"So shall I dare to give him shape and hue,
And bring his mazy-running tricks to view;
From humbug's minions catch the scattered rays,
That in one focus they may brightly blaze.
"I'd give our (nameless) knight, before he starts,
A tireless mind, where never Conscience smarts;
An oily tongue, which word should never speak
To call a blush to Satan's brazen cheek;
With, yet, a power of lungs the weak to move,
Which lung-quiescent ... might approve;
A changing face, which e'en might Homer feign,
A ton of brass for every ounce of brain.
"Then launch him forth, right cunningly to rage
Through the thin shams of this enlightened age;
To tell the people they are lords of earth,
And pick their pockets while he lauds their worth;
Drug men with folly, which no clime engrosses,
And sense deal out in homeopathic doses;
And making goodness to his projects bend,
With all right aims an ultra spirit blend.
* * * * *
"He leagues with those who number in their trade
A falsehood told for every sixpence made;
To Mammon mortgage all they have of heart,
To keep their wealth, with priceless honor part.
The fear of God the smallest of their fears,
Rolling in wealth, but bankrupt in ideas;
To save their purse, their souls contented lose,
And count all right, if worldly gain accrues;
Who, when they die, no memory leave behind,
But in the curses of their cheated kind!
"With these Sir Humbug riches seeks to gain,
And feels his way through lab'rinths of chicane;
Embezzles, swindles, lies, until at last
The eye of Justice on his crime is cast,
When, drugged with wealth, he quits our plundered shore,
And Texas boasts one fiery hero more."
[Illustration: THE TUMOR DOCTOR CONTEMPLATES SUICIDE.]
[Illustration: MARIAM, THE TUMOR DOCTOR.]
The worst specimen of a travelling doctor I ever knew first appeared at
R., one of the principal towns of Vermont, a few years ago. His name was
Mariam; or that was what he called himself. He was a Canadian by birth,
about twenty-five years of age, short, dark-complexioned, and claimed to
be the seventh son of somebody. He was very illiterate, not being able to
write a prescription, or his name, for that matter, when he came to R.
I visited his rooms at the hotel, after he had been in town some weeks,
and noticed, among other things, that his table was strewn with sheets of
paper, upon which he had been practising writing his signature. He opened
here boldly. He sent out thousands of circulars in the various trains of
cars running from R., distributing them in person, on the Poor Richard's
principle, that "if you want your work done, do it; if not, send." He
inserted cards in the two village papers, containing the most illiterate
and preposterous statements, and hundreds flocked to see him. Imagine his
knowledge, for he assured me, to whom he opened his heart in confidence,
that he never read a page of a medical work in his life.
He first claimed to cure by the laying on of hands; but as he possessed no
magnetic powers, he gradually abandoned that deception. As he could not
write a prescription, and knew nothing of compounding medicines, he would
go with a patient to a druggist's, and looking over the names of drugs on
the bottles exposed on the shelves, order two or three articles at random,
and, as one druggist assured me, of the most opposite properties; such as
tincture of iron and iodide of potash, etc. (NOTE. The acid in the M.
Tinct. iron sets the iodine free.)
His clothes were very seedy, "and the crown of his hat went flip flap,"
and his toes were healthy, "being able to get out to the air," when he
came to R. Soon he was "in luck," and a nice suit of clothes, a new silk
hat, and boots, speedily graced his not inelegant person. I saw him both
before and after the transformation.
The following is a true copy of one of his certificates, taken from his
circular:--
"A GREAT CURE OF AN OVARIAN TUMOR!
"This is to certify that Dr. Mariam cured me of an immense _ovarian
tumor of the left shoulder_, weighing five pounds and a half, from
which I suffered," etc., etc.
(Signed) Mrs. ---- ----.
"MALONE, N. Y."
On this item being ridiculed in the papers of R., Mariam changed it to a
"rose cancer," and continued the certificate.
Mariam had been practising in Malone, N. Y., also at Whitehall, where, I
was informed by a newspaper man, he was arrested for obtaining money
under false pretences. He, however, escaped and fled, to practise his
deceptions elsewhere. It was reported that he shuffled off his mortal coil
by finally taking two ounces of laudanum, after the civil authorities had
placed him comfortably in the county jail, where he had the pleasure of
passing many days in viewing the world through an iron-barred window, and
reflecting on his eventful career.