Punch (72.1877)

64

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[February 17, 1877.

name), the irrepressible Doctor had a rap at Dartmoor, d propos of
the " unfortunate nobleman."

Mr. Hardy reintroduces his University Bills—changed into a
double-headed Parliamentary Nightingale, including both Cambridge
and Oxford in the body of one Statute.

Sixty Bills brought in by private Members! Hurrah ! What
nights we shall be having ! Almost all the hobbies must be trotted
out by this time, one would think.

"OR OTHERWISE."

We are often told that the Light of the Law is the perfection of
Reason ; but Law has not always the benefit of a humbler
light—the Light of Common Sense. We are glad to see it has been
guided by this light to its judgment in the appeal against the
conviction of Dr. Monck, detected in playing Spiritualist conjuring
tricks at Huddersfield.

The Vagrant Act, under which he was convicted, enumerates,
among the impostures it.is aimed at, tricks performed by palmistry
or otherwise." It was coolly contended, on Dr. Monck's behalf,
that the word "or otherwise" must mean something of the same
kind as palmistry, and so did not include the tricks of impostors
calling themselves Spiritualists.

Justices Cleasby and Pollock, with Common Sense as assessor
for the occasion, held—tout au co?itraire—that "otherwise " means
"otherwise," i.e. tricks different from palmistry, and not of the
same kind, and so affirmed the conviction, which leaves the soi-disant
Dr. Monck to work out his term of durance as a rogue and
vagabond.

MR. PUNCH'S CELEBRITES CHEZ ELLES.

No. V.—Dr. Harvey D'Oyley, at the West-End.

Conveniently situated near the Parks and most fashionable
Squares of the West-End, almost in sight of the Marble Arch, and
not too far from Marlborough House, stands a palatial residence,
which combines the appliances of the laboratory with the luxury of
a modern English home. Intelligent foreigners passing by this
red-brick mansion in the Queen Anne style, with its plate-glass
windows, its tall portals and quaint brazen knockers, its well-worn
door-steps, and clustering piles of moulded chimneys, would imagine
that its owner was a duke at least. Not so. This palatial residence
is the property of a man who for many hours daily wrestles with
Death and beats off disease, while in the dark hours he burns the
midnight oil in tracking Science through her tortuous windings, and
makes, at least, twenty thousand a year in guinea fees alone. Its
occupant is the most fashionable consulting physician of the day.
The value of Harvey D'Oyley's time is measured in gold—his
every five minutes are guineas. These are swept in by the
never-ending flood of his daily consultations. Then, in the night-
season, so precious are his thoughts, that a secretary is always
seated at his bedside, to jot down, in shorthand, what he says
in his sleep. All the principal hospitals (of which he is an
honoured officer) are connected with his house by telegraphic wires,

along which he flashes his medical oracles. The horses in his stables
are selected for their bone, bottom, and speed. When a case of
moment is on hand, when a Cabinet Minister has toothache, or the
wife of an Archbishop is suffering from cold, it is a sight to see the
Doctor's perfectly-appointed brougham, with its thoroughbred step-
pers, flashing through the crowded thoroughfares. The moment one
of D'Oyley's horses gets past his work, that is, ceases to be up to
twenty miles an hour, it is sold, and replaced by another. The
discarded gallopers are usually purchased by Captain Shaw to
horse the engines of the Fire Brigade.

Before describing the house in detail, it is as well to say that the
domestic offices are defective. The pantry would be more cheerful
for another window, and the Butler has no room in which he can
receive his comme il faut friends en petit comite. On the right-
hand doorpost are two bells, one labelled "Visitors," the other
" Servants." Let us check a natural inclination, and ring the first.
After a pause of a few minutes, the door is opened by a formidable,
almost repellent, person clad in sober black. This is the Doctor's
" confidential man," but his name is a misnomer. He is the very
reverse of confidential. Ask him to whom that wide-awake on the
hall-slab belongs, and he will require to know your business.
Question him about last night's menu, and he will feign ignorance
of the fact that his master yesterday gave a large and distinguished
dinner-party. But while you have held him in talk, you are ill
fitted indeed for your vocation, or you will have found time to note
that there is in the corner near the door a handsome hat-stand, sup-
porting many curious walking-sticks and costly umbrellas. _ You
will have caught a glimpse of the solid mahogany door leading to
the waiting-room, and the green baize portal of the sanctum
of Hygeia. You will have rapidly written on the tablets of your
memory that the floor is covered with marble-patterned oil-cloth.
Nay, more, before the door is closed in your face with scant courtesy,
you will have made your own the important fact that a stained
glass lamp is hanging from the central star of the stucco ceiling.

Fortunately, there are means for gaining admittance here besides
a sop to Cerberus. Coals must be carried, and a footman's livery is
a disguise not difficult to assume. Moreover, the Healer, absorbed
in science and consultations, does not know one servant from
another.

Entrance once secured, our survey may be more leisurely. We
enter the waiting-room on the right from the hall. It is cosy,
though scarce (from an upholsterer's point of view) costly. A red
carpet with yellow flowers gives a decided relief to a blue wall-
paper and a pale green ceiling. The chairs have oak frames and
are leather-seated and backed. The table (a very good one, from
the celebrated emporium of Messrs. Vamp and Veneer) is covered
with periodicals, comic and serious, literary and social, from
Bradshaw downwards, of various dates and much thumbed. An
illustrated edition of Joe Miller lies side by side with Burke's
Peerage, like two roses on one stalk. Mixed up with the
lighter literature are several pamphlets by the Healer himself.
Here, for instance, is D'Oyley on the Circulating Fluid, a most
valuable addition to medical specialism ; and yonder, in a neat
cover, is that standard work of D'Oyley's on the Obscurer Dis-
eases of the Upper Ten Thousand, for the Doctor belongs to the
new school, and eschews Latin words when English will serve as
well. Seated on the chairs round the table, or ranged along the
walls, or standing in groups, are the patients—for whose amusement
all this literature is intended—pale-faced, wearied, and anxious.

Do not let us wait to be summoned into the Healer's presence, hut
by virtue of our " Open, sesame!" enter his sanctum at once.
A majestic room, hung with proof-prints of eminent Doctors, (from
Hunter and Pott downwards), with well-filled dwarf book-cases;
on their tops, and on stands and small tables all about, models of
preparations under glass-cases, and chemical apparatus. The Healer
is a great authority on the diagnostic power of medical chemistry,
and his brochure on the white blood-corpuscles has attracted great
attention in the columns of the Medical Press. Near the fire, and
well-screened from the draught, are a desk and a very easy chair.
And now let us look at the Healer at work. A delicate-looking
man of sixty, with auburn hair, and a long, black, silky moustache.
A grand head, full of bumps that would drive a phrenologist into
ecstacies of delirious delight. A pair of piercing eyes, sparkling
with a concentration of energy and enthusiasm, fun and science. A
well-knit frame of great muscular power. He softly smiles as you
enter, and motions you to a seat. A few rapid questions are first
given, and the answers pondered noted, resolved. Then he examines
you. He punches you here, bangs you there, and, so to speak,
whacks you all over. " Does this hurt ? " he asks with each blow,
and notes down in a large book which lies open before him your
loudly-uttered answer. In five minutes he has knocked off your
case, and after a hurriedly-written prescription, and perhaps a
rapid interchange of thought on the current topic of the day, with
a recommendation of a mutton-chop luncheon, and the avoidance of
sugar and malt liquors (the Healer has a firm belief in diet, which
he calls the right hand of medicine, and mutton-chops are just