A CHARACTER SKETCH.

Thames Star, Volume IIII, Issue 1743, 4 August 1874, Page 2

A CHARACTER SKETCH.

A writer in the West Coast Times, while giving a description of the Hokitika Hospital, gives an amusing character sketch of one of our local medical men, which , from its truthfulness deserves to be reproduced. We are introduced to a patient named "Crutch/ and the writer continues:—"By this time we had reached the long ward of the institution, and, relieving old Crutch of his wooden supports, he safeJyseated himself in front ofone of the large fires, and proceeded with his West Coast hospital experience. 'Do you know/ . he said, ' tlio miners do not half support this establishment, which is mainly upheld for their benefit. Their are hundreds of miners who never give a shilling towards a hospital. I was one of that kind up to last winter, when old Morice of the Grey regularly put me through. I remember the ay well. I was brought into the hospital there on a stretcher, with a severe touch of rheumatic fever. -1 had not been ' long in when the doctor came to me. You know Morice, I daresay ? Ho is an active old young man. Bald as a badger, uncouth as a bear, and yet as kind and gentle as a lamb. I did not know him then, but Ido now, and think he is one of the finest fellows out.' After acquainting him that I had known the medical attendant he described, for many years, I left the story in Crutch's hands to proceed with his reminiscences, which wre of a recent date. * Talk of hospitals,' he then continued,' if evor the moral was taught me that I should contribute less to the support of the JN"rw Zealand Distillery, and a trifle more to the Hospital, it was then. After examining my tongue and feeling my pulse, Morice had the kind curiosity to inquire if I was leaving a widow or many orphan children. My reply being in the negative, he next recommended that my life insurance policy might he transferred to the Grey Kiver Hospital. Acquainting him that I had neglected that step and consequently held no policy, he again placed his fore fingers over my wrist, extracting his time-keeper, I think, from his breeches pocket, with the view of distinguishing the exact rate of pulsation. 'Am I very bad, doctor? * I enquired, as by this time I confess I was getting somewhat uneasy. '• Bad,' said the doclor,' you're rotten as a carrot. You might as well leave a donation to the hospital when you are making your will.' With this the doctor left, and I was left reflecting on my fate only for the space of ten minutes, when the doctor returned, after having administered in the meantime to some of my fellow sufferers. • Well,' said he, • have you made your will P ' 'I have, doctor,' I replied; '■I have only a five-pound note in the' world, and the institution may as well have that. T sewed it,up in the lining of my vest now lying on that chair. , it's the last of many a one I have spent foolish* br enough. Give it to the hospital when I'm dead and gone.' 'When I spoke those words,' continued Crutch,' I meant it, and I thought he meant it, but he soon -told me not to be a blubbering fool, and he'd have me out of that in a fortnight; and he had me out within that time. As I was going down the iteps after receiving my discharge, who should I meet but Morice, the last time I saw him, and his last enquiry of me was—• Did you leave, the vest in the hospital?' Being the last note I had I did not then subscribe, but I have since, as the subscription list will show, and here I am again with a broken leg; but I'll never forget, Morice.'"

It was recently remarked of a solemn* ly precise youth:—"H» looks as if he were setting.an example to his ancestors." When a man's circumstances become most twisted and crooked they are said to be straightened.

At a debating society at Liberty, Wil* consin, one of the orators got so excited ( that a revolrer in his coat-tail pocket went off and shot R. Tuto in the leg. That closed the debate.

A Sqttibbel.—There was a wedding in the family—not the squirrel's family, put our own—and when my sister Adeline' came back from her wedding tour, she brought with her a squirrel, No. 1 called, Scuq, and bought in a bazaar in London. I do not know if he was born there, but he had been reared there, and his keeper loved him and felt it hard to part from him, though he was only fulfilling his destiny in finding a purchaser. Being rery tame, and accustomed to run about a room and follow people, he was not shut up much in a cage in his new home, preferring rather to race about the sittingroom, scuttling up the curtains, and calling out " chuck, chuck," as squirrels do, to express his pleasure. He was always let out at dinner-time, when the dessert came on, and,he was kind enough to eat nuts and biscuit, and drank out of a fingerglass as his master and mistress did, I was going to say, but this would hardly be correct on the whole. His great delight was to carry off a nut or bit of Ws-Jr^ cuit aad hide it in his master's collar, or^ 1 better still in his mistress' chignon ; and so used were they to the proceeding, that they sometimes forgot to take out the hidden treasure, and one day my sister received a party of callers with a row of fancy biscuits sticking coquettishly in her coronet of hair. She had forgotten or never knew that Master Scuq had put them there. Scuq was lost once or twice, but he always turned up again. My sister lived in Cathedral close, and one day, finding doors and windows open, the squirrel ran out to investigate into the restoration of the cloisters which was . taking place; he .was presently caught, however, by a workman, who called him a weasel, and restored him to the lady, who was enquiring everywhere for her, lost pet. Another day he merely took a walk in the garden, accompanied by a kitten, a companion ho would rather have dispensed with, as she worried him wi»h her giddy way^ of spring.v,; round corners, patting him, and racing after his buiytail.—Little Folks.