Tom White, the whipper-in of Blandsfort—An unlucky leap—Its
consequences—Tom given over by the _Faculty_—Handed to the
farrier—Larry Butler’s preparations—New way to _stand fast_—The actual
cautery—Ingredients of a “charge”—Tom cured _intirely_.
Tom White, a whipper-in at my father’s at Blandsfort, had his back
crushed by leaping his horse into a gravel pit, to pull off the scut of
a hare. The horse broke his neck, the hare was killed, and the
whipper-in, to all appearance, little better; and when we rode up, there
lay three carcases “all in a row.” However (as deaths generally confer
an advantage upon some survivor), two of the _corpses_ afforded good
cheer next day:—we ate the hare, the hounds ate the horse, and the worms
would certainly have made a meal of Tom White, had not old Butler, the
farrier, taken his cure in hand, after Doctor Ned Stapleton, of
Maryborough, the genuine bone-setter of that county, had given him up as
broken-backed and past all skill. As has been already seen, our practice
of pharmacy, medicine, and surgery in Ireland, fifty years ago, did not
correspond with modern usages; and though our old operations might have
had a trifle more of _torture_ in them—either from bluntness of knives
or the mode of _slashing_ a patient; yet, in the end, I conceive that
few more lives are saved by hacking, hewing, and thrusting,
_scientifically_, according to modern practice, than there were by the
old trooper-like fashion.
I was in Blandsfort House when Mr. Jemmy Butler, our hereditary farrier,
who had equal skill—according to the old school—in the treatment of
dogs, cows, and horses, as well as in rat-catching, began and concluded
his medico-surgical cure of Tom White: I can therefore recount with
tolerable fidelity the successful course adopted toward that courageous
sportsman.
Tom’s first state of insensibility soon gave way; and incontrovertible
proofs of his existence followed, in sundry deep groans, and now and
then a roaring asseveration that his back was broke. He entreated us to
send off for his _clergy_ without any delay, or the reverend father
would not find him in this world. However, Mr. Butler, who had no great
belief in any world either above or below the Queen’s County, declared,
“that if the clergy came, he’d leave Tom White to die, as he well knew
Tom was a thief; and if any clergy botheration was made about his sowl,
it would only tend to irritate and inflame his hurt.” But he undertook
to give him a better _greasing_ than all the priests in the barony, if
they should be seven years anointing him with the best salvation oil
ever invented.
Tom acquiesced; and, in fear of death, acknowledged “he was a great
thief, sure enough, but if he recovered, he would _take up_, and tell
all he had done, without a word of a lie, to Father Cahill of
Stradbally, who was always a friend to the poor sarvants.”
Mr. Butler now commenced his cure, at the performance of which, every
male in the house, high and low, was called on to be present. The
farrier first stripped Tom to his shirt, and then placed him flat on the
great kitchen table, with his face downward; and having (after being
impeded by much roaring and kicking) tied a limb fast to each leg of
it—(so as to make a St. Andrew’s cross of him) he drew a strong
table-cloth over the lower part of the sufferer’s body; and tying the
corners underneath the table, had the pleasure of seeing Tom White as
snug and fast as he could wish, to undergo any degree of torture without
being able to shift a quarter of an inch.
Mr. Butler then walked round in a sort of triumph, every now and then
giving the knots a pull, to tighten them, and saying, “Mighty
well,—mighty good! Now _stand fast_, Tom.”
Tom’s back being thus duly bared, the _doctor_ ran his immense thumb
from top to bottom along the spine, with no slight degree of pressure;
and whenever the whipper-in roared loudest, Mr. Butler marked the spot
he was touching with a lump of chalk. Having, in that way, ascertained
the tender parts, he pressed them with all his force, as if he were
kneading dough—just, as he said, to _settle the joints_ quite even. No
bull in the midst of five or six bull-dogs tearing him piecemeal could,
even in his greatest agonies, amuse the baiters better, or divert them
with more tremendous roars, than the whipper-in did during the greatest
part of this operation.
The operator, having concluded his _reconnoitring_, proceeded to real
action. He drew parallel lines with chalk down Tom’s back—one on each
side the back-bone; at particular points he made a cross stroke, and at
the _tender parts_ a _double_ one; so that Tom had a complete ladder
delineated on his back, as if the doctor intended that something should
mount by it from his waistband to his cravat.
The preliminaries being thus gone through, and Mr. Butler furnished with
a couple of red-hot irons, such as maimed horses are fired with, he
began, in a most deliberate and skilful manner, to fire Tom according to
the rules and practice of the _ars veterinaria_. The poor fellow’s
bellowing, while under the actual cautery, all the people said, they
verily believed was the loudest ever heard in that country since the
massacre of Mullymart.[6] This part of the operation, indeed, was by no
means superficially performed, as Mr. Butler _mended_ the lines and made
them all of a uniform depth and colour, much as the writing-master mends
the letters and strokes in a child’s copy-book: and as they were very
straight and regular, and too well _broiled_, to suffer any effusion of
red blood, Tom’s back did not look much the worse for the tattooing. In
truth, if my readers recollect the excellent mode of making a cut down
each side of a saddle of mutton, just to elicit the brown gravy, they
will have a good idea of the longitudinal cauteries in question. On
three or four of the tender places before mentioned Mr. Butler drew his
transverse cross bars, which quite took off the uniform appearance, and
gave a sort of _garnished_ look to the whole drawing, which seemed very
much to gratify the operator, who again walked round and round _the
body_ several times with a red-hot iron in his hand, surveying, and here
and there retouching the ragged or uneven parts. This _finishing_
rendered the whipper-in rather _hoarse_, and his first roars were now
changed to softer notes—somewhat as an opera singer occasionally breaks
into his falsetto.
