THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9775, 23 March 1895, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS.

As written by J. Stark Munro to his friend and former fellow-student, Herbert Swanborough, of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the years 1881-84.

EDITED and arranged by a. con an DOYLE.

(Published by special arrangement with the an thor All rights reserreil.J

CHAPTER V. Merton-on-theMoors, sth March, 1882. Von'ix see from the address of this letter,

Bertie, that I have left Scotland, and am in Yorkshire. I have been here three months, nd am now on the eve of leaving, under tho strangest circumstances, and with the queerest prospects. Good old Cullingworbh has turned out a trump, as I always knew he would. But, as usual, I am beginning at the wrong end, so here goes to give you an idea of what has been happening. 1 told you in my last all about my lunacy adventure, and my ignominous return from Rathtully Castle. When I had settled for the flannel vests, which my mother had ordered so lavishly, I had only £5 left out of my pay- With this, as it) was tho first money 1 had ever earned in my life, I bought her a gold bangle ; so behold mo reduced, at once, to my usual empty pocketed condition. Well, it is something just to feel that I had earned money. Ib gave mo assurance thab I might again. . I had not been at homo more than a few days when my father called me into the study, after breakfast, one morning, and spoke very seriously as to our financial position. He began the interview by unbuttoning his waistcoat, and asking mo to listen at. his fifth intercostal space, two inches from the left sternal line. I did so, and was shocked to hear a well-marked mitral regurgitant murmur. "It is of old standing," he said, "but of late I have had a puffness aboub the unties, and some real symptoms which show me that it is beginning to tell." I tried to express my grief and sympathy, but he cut me short, with some asperity. "The point is," said he, "that no insurance office would accept my life, and that I have been unable, owing to competition and increased expenses, to lay anything by. If I die soon (which, between ourselves, is by no means improbable) I must leave to your care your mother and the children. My practice is so entirely a personal one that I cannot hope to bo able to hand over to you enough to afford a living." I thought of Cullingworth's advice about going where you aro least known. "I think," said I, " that my chances would be better away from here." "Then you must lose no time in establishing yourself," said he. " Your position would be one of great responsibility if anything were to happen tome just now. I had hoped that you had found an excellent opening with the Saltires, but I fear that you can hardly expect to get on in the world, my boy, if you insulb your employer's religious and political views ab his own table."

It wasn't a time to argue, so I said nothing. My father took a copy of the Lancet out of his desk, and turned tip an advertisement, which he had marked with a blue pencil. " Head this I" said he.

I've got it before me as I write. Ib runs thus:—"Qualified assistant wanted, at once, in a large country and colliery practice. Thorough knowledge of obstetrics and dispensing indispensable. Hide and drive. £70 a year. Apply Dr. Horton, Merton -on-the Moors, Yorkshire."

" There might be un opening there," said he. "I know Horton, and lam convinced that I can get you the appointment. It would at least give you the opportunity of looking round and seeing whether there was any vacancy there. How do you think it would suit you ?" Of course, I could only answer that I was willing to turn my hand to anything. But that interview has left a mark upon me—a heavy, ever-present gloom away at the back of my soul, which I am conscious of, even though the cause of it has for the moment gone out of my thoughts. I had enough to make a man serious before, when I had to face the world without money or interest. But now, to think of the mother and my sisters and little Paul, all leaning upon me when I cannot stand myself; it is a nightmare. Could there be anything more dreadful in life than to have those whom you love looking to you for help, and to be unable to give it? Bub perhaps ib won't come to that. Perhaps my father may hold his own for years. Come what may, I am bound to think that all things are ordered for the best; though when the good is a furlong off, and we with our beetle eyes can only see three inches, it takes some confidence in general principles to pull us through.

