When I first went among the colliers, I got
no signs of recognition, until I had earned
them. Better wages, and a little more
to think about, have made our workmen in
the north more independent than the southern
agriculturists; but it is precisely because they
are less servile that they are able to be more
really courteous. Now that I have made my
way here and am prosperous, many hat-touchings
do indeed greet me— when, for example,
walking against the stream, I meet our
congregation coming out of church; but these
greetings express a genuine respect. I have
joined broken bones for the greeters, I have
watched by their sick children, I have brought
health to their wives, often receiving, and I
may venture to say contented by, these kind
looks for my main remuneration. The courtesy
I get among these colliers is genuine; and,
although they and their wives gossip like their
betters, and make now and then a little cruel
mischief, I have seen and know that simple
kindly thoughts and impulses of the most
genuine politeness prevail largely among them.
Yet, they are perhaps the roughest and the
least enlightened of the working men, except
those who are employed in agriculture.

My Woodmen discoursed, therefore, in a
courteous spirit; their officers discussed the
few details upon which it concerned me to be
informed, gave me the names of those who
were then sick, together with a list of
members of the Club, by which I might
know what men were entitled to demand my
services, in consideration of the four shillings
a-piece paid yearly on their account. So,
after drinking a little beer in token of good
fellowship, I travelled home through a wet
night, with thirty pounds a year added to my
income, and the care of the health of a
hundred and fifty men added to my work.

Not long afterwards I found myself in
charge of a very large number of patients, for
whom medical aid was procured through a
Dispensary which paid to me three shillings for
the whole attendance upon each case, including
medicine. In this respect I was better off
than many of my brethren who strive hard
to obtain appointments to dispensaries that
pay them nothing but the cheap accidental
advantage of putting their names a little more
before the local public. Other Clubs,
subjected themselves to my lancet, among them
a large Church Club established by the
rector in antagonism to the societies which
led men into the way of waste by meeting
at public-houses. Nevertheless, the number
of my private patients increased slowly. At
that time, after receiving patients in the
surgery, and visiting in busy seasons as many
as ninety sick people at their own homes, very
often there were only three or four doubtfully
profitable private entries for the day-book in
the evening, and my poor heart rejoiced at
any midnight knocking that might bid me
give up my night's rest for a half-guinea fee.
Very often indeed, however, the night-call
was to a Club patient, or parish or dispensary
case. At that time, being unable to
afford assistance, I was out, on an average, not
less than three nights in a week; and as the
average was very unequally distributed, sometimes
the act of going to bed continued for
a fortnight together to be a useless ceremony
that could result only in pure aggravation.
I would not record these experiences if they
were matters purely personal; but there are
thousands of my fellow-labourers who are,
and have been, in the same predicament. If
a stray Club patient whose case fell properly
to the care of my neighbour, Parkinson,
disturbed my broken rest, I sent him on to the
right door and went to sleep again; if
Parkinson were out, and he came back to tell me
so, I went with him: but, if ever in such a
case harm came of delay, the heartless apathy
of the doctor— who did not care for the lives
of Club or parish patients —was noised as the
cause of all. If two urgent calls were
simultaneous—as they would be sometimes —
there was a certainty of getting heartily abused by
somebody, and a chance perhaps of having
one's professional and moral character
beargued in a court of law. Every month I
see some surgeon in the newspapers thus ill
rewarded for the hard life he has led.

There is nobody to blame for all this, and
there is nothing wanting but a little more
discrimination on the part of the public, a little
generosity in recognition of the work that
country surgeons do. While families unable
to bear the extra cost of sickness form a large
part of the population, either one half of the
people of this country must find their way
to the grave without a doctor, or else the
doctor must consent to spend a large part of
his skill in labour that produces little or no
money return. He does so spend it; as he
thinks, in the fulfilment of a noble duty.
Though among ignorant patients many things
occur to vex him, he bears with them
patiently, and if he comes with a sound heart
to his work, he acquires faith in the poor.

"Love has he found in huts, where poor men lie;"

they become warm friends to him, and
become lusty trumpeters to spread abroad the
fame of skill that he has been glad to exercise
among them. Our ill-paid work is done
ungrudgingly, but after it is done we are a
little galled when we are censured thoughtlessly
for the neglects, which are inseparable
from the performance of so huge a mass of
urgent duty. It annoys us when we have
patients able to pay becomingly for our
assistance, who regard us rather as tradesmen
than as gentlemen, require bills that
contain long lists of pills and mixtures to be
filed together with the joints of meat and
groceries consumed by the establishment, and
pay us with a secret feeling, half-expressed,
that we have taken care to be well paid.

Why, then, do we overload ourselves with
work? Why, for example, did I consent to