WHAT THERE IS IN THE ROOF OF No Above this, and just sorts of plans for cure. under the handsomely panelled roof, hang THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS. portraits of old surgeons, each famous in his PERHAPS no one of the London Squares is time, and now enjoying a sort of quiet renown more full of interesting associations, and amongst their successors in the art and certainly no one of them is more fresh and science of chirurgery. All we have seen pleasant to look upon, than Lincoln's Inn thus far, betokens the quiet repose of wealth, Fields. In the centre of its green Lord dignity, and learned leisure and ease. William Russell was beheaded; upon the bustle, no noise, no trace of urgent labour is old wall that used to run along its eastern heard or seen. Such of the officers of the side Ben Jonson, it is said, worked as a brick-place as may be encountered, have a look layer; amongst its north range of buildings of somnolent if not sleek sufficiency, and stands the thin sandwich of a house that holds seem to claim a share of the consideration the manifold artistic gems of the Soane which all are ready to concede, as due to the Museum; its west side was the scene of some character of the spot. Returning to the of Lord George Gordon's riotings; whilst hall, another door, facing that of the secreon its south side stands the noble-looking tary, leads to the great attraction and pride Grecian fronted building dedicated to the of the place-the Hunterian Museum-a colpurposes of the English College of Surgeons. lection of skeletons and glittering rows of This building has many uses, and many bottles full of evidences how "fearfully and points challenging general admiration and wonderfully" all living creatures are made. approval, the chief of them being its posses- On all sides we see the bony relics of defunct sion of the museum made by John Hunter; men and animals-giants, dwarfs, both human afterwards purchased, and now supported, by and quadruped, challenging attention. The the nation; and open freely, not only to huge megatherium, the bones of poor Chuny, medical men of all countries, but to the the elephant shot in Exeter 'Change, the public at large. The visitor who passes under skeleton of O'Brien the Irish giant, who its handsome portico, up the steps and enters walked about the world eight feet high, and its heavy mahogany and plate-glass doors, near him all that remains of the form of the finds himself in a large hall. On his right is Sicilian dwarf, who when alive was not taller a staid-looking, black-robed porter, who re- than O'Brien's knee. On the walls tier after quires him to enter his name in the visitor's tier of bottles are ranged, till the eye followbook-a preliminary which members equally ing them up towards the top of the building, with strangers have to go through. On his fatigued by their innumerable abundance, and left are the doors leading to the secretary's the variety of their contents, again seeks the office, where students may, from time to time, ground and its tables, there to encounter an be seen going in to register their attendance almost equal crowd of curious things collected upon the prescribed lectures, and, later in from the earth, the air, and the sea, to show their career, passing through the same portals how infinite the varieties in which Nature big with the desperate announcement that indulges, and how almost more than infinite they are ready to submit to the examinations the curious ways in which life varies the that must be passed before they can get a tenement it inhabits. But with this multidiploma. Facing the entrance door is a plicity of things we see no confusion, or trace second enclosed hall, with a roof supported by of carelessness or poverty. All is neatness, fluted columns, and on the left of this a broad order, and repose. Not a particle of dirt stately architectural stone staircase leading to offends the eye; not a film of dust dims the the library and the council-chamber-the brilliancy of the regiments of bottles drawn scene of those dreadful ordeals, the examina- up in long files upon the shelves, to salute the tions, where Hospital Surgeons sit surrounded visitor. The place is a very drawing-room of by crimson and gold, and marble busts, and noble pictures, to operate upon sweating and stuttering and hesitating students who, two by two, are seated in large chairs to be passed or plucked. science, all polished and set forth in trim order for the reception of the public. It is the best room in the house kept for the display of the results of the labours of the phy siologist, a spot devoted to the revelations of The library is a noble, large room, of excel- anatomy, without the horrifying accompanilent proportions, occupying the whole length ments of the dissecting-room. of the building in front, having tall plate- Thus far we have passed through what are glass embayed windows, each with its table and chair; and in each of which the passersby in Lincoln's Inn Fileds, may generally see alive surgeon framed and glazed, busily occupied with his books, or still more busily helping to keep up the tide of gossip for which the place is celebrated. For some twenty feet from the floor on all sides, the walls are lined with books, telling in various languages about all kinds of maladies and all in truth the public portions of the College of Surgeons, just glancing at its museum, unequalled as a physiological collection by any other in the world. In their surprise at the curious things it contains, there are many, no doubt, who wonder also where the things all came from; and what patient men have gone on since John Hunter's time, adding to his museum where it was deficient and keeping all its parts in their present admirable state. Such a question, if put to the officials, would most likely obtain a very vague and misty reply; but a glance behind the scenes at the College will afford an ample and curious explanation, and show how one section of the Searchers for Facts, silently and