Well, it was nil fixed up, and down I came to Yorkshire. I wasn't in the best of spirits when I started, Bertie, but they went down and down as I neared my destination. How people can dwell in such places passes my comprehension. What can life offer them to make up for these mutilations of the face of nature? Wo woods, little grass, spouting chimneys, Slate-coloured streams, sloping mounds of coke and slag, topped by the great wheels and pumps of the mines. Cinder-strewn paths, black as though stained by the weary miners who toil along them, lead through the tarnished fields to the rows of smoke-stained cottages. How can any young unmarried man accept such a lot while there's an empty hammock in the navy, or a berth in a merchant forecastle How many shillings a week is the breath of the ocean worth? It seems to mo that if I were a poor man—. W ell, upon my word, that "if" is rather funny when I think that many of the dwellers in those smoky cottages have twice my salary, with half my expenses.

Well, as I said, my spirits sank lower and lower until they got down in the bulb, when, on looking through the gathering gloom, I saw " Merton" printed on the lamps of a dreary, dismal station. I got out, aud was standing beside my trunk and my hat-box, waiting for a porter, when up came a cheery-looking fellow and asked mo whether I was Dr. Stark Munro. " I'm Horton," said he, and shook hands cordially.

In that melancholy place the sight of him was like a fire on a frosty night. He was gaily dressed in the first place: check trousers, white waistcoat, a flower in his buttonhole. But the look of the man was very much to my heart. He was ruddycheeked and black-eyed, with a jolly, frtout figure, and an honest, genial smile. I felt, an we clenched hands in the fogey, grimy station, that 1 had met a man and a friend.

Uis carriage was waiting, and we drove out to his residence, The Myrtles, where I was speedily introduced both to his family and his practice. The former is small and the latter enormous. The wife is dead ; but her mother, Mrs. White, keeps house for him ; and there are two dear little girls, about five and seven. Then there is an unqualified assistant,a young Irish student, Mho, with the three maids, the coachman, »nd the stable boy, makes up the whole establishment. When I tell you that we give four horses quite as much as they can do, you will hare an idea of the ground we cover.

The house, a large square brick one, standing in its own grounds, is built on a small hill in an oasis of green fields. Beyond this, however, on every side, the veil of smoke hangs over the country, with the mine pumps and the chimneys bristling out of it. It would be a dreadful place for an idle man, bub we are all so busy that we have hardly time to think whether there's a view or not. Day and night we are at work, and yet the three months have been very pleasant ones to look back upon. ,

"I'll give you an idea of what a day's work is like. We breakfast about nine o clock, and immediately afterwards the morning patients begin to drop in. Many of them are very poor people belonging to the colliery clubs, the principle of which is that the members pay a little over Jd a week all the year round, well or ill, in return for which they get medicine and attendance free. Not much of a catch for the doctors, you would Bay, but it is astonishing what competition there is among them to get the appointment. You see it is a certainty for one thing, i&ad it leads indirectly to confinements

