DOI Heft:
January to June, 1853
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16611#0146
138
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
" Proud, indeed ! ! Vhy I remember him a Gostermonger's dog Vonee ! '>
REMUNERATION FOR RAILWAY SURGERY.
" Mr. Punch,
" I am a man who has seen better days—though the present
might be worse. Once I was an extensive stage-coach proprietor: the
Railroads ruined me, and I am now in an almshouse.
" People are so fast now, that they say it is all cant to talk about the
greater pleasantness of travelling in the old coaching days. Therefore,
I won't argue how agreeable the drive used to be in the fresh air, with
the entertainment that turned up in the events of the road, and in
seeing country and the gentlemen's seats that you passed, and the
wood-smoke curling up from the Park lodges, and the tidy barmaid,
at every place where we changed horses, coming out with a glass
of ale.
" But I '11 tell you what, Mr. Punch; there was one advantage of
travelling by coach, that there is no mistake or humbug in speaking of.
I say, Sir, it was a comfort to think that, if you were so unfortunate as
to meet with an accident, by means of being upset, or such like, you
were sure to be found willingly with the best surgical assistance that
was to be had. Suppose you had the bad luck to get your leg broken,
you had it mended, or if that was impossible, removed, and the expense
of getting rid of it, and being fitted with another, defrayed. The same
was the case if any poor creature happened to be run over. Now, Sir,
look back at that picture, and then look here on this :—
"'BLACKBURN
" ' Important Railway Case.—Samuel Hope Wraith v. the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway Company.—In the County Court, at Blackburn, on Tuesday last, the above
case came on for hearing. The plaintiff, a surgeon, had been sent for at an early hour
of the morning, to attend a person who had just been run over by one of the defendants'
trains, and was lying bleeding by the side of the line with one thigh fractured and two
toes of the other limb also fractured. The plaintiff went immediately, and whilst
attending, was told by the station-master that he must attend to the case and would be
paid by the Company. The plaintiff consulted with another surgeon whether the patient
could bear to be removed to the Infirmary, at Manchester; but ihey thought he would
die before he could be got-there. The plaintiff then proceeded to amputate the thigh
and the two toes. After about two months, the patient so far recovered as not to
require further surgical attendance. The plaintiff made a charge for attendance and
medicine of £8, being less than his usual charge, because the patient was a poor man.
On the part of the defendants the fact was not disputed, nor was any question raised as
to the propriety of the treatment or the amount of the charge, but it was contended
ihat, according to the decision of the Court of Exchequer in ' Cox v. the Midland
Railway Company,' the defendants were not liable to pay the surgeon's bill; the
judges in that case having held that it was not the duty of a railway guard or station-
master to enter into a contract with a surgeon to attend a passenger, accidentally
injured on a railway.'
"I have cut the above piece of useful information out of the
Manchester Pxaminer and Times. I say useful information, because it
may teach surgeons to_ ascertain the solvency of a sufferer by a railway
accident before rendering him any assistance—if surgeons are the same
good men of business that railway directors are. The gentlemen of
the Lancashire and Yorkshire think, I suppose, that a doctor can afford
to give attendance and advice gratis, but that their Company cannot
afford to pay £8.
"I should mention that the Judge 'much to his regret,' was
obliged by what the lawyers call ' precedent,' to declare the plaintiff
nonsuited. Mr. Wraith will therefore have to mind, in future, how
he attends to people that have been crushed on the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway, unless he is prepared to take that trouble for
nothing, except the reward of an approving conscience.
" Whenever a coach of ours was the means of injuring an unfortu-
nate fellow-creature that hadn't the means to employ a surgeon, I'm
sure I and my partners were always ready and willing to pay the
doctor's bill, whatever it came to; and perhaps a trifle over to the
sufferer to make amends : as respectable people. Yet ours was a small
concern compared to one of these Railway Companies. You would
think a matter of eight pound would not hurt such a body as that;
' but what with competition, and going to law, and gambling, and one
thing and another, the fact is, I take it, that railways are so badly off
that they are obhged to scrape and save every sixpence they can to pay
dividends. That is why they cut down their expenses, in the first
place, and so cause accidents, and then grumble at having to pay for
the damage they do in the next. What is the remedy for all this ? I
say, the Whip. I mean the whip with the old four-in-hand, but you may
propose that instrument without it • which certainly would be a means
of appealing to the feelings of people who have no sense of shame that
you can touch up.
