The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 51, June 19, 1841Various
History
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 51, June 19, 1841
Various
Ireland -- Periodicals
more teeth with a _large nail_ (sometimes a screw) in the twinkling of an
eye, and with a degree of dexterity which I had conceived impossible. I
was afterwards told that he had several patients in succession, from whom
as they sat backwards in the cab, within view of hundreds of spectators,
he extracted teeth at the rate of sixpence each. This practitioner,
however, was not without a rival: another dentist was mounted on a high,
raw-boned horse, with his case of instruments, and some physic for
curing the rheumatism, in a leathern portmanteau strapped upon the pommel
of his saddle: his dress was of a military character--his coat being
braided like an undress frock; his bridle and saddle of the cavalry form;
his headpiece, a forage cap; and his boots and spurs like those of a
dragoon in the days of the Duke of Marlborough; a _coronet_ hung from his
saddle-bow; and whenever the other dentist sounded his bugle, this man
blew from beneath the overhanging cover of thick hair on his upper lip, a
longer and a louder strain. But the peculiarity of his style of operating
was really striking: instead of dismounting and removing the tooth, he
remained steadily in his saddle, examined the mouths of the patients who
presented themselves for relief, and from his vantage ground pulled or
rather pushed out the diseased grinder. While I was looking on, he poked
out three with a hooked nail for one sous, saying, successively, as he
drew them in a few seconds (as my companion translated his expressions
for me), “Here’s a long one; here’s a longer; and here’s the longest of
all.”
A quack doctor in a huge caravan drawn by four horses, appeared next, and
apparently with much profitable practice, among the dupes who crowded
about him to read his puffs and buy his physic. A pedlar in another
part of the _place_ where the crowd was considerable, without coat or
waistcoat (the wind was at north-east), and labouring very hard with his
hands and lungs, was disposing of coloured cotton handkerchiefs by a sort
of auction form. He took a piece from a lot of the same pattern, tied it
round his waist or on his head as an indication that the handkerchiefs
he was about to put up for sale were of the same sort, and then named
a price, lowering the amount, perhaps, from twenty to fourteen sous,
until he heard such an amount bid as satisfied him; then with the
rapidity of a conjuror he flung the article to the bidder. Another and
another purchaser followed as fast as he could unfold and throw the
handkerchiefs at their faces, stopping occasionally for a few seconds to
receive payments from many customers; then he opened a fresh lot, and
thus perpetually exhibited varieties, selling all the time at a rate of
rapidity which I had never seen equalled, and which could only occur
where every individual in the little crowd is strictly honest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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