So d IS"! 9 ® xfc ' as - Besides, it mounts lfophn [ ?>cArw V ® 00 doubt that ffi nln as MOO " £&00 a year from his jm_ • *V e 9 n e other hand, you can imagine that olub patients, since they pay the same In any case, don't let their ailmeats go very far before they are round in the consulting-room. " ' hen by half-past nine we are in tall blast. Horton is seeing the better patients in the consulting-room. I am interviewing the poorer ones in the wait-ing-room, and McCarthy, the Irishman, malting up prescriptions as hard as he can tear. By the club rules, patients are bound to find their own bottles and corks, Ihey generally remember the bottle, but always forgot the cork. "Ye must pay a P» n »y or ilsepubyour fore finger in, says McCarthy. They have an idea that all the strength of the medicine goes if the bottle is open, so they trot off with their fingers stuck in the necks. They have the most singular notions about medicines. " It's that strong that a spoon will stand opp in t!" is one man's description. Above all, they love to have two bottles, one with a solution of citric acid and the other with carbonate of soda. When the mixture begins to fizz they realise that there is indeed a science of medicine. This sorb of work, with vaccinations, bandagings, and minor surgery, takes us to nearly eleven o'clock, when we assemble in Horton's room to make out the list. All the names of patients under treatment are pinned upon a big board. We sib round with note-books open, and distribute those who must be seen between us. By the time this is done and the horses*in it is half past eleven. Then away we all fly upon our several tasks. Horton, in a carriage and [ pair, to see the employers; I, in a dog- v I cart, to see the employed ; and McCarthy, on his good Irish legs, to see those chronio cases to which a qualified man can do no good, and an unqualified no harm. Well, we all work back again by two o'clock, when we find dinner waiting for us. We may or may nob have finished our rounds. If not, away we go again. If wo have, Horton dictates his prescription?, and strides off to bed, with his black clay pipe in his mouth. He is the most abandoned smoker I have ever met with, collecting the dottles of his pipe in tho evening, and smoking them next rooming before breakfast in the stable yard. When he has departed for his nap, McCarthy and I get to work 011 tho medicine. There are, perhaps, fifty bottles to pub up, with pills, ointment, etc. It is quite 4.30 before we have them all laid out on the shelf addressed to the respective invalids. Theu we have an hour or so of quiet, when we smoke or read, or box with the coachman in the harness-room. After tea the evening's work commences. From six to nine people are coming in for their medicine, or fresh patients wishing advice. When those are settled we have to see again any very grave cases which may be on the list; and so about ten o'clock we may hope to have another smoke, and, perhaps, a game of cards. Then it is a rare thing for a nighb to pass without one or other of us having to trudge off to a confinement, which might take us two hours or might take us ten. Hard work, as you see; bub Horton was such a good chap and worked so hard himself that one did not mind what one did. And then we wire all like brothers in the

house, our talk was just a rattle of chaff, and the patients were as homely as ourselves, so that the work became quite a pleasure to all of us. Yes, Horton is a real right down good fellow. His heart is broad, and kind, and generous. There is nothing petty in the man. He loves to see those around him happy, and the sight of his sturdy figure and jolly red face goes far to make them so. Nature meant him to bo a healer, for he brightens up a sick room as he did the Merton station when I first set eyes upon him. Don't imagine from my description that he is in any way soft, however. There is no one on whom one could be less likely to impose. He has a temper which is easily aflame, and as easily appeased. A mistake in the dispensing may wake it up, and then he bursts into the surgery like a whiff of east wind, his cheeks red, his whiskers bristling, and his eyes malignant. The daybook is banged, the bottles rattled, the counter thumped, and then he is off again with five doors slamming behind him. We can trace his progress when the black mood is on him by those dwindling slams. Perhaps it is that McCarthy has labelled the cough mixture as the eyewash, or sent an empty pill-box with an exhortation to take one every four hours. In any case, the cyclone comes and goes, and by the next meal all is peace once more. I said that the patients wero a very homely lot. Anyone who is over starched might well come here to be unstiffened. I confess that 1 did not quite fall in with ib at once. When, on one of my first mornings, a club patient, with his bottle under his arm, came up to me and asked me if I were the doctor's man, I sent him on to see the groom in the stable. But soon one falls into the humour of it. There is no offence meant, and why should any be taken. They are kindly, generous folk, and if they pay no reppect to your profession in the abstract, and so rather hurt your dignity, if you have any, yet they will be as leal and true as possible to yourself if you can win their respect. I like the grip of their greasy and blackened hands, t Another peculiarity of the district is tha many of the manufacturers and collieryowners have risen from the workmen, and have—in some cases at least—retained their old manners and even their old dress. The other day Mrs. \N hite, Horton's mother-in-law, had a violent sick headache, and, as we are all very fond of the kind old lady, we were trying to keep things as quiet as possible downstairs. Suddenly there came a bang ! bang ! bang ! at the knocker, and then in an instant another rattling series of knocks, as if a tethered donkey were trying to kick in the panels. After all our efforts for silence it was exasperating. I rushed to the door to find a seedy-looking person just raising his hand to commence a fresh bombardment. "What on earth's the matter?" I asked, only I muy have been a little more emphatic. "Ptfin in the jaw," said he, " You need::'-' make such a noise," said I, " other people ->.re ill besides you." "If 1 pay my raorsiV, young man, I'll make such noise as I like." and actually in cold blood he commenced a fresh assault upon the door. He would have gone on with his devil's tattoo all the morning if I had not led him down the path and seen him off the premises. An hour afterwards Horton whirled into the surgery with a trail of banged doors behind him. " What's this about Mr. Usher, Munro ?" he asked. "He says that you wore violent towards him." There was a club patient here who kept on banging the knocker," said I. "I was afraid that he would disturb Mrs. White, and so I made him stop." Horton's eyes began to twinkle. My boy," said he, "that club patient, as you call him, is the richest man in Merton, and worth a hundred a year to me. However, I'll make ib all righb with him." I have no doubt that he appeased him by some tale of my disgrace and degradation, but I have not heard anything of the matter since.

