Considering the severity of the remarks I have made in the preceding pages on the medical profession, it may be supposed I have set myself up in opposition to medical men of all descriptions. I have no such intention. The intelligent and skilful physician and surgeon I reverence, and only wish that the following observations were not a true portrait of their often unsuccessful progress.
It is certain no body of men can produce more noble instances of integrity, liberality of mind, and strength of intellect, than the Professors of Physic; but, as with other bodies of men, this high character will not apply diffusedly. To find, therefore, a fit person with whom to intrust our health, is not an easy matter. Fortunately, however, for the profession, people are not very fastidious on this point; and if they or their friends are but sent to the grave in a regular way, they bear the load of ills which their own follies and the ignorance of the practitioner may have heaped upon them, with great philosophy, imputing the whole to the natural order of things. Indeed, to judge of the merits of a medical man is extremely difficult; and, when we see one man ordering away, with contempt, the medicine which another has thought a specific, and pursuing a totally different course, we are forced to conclude that education alone will not make a physician. Reputation is not unfrequently got without merit, for who is to judge? Accident, solely, both with the drug and the doctor, has often been the maker of their fame. This may be exemplified by an anecdote of a deservedly eminent physician, which, though perhaps it has been often related, is not less to the point. The doctor happened to be sent for one evening, after having indulged at a convivial meeting, so that by the time he had been whirled to his patient’s door, he was very ill qualified to decide in a case of difficulty. Having made shift to reach the drawing room, and seeing a lady extended on a sofa, assisted by a female attendant, he, by a sort of mechanical impulse, seized her hand; but finding himself utterly unable to form an opinion on the case, he exclaimed, “D—— d drunk, by G—d!” (meaning that he was in that unfit state) and immediately made the best retreat he was able. Feeling rather awkwardly at this adventure, he was not impatient to renew his visit; but being sent for on some other occasion, he took courage, and was preparing an apology, when the lady presently removed his apprehensions, by whispering these words in his ear—“My dear doctor, how could you find out my case so immediately the other evening?—It was certainly a proof of your skill, but for God’s sake not a word more on that subject.” Thus, the doctor added to his repute by a circumstance which might have endangered that of a less fortunate man. This, though a ludicrous event, may serve, as well as a graver one, to elucidate the fact that many owe their celebrity, not so much to any judgement of their own, as to a want of it in others. As it is with other professions, so it is with physic. Many of its professors possessing great skill are doomed to pass their lives in obscurity, whilst they see others, of inferior knowledge and judgement, rise to importance. It has been truly said by one who was not unacquainted with the causes of medical success or failure, that, “Even among the regularly bred physicians accident will often accomplish what merit strives for in vain; and those coincidences of circumstances which frequently elevate one man and depress another in the medical art, are more the production of what is called chance, than from any extension of mind, or any peculiar tact or skill in the art of intellectual combinations.”
SECTION IX.
COALS.
There are few trades in which greater frauds are practised than in “the coal trade.” The dealers in the “black diamonds” are versed in all the allowable legerdemain and trickery of “auld England’s honest tradesmen:” the most skilfully initiated in the art of sleight-of-hand would find himself at fault in attempting to rival the dexterity of the true “son of the coalshed,” under the old régime of measuring, in ingeniously tossing his “spadefuls” into the measure so as to enable “the darlings” to lie lightly and “go far,” and assume the form of a solid cone, while the hollow cavity within proved as treacherous to any one treading on its “well raised summit,” as if he had put his foot on the surface of a quagmire. Nor was the well-fed, gaily clothed, richly lodged coal-merchant, with his “extensive concerns” to be easily “out-done” in well devised craft and contrivance: nicely pinched sacks, not foolishly flapping inwards so as to betray the precise amount of their contents,—well planned deliveries, either so early in the morning that the heads of the family might prefer the arms of Morpheus to the hazard of being choked with volumes of coal dust, or so late in the evening, that there might be a possibility of their being engaged in the “solid recreation” of their dinner, were a few of the demonstrations of generalship frequently exhibited by this portion of “the monied interest” and “great capitalists of the nation.”