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Footnote 6:
A massacre of the Irish at a place called Mullymart, in the county of
Kildare, which is spoken of by Casaubon in his Britannia as a thing
prophesied: the prophesy did actually take effect; and it is,
altogether, one of the most remarkable traditionary tales of that
country.
-----
“Howld your bother,” said Mr. Butler, to whom Tom’s incessant shrieking
had become very disagreeable: “howld your _music_, I say, or I’ll put a
touch[7] on your nose as tight as yourself did on Brown Jack, when I was
firing the ring-bone out of him: you’re a greater beast yourself nor
ever Brown Jack was.”
-----
Footnote 7:
An instrument used in the practice of farriers. It is a piece of cord
passed round the nose of a horse (being the most sensitive part of
that animal); and being twisted tight by a short stick, it creates a
torture so exquisite, that all other tortures go for nothing.
Therefore, when a horse is to have his tail cut off, or his legs
burned, &c., a touch is put upon his nose, the extreme pain whereof
absorbs that of the operation, and, as they term it, makes the beast
“_stay easy_.”
-----
Mr. Butler having partly silenced the whipper-in through fear of the
_touch_, the second part of the process was undertaken—namely,
depositing what is termed by farriers the cold charge, on the back of
Tom White. However, on this occasion the regular _practice_ was somewhat
varied, and the _cold_ charge was nearly boiling hot when placed upon
the raw _ladder_ on the whipper-in’s back. I saw the _torture_ boiled in
a large iron ladle, and will mention the ingredients, just to show that
they were rather more exciting than our milk-and-water charges of the
present day:—viz. Burgundy pitch, black pitch, diaculum, yellow wax,
white wax, mustard, black resin, white resin, sal ammoniac, bruised
hemlock, camphor, Spanish flies, and oil of origanum, boiled up with
spirits of turpentine, onion juice, and a glass of whisky; it was kept
simmering till it became of a proper consistence for application, and
was then _laid on_ with a painter’s brush, in the same way they calk a
pleasure-boat. Four coats of this savoury substance did the farrier
successively apply, each one as the former began to cool. But, on the
first application, even the dread of the touch could not restrain Tom
White’s vociferation. After this had settled itself in the chinks, he
seemed to be quite stupid, and tired of roaring, and lay completely
passive, or rather insensible, while Mr. Butler _finished_ to his taste;
dotting it over with short lamb’s-wool as thick as it would stick, and
then another coat of the unction, with an addition of wool; so that,
when completed by several layers of charge and lamb’s-wool, Tom’s back
might very well have been mistaken for a saddle of Southdown before it
was skinned. A thin ash board was now neatly fitted to it down Tom’s
spine by the carpenter, and made fast with a few short nails driven into
the charge. I believe none of them touched the quick, as the charge
appeared above an inch and a half thick, and it was only at the blows of
the hammer that the patient seemed to feel extra sensibility. Tom was
now untied and helped to rise: his woolly carcase was bandaged all round
with long strips of a blanket, which being done, the operation was
declared to be completed, in less than three quarters of an hour.
The other servants now began to make merry with Tom White. One asked
him, how he liked purgatory?—another, if he’d “stop thieving,” after
that _judgment_ on him?—a third, what more could Father Cahill do for
him? _Doctor_ Butler said but little: he assumed great gravity, and
directed “that the whipper-in should sit up stiff for seven days and
nights, by which time the _juices would be dried on him_; after that he
might lay down, if he _could_.”
This indeed was a very useless permission, as the patient’s tortures
were now only in their infancy. So soon as the charge got cold and stiff
in the nitches and fancy figures upon his back, he nearly went mad; so
that for a few days they were obliged to strap him with girths to the
head of his bed to make him “stay easy;” and sometimes to gag him, that
his roars might not disturb the company in the dining parlour. Wallace
the piper said that Tom’s roarings put him quite _out_: and an elderly
gentleman who was on a visit with us, and who had not been long married
to a young wife, said his bride was so shocked and alarmed at the groans
and “pullaloes” of Tom White, that she could think of nothing else.
When the poor fellow’s pains had altogether subsided, and the swathing
was off, he cut one of the most curious figures ever seen: he looked as
if he had a stake driven through his body; and it was not till the end
of four months that Mr. Butler began to pour sweet oil down his neck,
between his back and the charge, which he continued to do daily for
about another month, till the charge gradually detached itself, and
broken-backed Tom was declared cured: in truth, I believe he never felt
any inconvenience from his fall afterward.
This mode of cauterising the people was then much practised by the old
farriers, often with success; and I never recollect any fatal effects
happening in consequence.
The farriers’ rowelling also was sometimes had recourse to, to prevent
swellings from coming to a head: and I only heard of two fatalities
arising herefrom; one, in the case of a half-mounted gentleman at Castle
Comber, who died of a locked jaw; and another, in that of a shopkeeper
at Borris, in Ossory, who expired from mortification occasioned by a tow
and turpentine rowell being used to carry off an inflammation.