An honest hearty _miller_, in a small parish in the county of H—-—-, having, on the market day, made some lucky purchases, and congratulating himself upon his good fortune with a few friends over the bottle, got himself insensibly intoxicated; but obstinately persisting in his determination (and ability) to ride home, he was suffered to depart, and was found afterwards upon the road by one of his own servants almost lifeless; he was conveyed to his habitation, and one of the most _eminent surgeons_ from a certain large and populous town was called in, who finding the trunk nearly inanimate, proceeded to _venesection_, then to an accurate examination of the body, in which he presently discovered “a _fracture of the tibia_, and two of the ribs; he had every reason to apprehend (from present symptoms) a _concussion of the brain_; but situated as things were, he should now administer proper _palliatives_, and pursue the necessary steps upon his arrival in the morning.”—He then left the patient, after strict injunctions “that he should not be suffered to move from the position he had placed him in, till his return.”—At the hour before appointed, the _Doctor_ returned, and not finding the wife below stairs, explored the region he had left his patient in the night before, surrounded by his sorrowful friends; when, strange to relate! (_stranger to believe!_) the bird was flown, the bed made, and the very room exhibited a striking proof of rustic neatness. Recovering in some degree from his surprise, and feeling _very forcibly_ the aukwardness of his situation, he descended to the kitchen, and there finding the wife (who had just returned from some business in a back yard) he eagerly enquired “How, or which way, his patient had been conveyed, and where to?”—When the poor woman very simply and civilly replied, that “her husband was gone into the fields among his folks; that she had repeatedly urged the doctor’s orders of his _not getting out of bed_; but he was a very obstinate man, and said he’d be d—’d if he’d ever lay in bed with a _broken leg_ for any doctor in England, so long as he could walk upon it.”—It may be better conceived than described how severe a stroke this proved upon the reputation of the surgeon; certain it is, his practice continued in a declining state for some years, and it was not till the circumstance was nearly buried in oblivion (with the body of the miller) that he recovered his former celebrity, being at this moment one of the oldest and most eminent practitioners in the neighbourhood where he resides. This instance sufficiently demonstrates the impropriety of overstraining the professional prerogative, especially with those obstinate uncivilized beings, who have so little pliability of disposition, as not to lay in bed when required; particularly in cases of emergency, where it is so evidently for the promotion of their own health and safety.