" I am no Protectionist—though my opinions may show rather a
stable mind. I don't want any compensation from the railways, but
I think they might have indemnified my doctor if I had been one of
their victims, in a different sense from that in which I may call myself,
" Smashed, but not Killed."
NO ROSE WITHOUT A THORN.
Poor Colonel Rose, the charge d'affaires at Constantinople, who, in
the absence of the ambassador from the post of duty, did his best at
a moment of great difficulty, has been for the last week or two the
target of all the pens in the newspapers. If anything goes wrong,
somebody, of course, must bear the blame; but who is to bear it is
quite a separate question from who is really blameable. Poor Colonel
Rose has been made the subject of a shower of attacks which have
fluctuated in the degrees of their severity, not according to the con-
sideration of what he did, but according as the accounts from the East
or from Paris have been favourable or otherwise. Of course when a
measure taken by a charge d'affaires happens to be successful, the whole
merit is given to the ambassador; but, if the step should chance to be
unfortunate, the whole of the odium is heaped on the head of the
unhappy subordinate. It is quite clear that the couch occupied by
Colonel Rose is not exactly a bed of roses.
A Tew of " The Hills that (Horse) Flesh is Hair to."
"Dear Punch,—I sends you a short list on 'em. There's—
" Snow Hill, and
" Ludgate Hill, and
" Maida Hill, and
" Pentonville Hill; and, last not least,
" Holborn Hill.
"Now, I think that's enough—with fourteen insides, and ten out-
sides ! What say you ? " Yours, werry hill-used,
" A Lunnun 'bus 'Oss."
Which it is Cruel.
Among the Companies daily announcing themselves, there is one
which proposes to start a new Newspaper, to be called the Protestant
Standard, its object being to uphold sound Protestant principles, and
its profits (after the trifling expenses incident to a London Newspaper)
to be applied for variously promoting the same end. WeU! That
cruel Eorbes Mackenzie kicked that poor dear Mrs. Harris, of the
Herald, out of doors, and now Mrs. Gamp, of the old original Standard,
is to be discarded, with a slur upon the Protestantism for which she
has expended such worlds of Billingsgate. Mrs. Gamp is not Pro-
testant enough! Can it be true, then, that Cardinal Wiseman-
but we must not talk scandal. Poor old Sairey !
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
" Proud, indeed ! ! Vhy I remember him a Gostermonger's dog Vonee ! '>
REMUNERATION FOR RAILWAY SURGERY.
" Mr. Punch,
" I am a man who has seen better days—though the present
might be worse. Once I was an extensive stage-coach proprietor: the
Railroads ruined me, and I am now in an almshouse.
" People are so fast now, that they say it is all cant to talk about the
greater pleasantness of travelling in the old coaching days. Therefore,
I won't argue how agreeable the drive used to be in the fresh air, with
the entertainment that turned up in the events of the road, and in
seeing country and the gentlemen's seats that you passed, and the
wood-smoke curling up from the Park lodges, and the tidy barmaid,
at every place where we changed horses, coming out with a glass
of ale.
" But I '11 tell you what, Mr. Punch; there was one advantage of
travelling by coach, that there is no mistake or humbug in speaking of.
I say, Sir, it was a comfort to think that, if you were so unfortunate as
to meet with an accident, by means of being upset, or such like, you
were sure to be found willingly with the best surgical assistance that
was to be had. Suppose you had the bad luck to get your leg broken,
you had it mended, or if that was impossible, removed, and the expense
of getting rid of it, and being fitted with another, defrayed. The same
was the case if any poor creature happened to be run over. Now, Sir,
look back at that picture, and then look here on this :—
"'BLACKBURN
" ' Important Railway Case.—Samuel Hope Wraith v. the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway Company.—In the County Court, at Blackburn, on Tuesday last, the above
case came on for hearing. The plaintiff, a surgeon, had been sent for at an early hour
of the morning, to attend a person who had just been run over by one of the defendants'
trains, and was lying bleeding by the side of the line with one thigh fractured and two
toes of the other limb also fractured. The plaintiff went immediately, and whilst
attending, was told by the station-master that he must attend to the case and would be
paid by the Company. The plaintiff consulted with another surgeon whether the patient
could bear to be removed to the Infirmary, at Manchester; but ihey thought he would
die before he could be got-there. The plaintiff then proceeded to amputate the thigh
and the two toes. After about two months, the patient so far recovered as not to
require further surgical attendance. The plaintiff made a charge for attendance and
medicine of £8, being less than his usual charge, because the patient was a poor man.