But to come to the point in hand. An honest writer on the subject, Mr. Eddington, in his Treatise on the Coal Trade, p. 94, informs us that the keeper of a coalshed felt himself dissatisfied with his measure, if in doling out his article to his poor, half-starved, shivering neighbours, in pecks, half pecks, or bushels, he could not measure out at the rate of forty-two bushels from every chaldron of thirty-six bushels; without taking into consideration the gain to be obtained from vending the inferior coal, and the consequent increase of quantity by throwing a few bushels of sifted ashes, pieces of stone, bones, or any other commodity which will assume a black form after having been well rummaged among the heap of coals.
Another great source of unfair profit arising to the vender of coals is the “Macadamizing” of them, and like true “nursing fathers” carefully and sedulously giving them their due quantum of moisture. For under the old régime of measuring, the cunning varlets knew full well that by the greater number of angular points that they were able to produce, they filled their measure with the least possible quantity of coals. This paternal fulfilment of the command “to increase and multiply” they still piously and faithfully observe, as the greater progeny of small bits and dust that they can produce from a lonely and solitary lump, the more they will be able to increase the weight by their considerate and frequently repeated waterings and drenchings. Accordingly they set their shoulders to the work, and patriotically and radically proscribe every rebellious lump in their shed, by smashing it into as many figures as possible, often exceeding in number the ever varying mutations of the kaleidoscope, or Orator Hunt’s two hundred thousand unity tales. Nor are their “betters” “the merchants” less skilled in the art. Those considerate and sharp-sighted gentry, foreseeing that the large masses and blocks which are delivered out of the ships into their barges, round as they came from the mine, would be an inconvenience to their customers, and probable tumble on some fair and delicate damsel’s toes, kindly set to work, and smash away; so that when the round coals of every chamber, containing the ingrain of five chaldron and a half, have undergone the process of their friendly thumpings and republican equalization, they will measure out again from six to six and a half chaldrons. The increase by breakage appears by the following statement from Dr. Hutton’s Mathematical Dictionary: “If one coal measuring exactly a cubic yard (nearly equal to five bolls) be broken into pieces of a moderate size, it will measure seven bolls and a half; if broken very small, it will measure nine bolls.”
And even after the coals have gone through the conjuring process of being increased in bulk by the aforesaid smashing or Macadamising art, and have reached their destination at the wharf, the ingenuity of “the monied interest” and “the great capitalists” is still at work. Careful that the purchaser may not be put to the trouble of wetting his coals to make them cake and burn well, those considerate and obliging gentlemen relieve him from the task by scientifically wetting the commodity; and as a reward for their well intentioned and meritorious labours they generally contrive to produce, as Mr. Eddington informs us, “from six to six and a quarter, or even six and a half, chaldrons from each room,” containing five and a half chaldron of smashed or “macadamized” coals. A correspondent to the World newspaper for September, 1829, who signs himself a Coal Merchant, says that instances are on record where eighty and even ninety sacks have been measured out of a room of coals!
According to the new régime of weighing, (which has already proved one of the most deceitful hoaxes that ignorance and cupidity ever contrived against the interests of the poor,) the quantity is increased in a like proportion in favour of the coal dealer.
Another hint or two on this matter may be of some service to thee, friend Bull. Always recollect, John, in the purchase of your coals, that you pay attention to the season of the year; for there is with every article a cheap season and a dear one, and with none more than with coals: by purchasing at the proper season, often from twenty to thirty per cent. are saved. The method of purchasing should always be considered; for by purchasing a room of coals, which is called pool measure, two fourths of a chaldron is often obtained in every five chaldrons; for a room of coals contains in general from sixty-three to sixty-eight sacks. Therefore, where the quantity is too much for the consumption of one family, two or more should join together in the purchase.