It has been good for me to be hero, Bertie. It has brought me in close contact with the working classes, arid made mo realise what fine people they are. Because one drunkard goes home howling on a Saturday night we are too apt to overlook the ninety-nine docent ones by their own firesides. I shall nob make that mistake any more. The kindliness of the poor to the poor makes a man sick of himself. And their sweet patience. Depend upon it if there is ever a popular rising the wrongs which lead to it must be monstrous and indefensible. I think the excesses of the French Revolution are dreadful enough in themselves, but touch more so as an index to the slow centuries of misery against which they were a mad protest. And then the wisdom of the poor. It is amusing to read the glib newspaper man writing about the ignorance of th« masses. They don't know the date of Magna Charta, or whom John of Gaunt married ; bub put a practical up-to-date problem before them, and see how unerringly they take the right side. Didn't they put the Reform Bill through in the teeth of the opposition of the majority of the so called educated classes? Didn't they back ; the North against the South when nearly , all our leaders went wrong ? When universal arbitration and the suppression of the liquor traffic come, is it not sure to be from the pressure of these humble folk They look at life with a clearer and more unselfish eyes. It is an axiom, I think, that to heighten a nation's wisdom you must lower its franchise. Do you think, Bertie, that there is such a thing as the existence of evil? If we could honeatjy convince oure?iv€a that tfaere

was not, id would help us so much in formulating a rational religion. Bub don't let us strain truth even for such an object as that. I must confess that there are some forms of vice—cruelty, for example which it is' hard to find any explanation, save, indeed, that it is a degenerate survival of that warlike ferocity which may once have been of service in helping to protect the community. No, let me be frank, and say that I can't make cruelty fit into my scheme. Bub when you find that other evils which seem, at first sight, black enough really tend in the long ran to the good of mankind, it may be hoped that those which continue to puzzle us may at ' lash be found to serve the same end in some fashion which is now inexplicable. It septus to me that the study of life by the physician vindicates the moral principles of right and wrong. . But, when you look closely, it is a question whether thab which is a wrong to the present community may not prove to have been a right in the interests of posterity. Thab sounds a little foggy, bub 1 will make my meaning more clear when £ say that I think right and wrong aro both tools which are being wielded by those great hands which are shaping the destinies of tho universe ; that both arc making for improvement, but that the action of the one is immediate, and that of the other more slow, bub none the less certain. Our own distinction of right and wrong is founded too much upon the immediate convenience of the community, and does nob inquire sufficiently deeply into the ultimate effect.

I have my own views about Nature's methods, though I feel ib is rather like a beetle giving his opinions upon the Milky i Way. However, they have the merib of being consoling; for if we conscientiously see that sin served a purpose, and a good one, ib would take some of the blackness out of life. Ib seems to me, then, that Nature, still working on the lines of evolution, strengthens the race in two ways. The one is by improving those who are morally strong, which is done by increased knowledge and broadening religious views. The other and hardly loss important is by the killiucr off and extinction of those who are morally weak. This is accomplished by drink and immorality. These are really two of the most important forces which work for the ultimate perfection of the race. I picture them as two great invisible hands hovering over the garden of life and plucking up the weeds. Looked ab in one's own day one can only see that thoy produce degradation and misery. But at the end of a third generation from then what has happened ? The line of the drunkard and of the debauchee, physically as well as morally weakened, is either extinct or on the way towards it. Struma, tubercle, nervous diseaso have nil lent a hand towards the pruning off of that rotten branch, and the average of tho race is thereby improved. I believe, from the little that I have seen of life, that ib is a law which acts with startling swiftness, that a majority of drunkards never perpetuate their species at all, and that, when the curse is hereditary, the second generation generally sees the end of it.

