upon the kindly influences that beam from his eye, that flow from his soul, as upon the medicine that he deals out from his "saddle-bags."
Generosity and kindness are innate to the man. They require little cultivation.
The following amusing anecdote from "Every Sat.u.r.day," I have reason to believe, has reference to one of our best physicians, who is also a man of letters, and ill.u.s.trates my a.s.sertion:--
"INNATE GENEROSITY."
"One hot August afternoon a gentleman, whose name attached to a check would be more valuable to the reader than if written here, was standing in front of the Revere House, waiting for a Washington Street car. He was a slim, venerable gentleman, with long white hair, and a certain dignity about him which we suppose comes of always having a handsome balance in the bank, for we never knew a poor man to have this particular air. It was a sultry afternoon, and the millionaire, standing on the curb-stone in the shade, had removed his hat, and was cooling his forehead with his handkerchief, like any common person, when the Cambridge horse-car stopped at the crossing at his feet. From this car hastily descended a well-known man of letters, whose pre-occupied expression showed at once that he was wrestling with an insubordinate hexameter, or laying out the points of a new lecture. Suddenly he found himself face to face with a white-haired old man, dejectedly holding a hat in one hand. As quick as thought the poet--to whom neither old age nor young appeals in vain--thrust his hand into his vest pocket, and, dropping a handful of nickel and fractional currency into the extended hat, pa.s.sed on. The millionaire gazed aghast into the hat for an instant, and then inverted it spasmodically, allowing the money to drop into the gutter, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of a gentleman and a tooth-pick on the steps of the Revere House, and very much more to the amus.e.m.e.nt of another party, who chanced to know that the supposed mendicant and the man of letters had been on terms of personal intimacy these twenty years."
A CURB-STONE MONEY-MANIAC.
A man may possess large acquisitiveness and benevolence at the same time, like Sir Astley Cooper, and succeed both pecuniarily and professionally.
Such are, however, scarce. Those with an excess of the grasping principle in their composition ill.u.s.trate the truth that "where the treasure is the heart will be also." Asleep or awake, drunk or sober, such men never lose sight of the almighty dollar. The annexed story, though irreverent to the doctors, is not irrelevant to the case:--
During the late "panic," a fellow, whose prominent feature was in his Jewish nose, which presented the sign of acquisitiveness by the bridge widening on to the cheeks above the _alae_,--all men noted for acc.u.mulating have this sign, hung out by nature as a warning to the unwary,--was making a great noise, as he clung to a friendly lamp-post, to which he was arguing the state of the money market. "Come, sir, you are making too much noise," said a policeman.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTURE OF A WALL STREET BULL.]
"Me? No, "tain"t me that"s--hic--making the noise; it"s the bulls--the bulls, sir; them"s what"s making all the noise," replied the fellow, skewing first one side of the post, then the other, trying to get a view of his new intruder.
"You are tight, sir--tight as a peep," continued the watchman.
"Me tight? No, sir; it"s the money-market what"s--ti--tight," replied the gentlemanly dressed individual, though much the worse for bad whiskey. "Go down Wall Street, and Fisk and Vanderbuilt--all of "em--will tell you so.
Everybody says money is--hic--tight. I never was more loose in my--hic--life;" and he demonstrated the a.s.sertion by swinging very loosely around the lamp-post, and falling down.
"There, you are down. Too drunk to stand up;" and the policeman helped him to his feet again, and walked him along towards the station.
"No, sir. There you are wrong again; it"s stocks that"s down. It"s the stockholders--hic--that"s staggering along; they"ve fallen and skinned their noses on the curb-stone of adversity. There! don"t you see them--crawling along?"
"O, you"ve got the tremens. Come on," exclaimed the policeman.