"Mr. Rawkins," says Albert Smith, "was so extraordinary a person for a medical practitioner that, had we only read of him instead of having known him, we should at once have put him down as the far-fetched creation of the author's brain. He was about eight-and-thirty years old, and of herculean build except his legs, which were small in comparison with the rest of his body. But he thought that he was modelled after the statues of antiquity, and, indeed, in respect of his nose, which was broken, he was not far wrong in his idea--that feature having been damaged in some hospital skirmish when he was a student. His face was adorned with a luxuriant fringe of black whiskers, meeting under his chin, whilst his hair, of a similar hue, was cut rather short about his head, and worn without the least regard to any particular style or direction. But it was also his class of pursuits that made him so singular a character. Every available apartment in his house not actually in use by human beings was appropriated to the conserving of innumerable rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ferrets. His areas were filled with poultry, bird-cages hung at every window, and the whole of his roof had been converted into one enormous pigeon-trap. It was one of his most favourite occupations to sit, on fine afternoons, with brandy-and-water and a pipe, and catch his neighbours' birds. He had very little private practice; the butcher, the baker, and the tobacconist were his chief patients, who employed him more especially with the intention of working out their accounts. He derived his principal income from the retail of his shop, his appointments of medical man to the police force and parish poor, and breeding fancy rabbits. These various avocations pretty well filled up his time, and when at home he passed his spare minutes in practising gymnastics--balancing himself upon one hand and laying hold of staples, thus keeping himself at right angles to the wall, with other feats of strength, the acquisition of which he thought necessary in enabling him to support the character of Hercules--his favourite impersonation--with due effect." It is not to be wondered at that Mr. Whittle, _alias_ Rawkins, should find that stealing his neighbours' pigeons, together with his other unprofitable accomplishments, to say nothing of the sparseness of paying patients, could have only one termination--bankruptcy. Mr. Whittle ended his career in a public-house, of which he became proprietor after marrying the widow who kept it. Here he put off his coat to his work, and in his shirt-sleeves served his customers with beer. Leech and Albert Smith, and others of his pupils took his beer readily, though they had always declined to take his pills. It is said that he was originally a Quaker, and that he died a missionary at the Antipodes.