DOI Heft:
September 6, 1884
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17757#0126
September 6, 1884,] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 119
DELIGHTS OF THE PEACEFUL COUNTRY.-No. 3. THRESHING TIME.
It is so Nice to go down to a retired Farm-House, away from the Noise of Town, and far from the Blacks, and
Smuts, and Smoke.
“ If this is to go on, we shall never get any sleep,” growls
Chivers.
“Oh,” I say, to comfort him, and get him to be a little more
agreeable,—otherwise I shall regret not haying retained my own car-
riage, and travelled, ‘ for this night only,’ alone—“ this horrid noise
won’t continue when we ’re once elejir of the station.”
“ How do you know ? ” he asks, discontentedly. I don’t know ; I
only suggest it in the kindliest spirit. The shrieking ceases for a
while, and then we talk.
“I expect it will be a beastly place we’re going to,” begins the
Easy One.
“ I hear,” I return, “ that it is dull, hut very prettily situated.”
“ I shouldn’t have been going there at all if it hadn’t been for
yousays the Easy One, angrily.
“Indeed?”
“Yes—you gave such a glowing account of it when we dined
together,”—(I remember I did; but that was when I was rather
touting for a cheerful companion than speaking from absolute know-
ledge)—“ that I at once asked my Doctor, and he strongly recom-
mended me to come here, and wrote me a letter of introduction to
one of the Doctors at the place itself.”
“ Dr. Probite ?” I inquire, that being the name of the eminent
practitioner to whose care I have been confided.
“ Yes, that’s it; Probite!” he replies, in a tone of the deepest
annoyance. “Probite! what a name!”
“First-rate man,” I say, at haphazard, and chiefly because I’ve
been recommended to him. For surely my Doctor wouldn’t send me
to anyone but a first-rate man ?
“Is he?” returns Chivers, in a sharp suspicious manner—(never
saw a man so changed as Chivers !)—“ I don’t believe it. I believe
the whole thing’s a swindle.”
“ How do you mean ? ” I ask, for I am bound to expostulate with
him, as, in bringing such a sweeping charge as this against the place,
he is not only condemning the Doctors abroad, but the Doctors at
home who have written on the subject, and setting down the experts
and scientific men, who have published their analyses of the waters
and their salutary effects, as all humbugs, everyone of them engaged
in one grand conspiracy to beguile patients into going to La Bour- \
boule.
“I mean,” goes on tbe Easy One, with the brutal frankness of o
man who having suddenly discovered that he has been a dupe, now
wishes to undeceive everybody else, “ I mean that the whole place
is a humbug, a speculation. It was got up, it’s a well-known
fact ” — (then how is it I’ve never heard of it ? But I don’t
interrupt him—I want to hear all his startling revelations, and, if
his facts are proved, back I go to London again, firmly resolved to
burst the La Bourboule bubble)—“ it was started by Dr. Schussex,—
a thorough speculator under the Empire,—and he got a lot of Doctors
to form a Company, and work it.”
“Well,” I object, “but there must have been natural sulphuric
and arsenical springs as a basis of speculation ? ”
“Not a bit,” replies Chivers, with triumphant malice,—“ ordinary
mountain springs, doctored.”
“ What! ” I exclaim, horror-stricken at the idea of such villany.
“Yes—doctored,” he proceeds, with an air of being thoroughly
well up in his facts—“yes, doctored. That is, the sulphur and
arsenic are supplied every morning from Paris, and put into the
wells and springs. Steam does the rest. The whole thing’s a regular
swindle.”
“ Then why go there ? ” I naturally inquire.
He shrugs his shoulders, and answers—“ Well, you see, if the
medicated mixture called ‘ the waters of La Bourbouie,’ produces the
desired effect, what does it matter whether it’s a swindle or not?”
I admit that this is true to the extent of individual benefit, at the
expense of general and professional morality. To which Chivers
simply replies,—
“ Blow general and professional morality ! ”
“There’s another thing,” he continues presently— “ the Homans
were great chaps for baths.” Chivers is a well-read man. “ There’s
not a Station Thermale, as they call it, existing now but what was
exploite by the old Romans originally. Take Aix-les-Bains, Aix-la-
Chapelle, any of ’em,—Mont Dore,—beyond where we’re going,—
and there is a Roman history to each of ’em, Roman ruins and
Roman relics in every one of them. But at La Bourboule not a
DELIGHTS OF THE PEACEFUL COUNTRY.-No. 3. THRESHING TIME.