Don't misunderstand me, and quote ma as saying that it is a good thing for a nation that, it should have many drunkards. Nothing of the kind. What I Bay is that if a nation has many morally weak people, then it is good that there should be a means for checking those weaker strains. Nature has her devices, and drink is among them. When there are no more drunkards and reprobates, it means that the race is so advanced that ib no longer needs such rough treatment. Then the all wise engineer will speed us along in some other fashion. If there is truth in this view of mine, then it might illustrate a striking remark which I read the other day, to the effect that if at any time the views of the wisest men could be eternally imposed upon the human race, the effect would always bo to perpetuate monstrous error.

By Jove, old chap, I am quite ashamed of having been so didactic. Bub ib is jolly to think that sin may have an object, and work towards good. My father says thab I seem to look upon the universe as if it were my property, and can't be happy until I know that all is right with it. Well, there is just a little truth in it. It does send a glow through me when I seem to catch a glimpse of bho lighb behind the clouds.

And now for my big bit of news, which is going to change my hole life. Whom do you think that I had a letter from last Tuesday week ? From old Culling worth, no less. It had no beginning, no end, was addressed all wrong, and written with a very thick quill pen upon the back of a prescription, flow it ever reached mo is a wonder. This is what ha had to say :— " .Started here in Bradfiold lasb June. Colossal success. My example must revolutionise medical practice. Rapidly making fortune. Have invention which is worth millions. Unless our Admiralty take it up, shall make Brazil bha leading naval power. Come down by next brain on receiving this. Have plenby for you to do." Thab was the whole of this extraordinary lebter, which had no name to ib, which was certainly reasonable enough, since no one else could have written ib. Knowing Cullingworth as well as I did, I took it all with reservations and deductions. How could he have made so rapid and complete a success in a town in which he must have been a complete stranger ! It was incredible. And yet there must be some truth in it, or else he would not invite me to come down and test it. On the whole, I thought that I had better move very cautiously in the matter, for I was happy and snug where I was, md kept on putting a little by, which I hoped would form a nucleus io start me in practice. Ib was only a few pounds up to date, but in a year or so it might mount to something. I vrro*» to Cullingworth, therefore, thanking him for having remembered mo, and explaining how matters stood. I had had great difficulty in finding an opening, I said, and now that I had one I was loth to give it up except for a permanency. Ten days passed, during which Cullingworth was silent. Then came a huge telegram : —" Your letter to hand. Why not call me a liar at once ? I tell you that I have Been thirty thousand patients in the last year. My actual takings have been over four thousand pounds. All patients come to me. Would not cross the street to see Queen Victoria. You can have all visiting, all surgery, all midwifery. ' Make what you like of it. Will guarantee three hundred pounds the first year." Well, this began to look more like business, especially the last sentence. I look it to Horton, and asked his advice. His opinion was that I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. So ib ended by my wiring back, accepting the partnership—if it is a partnershipand to-morrow morning I am off to Bradneld, with great hopes and a small portmanteau. I know how interested you are in the personality of Culling-worth-as everyone is who comes, evqn ab second-hand, within range of his influence —and so you may rely upon it that I shall give you a very full and parbicular account of all that passes between us. lam looking forward immensely to seeing him again, and I trust we won't have any rows. Good-bye, old chap, my foot is upon the threshold of fortune. Congratulate me. Yours ever, J. Stark Monro. (To be continued.)