“Ah, you are a queer fellow. Pray, mister, may I ask your name?”
“Fools and clowns,” said the gentleman, “call me ‘Mister;’ but I am in reality one of the clowns of Aristophanes; and my real name is Brekekekex Koax! Drive on, postillion!”
Now this is what we call a “pursuit of knowledge under difficulties” of the most obstinate kind.
In these “leaking” days of wintry-spring, when that classical compound called “splosh,” a conglomerate of dirty snow and unmistakable mud, pervades the streets of the city, perhaps these “Street Thoughts by a Surgeon” may not be without some degree of wholesome effect upon the community:
“In perambulating the streets at this period, what a number of little ragamuffins I observe trundling their hoops! With what interest I contemplate their youthful sport; particularly when I regard its probable consequences! A hoop runs between a gentleman's legs. He falls. When I reflect on the wonderful construction of the skeleton, and consider to how many fractures and dislocations it is liable in such a case, my bosom expands to a considerate police, to whose ‘non-interference’ we are indebted for such chances of practice!
“The numerous bits of orange-peel which diversify the pavement, oftentimes attract my attention. Never do I kick one of them out of the way. The blessings of a whole profession on the hands that scatter them! Each single bit may supply a new and instructive page to the ‘Chapter of Accidents.’
“Considering the damp, muddy state of the streets at this time of the year, I am equally amazed and delighted to see the ladies, almost universally, going about in the thinnest of thin shoes. This elegant fashion beautifully displays the conformation of the ankle-joint; but to the practitioner it has another and a stronger recommendation. I behold the delicate foot separated scarcely by the thickness of thin paper from the mire. I see the exquisite instep, undefended but by a mere web. I meditate upon the influence of the cold and wet upon the frame. I think of the catarrhs, coughs, pleurisies, consumptions, and other interesting affections that necessarily must result from their application to the feet; and then I reckon up the number of pills, boluses, powders, draughts, mixtures, leeches, and blisters, which will consequently be sent in to the fair sufferers, calculate what they must come to, and wish that I had the amount already in my pocket!”
A world of satirical truth is here, in a very small compass.