for while waiting helplessly for patients his lease of lifetime may expire, and he may become the tenant of this last and limited abode.

Judging from the want and misery which doctors bequeath to their families, they must be ill-paid, or very improvident indeed. The applications for the vacancies in that truly noble institution, the Royal Medical Benevolent College, have disclosed an understratum of wretchedness and misery, of which neither the public nor the profession had the most remote idea; and which cry aloud for some revision of the present mode of remunerating medical men. The knowledge in time past of the existence of such a noble charity as the Benevolent College would have soothed the death-pang of many a poor and wretched doctor, expiring at his post amid the raging pestilence. It will, in future, incite to deeds of daring and devotion when the destroying angel is again upon the wing, and contagion's hideous form stalks forth across the land. Fear and despair will no longer be associated with the hoarse and whispering voice of cholera, nor the low and muttering accents of contagious fever. The doctor will no longer fear to do his duty lest death should tear him from his helpless, unprovided family. This

institution is a debt of gratitude which the public owed to the profession for its public services alone; and yet it has cost the sighs, and sobs, and tears of thousands to awaken a sufficient interest to raise this stately pile. Mr. Propert, the Founder of the College, has immortalised himself by its happy conception and its successful completion. The medical profession owes him. a deep debt of gratitude; and the nation at large must honour a man who has, by his genius and indomitable perseverance, raised a monument which is the admiration of the civilised world. Why Epsom, above all other places, should have been selected as the site of a Doctors' College, is somewhat singular, and full of suggestive ideas.

Let me now inquire, Is the status of the medical profession lower now than formerly? or is the public better educated? or is science more advanced, that the doctors should be so much derided and received with so much distrust? There is a feeling abroad that medical men are not unwilling to sacrifice life for the basest purposes; and it has been reported that Life Offices look with suspicion upon doctors and their doings. Certainly Palmer's career was calculated to stagger the Life Assurance Offices; but is it not rather too sweeping a conclusion to arrive at,

"Ab uno disce omnes?" I was very much struck the night before Palmer's execution with the remarks of some gentlemen in a railway carriage-that salon des commères. One remarked that he had changed his doctor, and got in exchange a gentleman whom he did not so well like; but was afraid to send for the one whom he had discharged, lest he should poison him in revenge! His fears and conclusions were at once strengthened by the other three declaring that it was the most impolitic thing in the world ever to employ a doctor whom you had once discharged, for that he was sure to be revenged. Good Heavens ! Can humanity really believe in such depravity? Are a lot of little men, who poisonously adulterate every article they sell, deliberately to charge a noble and humane profession with such a fearful crime simply because one doctor, in his capacity of gambler and blackleg, poisoned another gambler, and was suspended for his pains? "How conscience doth make

cowards of us all!" If these little men had not been accustomed to deadly adulterations, would they have ever dreamt of such a crime?

Of all base things, ingratitude to a medical man is the basest. Many people treat a doctor as they would a petty trader-they try this shop to-day, and that to-morrow; and their

gratitude to a doctor vanishes with the necessity for his aid. The doctor who calls frequently upon his patient is a very kind and a very attentive doctor; but when the bill goes in, he is denounced as an overreaching man. Patients

never expect to pay for visits after convalescence once begins-they plainly tell the doctor that he was driving by, and only called to please himself. And if he press for payment-why then he called to get his dinner and his wine, and charged the patient for a visit. Many people are rude enough to tell the doctor they have kept a check against his visits and attendance. Whenever a medical man is deliberately and seriously told this, let him go home and charge his highest fee-for his patient has plainly told him that he believes him capable of cheating him and the best way in which he can resent such an insult is to show that he knows how to estimate the value of his services, and charge for them as well. How completely is a patient at the mercy of his doctor! From the moment he first sends for him his life and purse are in his keeping. The doctor can call when he likes-do what he likes-and charge what he likes-and yet a patient has the meanness to insinuate that the doctor would cheat him of a fee! Patients are generally grateful

during the dangerous symptoms of their malady, but forgetful when danger is past. As convalescence proceeds, gratitude vanishes; and by the time the bill is made out and sent in, ingratitude is all the doctor gets. Were patients to pay their doctor at the time, as Mr. Punch suggests, we should certainly then see that most extraordinary of all sights-a fresh doctor for every fresh illness- soon done away with. Many patients imagine that they wipe out a debt of gratitude by paying the doctor's bill; and when reminded that they are much indebted to their medical man, they coolly reply, "Well, but I paid him what he charged-he has no claim on me!" as if the payment of a few pounds discharged the debt of gratitude for all the doctor's anxieties and responsibilitieshis loss of rest and loss of health-his nightly vigils, and his daily toils-for all his hopes, and fears, and disappointments.

No pecuniary consideration can ever reimburse a doctor's wasted hours and shattered health. I have known a medical man submit to the most vexatious inconvenience to oblige a lady at an interesting time. Afraid to leave his home by day-disturbed by every passing sound at night --and all this worry and anxiety for what? A five or ten-pound fee at least? No. But for