On the part of the defendants the fact was not disputed, nor was any question raised as
to the propriety of the treatment or the amount of the charge, but it was contended
ihat, according to the decision of the Court of Exchequer in ' Cox v. the Midland
Railway Company,' the defendants were not liable to pay the surgeon's bill; the
judges in that case having held that it was not the duty of a railway guard or station-
master to enter into a contract with a surgeon to attend a passenger, accidentally
injured on a railway.'
"I have cut the above piece of useful information out of the
Manchester Pxaminer and Times. I say useful information, because it
may teach surgeons to_ ascertain the solvency of a sufferer by a railway
accident before rendering him any assistance—if surgeons are the same
good men of business that railway directors are. The gentlemen of
the Lancashire and Yorkshire think, I suppose, that a doctor can afford
to give attendance and advice gratis, but that their Company cannot
afford to pay £8.
"I should mention that the Judge 'much to his regret,' was
obliged by what the lawyers call ' precedent,' to declare the plaintiff
nonsuited. Mr. Wraith will therefore have to mind, in future, how
he attends to people that have been crushed on the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway, unless he is prepared to take that trouble for
nothing, except the reward of an approving conscience.
" Whenever a coach of ours was the means of injuring an unfortu-
nate fellow-creature that hadn't the means to employ a surgeon, I'm
sure I and my partners were always ready and willing to pay the
doctor's bill, whatever it came to; and perhaps a trifle over to the
sufferer to make amends : as respectable people. Yet ours was a small
concern compared to one of these Railway Companies. You would
think a matter of eight pound would not hurt such a body as that;
' but what with competition, and going to law, and gambling, and one
thing and another, the fact is, I take it, that railways are so badly off
that they are obhged to scrape and save every sixpence they can to pay
dividends. That is why they cut down their expenses, in the first
place, and so cause accidents, and then grumble at having to pay for
the damage they do in the next. What is the remedy for all this ? I
say, the Whip. I mean the whip with the old four-in-hand, but you may
propose that instrument without it • which certainly would be a means
of appealing to the feelings of people who have no sense of shame that
you can touch up.
" I am no Protectionist—though my opinions may show rather a
stable mind. I don't want any compensation from the railways, but
I think they might have indemnified my doctor if I had been one of
their victims, in a different sense from that in which I may call myself,
" Smashed, but not Killed."
NO ROSE WITHOUT A THORN.
Poor Colonel Rose, the charge d'affaires at Constantinople, who, in
the absence of the ambassador from the post of duty, did his best at
a moment of great difficulty, has been for the last week or two the
target of all the pens in the newspapers. If anything goes wrong,
somebody, of course, must bear the blame; but who is to bear it is
quite a separate question from who is really blameable. Poor Colonel
Rose has been made the subject of a shower of attacks which have
fluctuated in the degrees of their severity, not according to the con-
sideration of what he did, but according as the accounts from the East
or from Paris have been favourable or otherwise. Of course when a
measure taken by a charge d'affaires happens to be successful, the whole
merit is given to the ambassador; but, if the step should chance to be
unfortunate, the whole of the odium is heaped on the head of the
unhappy subordinate. It is quite clear that the couch occupied by
Colonel Rose is not exactly a bed of roses.
A Tew of " The Hills that (Horse) Flesh is Hair to."
"Dear Punch,—I sends you a short list on 'em. There's—
" Snow Hill, and
" Ludgate Hill, and
" Maida Hill, and
" Pentonville Hill; and, last not least,
" Holborn Hill.
"Now, I think that's enough—with fourteen insides, and ten out-
sides ! What say you ? " Yours, werry hill-used,
" A Lunnun 'bus 'Oss."
Which it is Cruel.
Among the Companies daily announcing themselves, there is one
which proposes to start a new Newspaper, to be called the Protestant
Standard, its object being to uphold sound Protestant principles, and
its profits (after the trifling expenses incident to a London Newspaper)
to be applied for variously promoting the same end. WeU! That
cruel Eorbes Mackenzie kicked that poor dear Mrs. Harris, of the
Herald, out of doors, and now Mrs. Gamp, of the old original Standard,
is to be discarded, with a slur upon the Protestantism for which she
has expended such worlds of Billingsgate. Mrs. Gamp is not Pro-
testant enough! Can it be true, then, that Cardinal Wiseman-
but we must not talk scandal. Poor old Sairey !