CONFESSIONS OF A VAGRANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4519, 14 September 1875, Page 3

CONFESSIONS OF A VAGRANT.

The Charity Organisation Society's Peporler prints the following letter, which may be considered as a continuation of one sent by the same writer to the society a short time ago : “Sherborne Union Workhouse, “April 19, 1875.

“ Honored Sir, —I duly received your note of the loth inst., to which I now reply. I commence with the quack doctors. In the first place, I must tell you that I never engaged in the dirty business on my own account. I have been a tool in the hands of others. The first time it was in Yarmouth. A quack who was lodging at the same ‘ ken ’ with me asked me if I was willing to earn a couple of shillings easily. I replied in the affirmative. This was to come into the market-place in the afternoon, while he himself was expatiating on the virtues of his infallible medicines, and purchase half-a-dozen boxes of the pills, saying that myself and others had derived immense benefit from their use; and that, for the future, I was resolved never to be without them, the money to pay for them having been given me beforehand by the ‘ doctor.’ Well, I carried out my instructions to the letter, and so well pleased the modern Esoulapius that in the evening he employed me to work for him at a salary of £1 per week, besides travelling expenses. I was now to be initiated in the sublime mystery of compounding the ‘medicines,’ almost invariably ‘ pills.’ My duty was to collect the ingredients ; and I now solemnly declare that I got them ready made from the aheepfold or the rabbit warren. Those from the sheepfold had to be considerably reduced in size, after which they were esated with finely-pulverised sugar and flour, and, after being dried to a proper consistency, were placed in pill-boxes, which are easily obtained, and then held forth to the dolts who were silly enough to listen to him as ‘ American sugar-coated pills,’ purely vegetable, and warranted not to contain one particle of mercury, colocynth, or other deleterious poison, so extensively used by regular doctors. These pills are a sovereign remedy for bilious disorders, liver complaints, dyspepsia, or indigestion, the symptoms of which are learnedly described by the ‘ orator ’ (which was generally myself), learnt by heart from the medical work by Dr. Buchan. When we were travelling in the country villages there was no ‘ ill which flesh is heir to,’ but my master (blatant ignoramus as he was) would not undertake to cure—worms, piles, tusky or itch, gout, rheumatism, ulcers, fits, &c.;but the naked truth is, that he was a greater fool than I ; he could not read a paragraph in a newspaper, and could scarcely write his own name. He know no more about the maladies he professed to cure than a hog; but he possessed in an eminent degree that grand indispensable qualification, any amount of cheek, and his takings on an average were £lO a week. I travelled with this man for about four months, chiefly in the eastern couuties, when I expressed a desire to leave him, when he immediately offered to raise my wages by giving me 255. a week ; but I would not accept it, and left him. I have travelled with three others, all of the same kidney, since that time ; suffice it to say that a set of more unprincipled, ignorant rascals, never disgraced earth. Perhaps, sir, you may think that by turning 1 Queen’s evidence,’ I am worse than the ones I impeach ; but I don’t wish to exonerate myself, for I confess that I am about the most wortliless of beings, but the truth ought to be known ; poor people ought not to be systematically robbed by quack doctors, or any other description of rogue ; for rogues, rascals, and liars, are the whole fraternity, myself included.

“Yours unworthily, “G. A. Brine. “P.S.—I was born October 29, 1812.”