Colonial facts and fictions: Humorous sketches

by John Milne

During the last two years Launceston and northern Tasmania have been much disturbed with small earthquakes. Many of these have been sufficient to produce slight cracks in walls, and to disturb stone ornaments on the parapets of buildings. One small minaret, like a spire on a church tower, had been partly twisted round. The origin of these disturbances is supposed to be near the eastern entrance to Bass Strait.

JOHNSON’S BOY.

I suffered from toothache when I was in Launceston, and was in consequence led to make inquiries about dentistry. ‘Speaking of teeth,’ said a gentleman at the club, ‘we have a dentist in this town who will whip spots out of all the tooth carpenters in creation. He came here about two years ago, and set up as a locksmith and general mechanic. Everybody said he was pretty clever, but somehow or other he didn’t succeed as he ought to have done. The only work he could get when he first came was to mend sewing machines, and now and then a bicycle. But it is an ill wind that blows no one any luck. Fergusson, the manager of the Bank of Van Diemen’s Land (that’s a name we hate, you know), was taking a walk one afternoon near the beach, when he suddenly found a sack over his head, and, before he could turn round or shout for help, he was tied to a tree and gagged. The ruffians then took his keys, went down to the bank, and helped themselves. Of course there was a lot of talk about the affair, and the newspapers said that bank-managers who had only one key to their safes ought to be held responsible for any loss which might occur. The result of all this was that Johnson got the job of altering a lot of safes, so that they could only be opened by two keys. Next he got railway work. After this he started electric bells. The electrical business—which he does very well, mind ye, and, if you want electrical bells, you can’t do better than go to Johnson—seems to have started him off in a new line. You have heard, no doubt, of Pulvermacher’s electrical belts, which are made of bits of magnets wrapped up in flannel. They say it’s the magnetism that works the cure, but I think it’s the flannel. Johnson had an idea that electricity was the thing, and if you could get from time to time a gentle current passed through your system it might be exceedingly beneficial. That electrical currents work cures for rheumatism and other diseases is demonstrated every day in hospitals throughout the world. The problem which Johnson set himself was how to get a current passed through a man without using a machine or a battery—the man must make his own current. At every meal a man took in a certain quantity of food which, like fuel, gives out heat. Instead of converting the whole of the food into tissue and heat, Johnson wanted to convert a bit of it into electricity; and he solved the problem splendidly.’

‘And how did he do it?’ I inquired.

‘Well, when a man takes his food, there is always a certain amount of salt and acid in his mouth, you know. Now Johnson thought that if a man had his upper row of teeth made of copper, and the lower ones made of zinc, a regular battery might be established.’

‘And has he ever tried it?’ I asked.

‘Tried it indeed! He’s tried it in all shapes you could think about, and, what is more, he has taken a patent out for the arrangement. In a prospectus he issued, he called it “The New Dentistry, the Curer of all Diseases and the Improver of the Mind.” Battery teeth were guaranteed to strengthen the whole muscular system, restore long-lost complexions, cure headaches, and to rouse into activity the whole physical action of the human frame. He began with his shop-boy. First he stopped some holes in his uppers with copper, and then corresponding holes, which he bored in the lowers, with zinc. The boy was originally one of those stupid fat-faced youths, without a sequence of ideas in his head. After the new stopping was in, it was generally remarked that he had suddenly become intelligent. As this was so successful, Johnson next experimented by respectively replacing two of his uppers and two of his lowers with zinc and copper. The effect was astounding. Every time the boy closed his mouth and made contact, his countenance would light up with a preternatural glow of intelligence, and he would look at you as if he was reading your inmost thoughts. When he opened his mouth, of course the contact was broken, and the expression of wisdom would be suddenly replaced by the old look of stupidity.

‘Lots of us used to go round to see Johnson’s boy make and break contact, or, as he called it, turning on the intellect.

‘One thing which was very remarkable, was the boy’s behaviour when, after lying all night with his mouth shut and the current running, he first got up in the morning. He seemed to be so full of spirits, that until he had had a run round the town with his mouth open there was no restraining him. Johnson was delighted, and to determine the limits to which the experiment might be carried, he pulled out all the boy’s teeth, and set him up with his copper and zinc arrangement.

‘The results were more remarkable than ever. Day by day the boy’s brains got bigger and bigger, until at last his intellect became perfectly gigantic. When the current was on, one great hobby he took to was to write poetry, for all of which Johnson secured the copyright. At times, when he had his teeth arranged in series, the current was so intense that Johnson was afraid to let him sleep, unless he had a wooden plug in his mouth just to keep the circuit open.