It is so Nice to go down to a retired Farm-House, away from the Noise of Town, and far from the Blacks, and
Smuts, and Smoke.
“ If this is to go on, we shall never get any sleep,” growls
Chivers.
“Oh,” I say, to comfort him, and get him to be a little more
agreeable,—otherwise I shall regret not haying retained my own car-
riage, and travelled, ‘ for this night only,’ alone—“ this horrid noise
won’t continue when we ’re once elejir of the station.”
“ How do you know ? ” he asks, discontentedly. I don’t know ; I
only suggest it in the kindliest spirit. The shrieking ceases for a
while, and then we talk.
“I expect it will be a beastly place we’re going to,” begins the
Easy One.
“ I hear,” I return, “ that it is dull, hut very prettily situated.”
“ I shouldn’t have been going there at all if it hadn’t been for
yousays the Easy One, angrily.
“Indeed?”
“Yes—you gave such a glowing account of it when we dined
together,”—(I remember I did; but that was when I was rather
touting for a cheerful companion than speaking from absolute know-
ledge)—“ that I at once asked my Doctor, and he strongly recom-
mended me to come here, and wrote me a letter of introduction to
one of the Doctors at the place itself.”
“ Dr. Probite ?” I inquire, that being the name of the eminent
practitioner to whose care I have been confided.
“ Yes, that’s it; Probite!” he replies, in a tone of the deepest
annoyance. “Probite! what a name!”
“First-rate man,” I say, at haphazard, and chiefly because I’ve
been recommended to him. For surely my Doctor wouldn’t send me
to anyone but a first-rate man ?
“Is he?” returns Chivers, in a sharp suspicious manner—(never
saw a man so changed as Chivers !)—“ I don’t believe it. I believe
the whole thing’s a swindle.”
“ How do you mean ? ” I ask, for I am bound to expostulate with
him, as, in bringing such a sweeping charge as this against the place,
he is not only condemning the Doctors abroad, but the Doctors at
home who have written on the subject, and setting down the experts
and scientific men, who have published their analyses of the waters
and their salutary effects, as all humbugs, everyone of them engaged
in one grand conspiracy to beguile patients into going to La Bour- \
boule.
“I mean,” goes on tbe Easy One, with the brutal frankness of o
man who having suddenly discovered that he has been a dupe, now
wishes to undeceive everybody else, “ I mean that the whole place
is a humbug, a speculation. It was got up, it’s a well-known
fact ” — (then how is it I’ve never heard of it ? But I don’t
interrupt him—I want to hear all his startling revelations, and, if
his facts are proved, back I go to London again, firmly resolved to
burst the La Bourboule bubble)—“ it was started by Dr. Schussex,—
a thorough speculator under the Empire,—and he got a lot of Doctors
to form a Company, and work it.”
“Well,” I object, “but there must have been natural sulphuric
and arsenical springs as a basis of speculation ? ”
“Not a bit,” replies Chivers, with triumphant malice,—“ ordinary
mountain springs, doctored.”
“ What! ” I exclaim, horror-stricken at the idea of such villany.
“Yes—doctored,” he proceeds, with an air of being thoroughly
well up in his facts—“yes, doctored. That is, the sulphur and
arsenic are supplied every morning from Paris, and put into the
wells and springs. Steam does the rest. The whole thing’s a regular
swindle.”
“ Then why go there ? ” I naturally inquire.
He shrugs his shoulders, and answers—“ Well, you see, if the
medicated mixture called ‘ the waters of La Bourbouie,’ produces the
desired effect, what does it matter whether it’s a swindle or not?”
I admit that this is true to the extent of individual benefit, at the
expense of general and professional morality. To which Chivers
simply replies,—
“ Blow general and professional morality ! ”
“There’s another thing,” he continues presently— “ the Homans
were great chaps for baths.” Chivers is a well-read man. “ There’s
not a Station Thermale, as they call it, existing now but what was
exploite by the old Romans originally. Take Aix-les-Bains, Aix-la-
Chapelle, any of ’em,—Mont Dore,—beyond where we’re going,—
and there is a Roman history to each of ’em, Roman ruins and
Roman relics in every one of them. But at La Bourboule not a