unheeded, work on in their self-chosen, quiet, scientific path-undisturbed by the noises and the bustle, the excitements and the strife of the modern Babylon, that heaves and throbs around them. Leave the handsome rooms, with their clear light, and polish, and air of neatness, and come with us up the side stair that leads to the unshown recesses, where, high up in the roof, the workers in anatomy carry on their strange duties. As we open the side door that leads towards these secret chambers, we should go from daylight to darkness, were it not for the gas that is kept burning there. Up the stairs we go, and as we ascend, the way becomes lighter and lighter as we rise, but the stone steps soon change for wooden ones, and at length bring us from the silent stairs to a silent gloomy-looking passage, having three doors opening into it, and some contrivances overhead for letting in a little light, and letting out certain odours that here abound, greatly to the discomfort of the novice who first inhales them. We are now in the roof of the building, and on getting a glimpse through a window, we may see the housetops are below us, the only companions of our elevation being a number of neighbouring church-spires. ready for use, and round about them all sorts of scraps of glass and glaziers' diamonds, and watch-glasses, and forceps, and scissors, and bottles of marine-glue, and of gold-size,-these being the means and appliances of the microscopic observer. Before the second window is a sink, in which stand jars of frogs and newts, and other small creatures. A lathe, a desk, and writing utensils, the model of a whale cast ashore in the Thames, an old stiffbacked wooden chair, once the seat of the Master of the Worshipful Company of Surgeons, a few cases of stuffed birds and animals, and some tall glass-stoppered bottles that went twice round the world with Captain Cook and Dr. Solander, make up the catalogue of the chief contents of an apartment, which, at first glance, has the look of an auctioneer's room filled with the sold-off stock of a broken down anatomical teacher. A closer inspection, however, shows that though there is so great a crowd of objects, there is little or no confusion, and the real meaning of the place, its intention, and labours, reveal themselves. We are in a storeroom of the strange productions of all corners of the earth, from the air above and from the waters below. Every particle in every bottle that looks perhaps to the uninitiated eye only a mass of bad fish preserved in worse pickle, has its value. A thin slice of it taken out and placed under the microscope, illustrates some law of the animal economy, or displays, perhaps, some long undiscovered fact, or shows to the surThe feeling of the spot is one of almost com- prise of the gazer, a series of lines beautifully plete isolation from the world below, and a arranged, or perhaps curiously mingled, and neighbourhood to something startling if not rich in their figured combinations as the frozen almost terrible. Like Fatima in Bluebeard's moisture of a window-frame on a winter's Tower, impelled by an overbearing curiosity, morning. To this room as to a general centre we turn the lock of the centre door, and enter come contributions from all corners of the the chamber. A strange sight is presented. earth; the donors being chiefly medical men The room is large, with the sloping roof-beams employed on expeditions, or in the public above, and a stained and uncovered floor service, though other medicos, who go to seek below. The walls all round are crowded with fortune in strange lands, often remember their shelves, covered with bottles of various sizes alma mater, and pack up a bottle of curious full of the queerest-looking of all queer things. things "to send to the College,' Doctors on Many are of a bright vermilion colour; others shipboard, doctors with armies, doctors in yellow; others brown; others black; whilst Arctic ships, or on Niger expeditions; in the others again display the opaque whiteness of far regions of Hindustan, and in the fogs and bloodless death. Three tables are in the room, storms of Labrador, think now and then of but these are as crowded as the walls. Cases their "dissecting days," and of the noble colof instruments, microscopes, tall jars, cans, a lection in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which every large glass globe full of water-newts, hydras, true student feels bound to honour, and to help and mosses; small cases of drawers filled with to make complete. Many, when going forth microscopic objects, and a thousand other odds into distant countries, are supplied from this and ends. Here is a long coil of snake's eggs, place with bottles specially adapted to receive just brought from a country stable-yard; there objects in request, and receive also a volume of some ears of diseased wheat, sent by a noble instructions, how the specimens may be best landlord who studies farming; beside them lies preserved. "When a quadruped is too large part of a leaf of the gigantic water-lily, the to be secured whole, cut off the portion of the Victoria Regia, and near that a portion of a head containing the teeth," says one direction. vegetable marrow is macerating in a saucer "If no more can be done," says another, "preto separate some peculiar vessels for exhibition serve the heart and great blood-vessels." "Of under the microscope. There are two windows a full-grown whale," says a third of these to the room, besides some ventilators in the roof; and before one of these, where the light is best, are ranged microscopes complete and notes, send home the eyes with the surrounding skin, their muscles and fat in an entire mass.” "When many specimens of a When a rare and curious bird are procured, the heads such facts as can be made out. of a few should be taken off and preserved in novelty comes in, it is examined, described, spirit." "When alligators and crocodiles are investigated by the miscroscope; and, if too large to be preserved whole, secure some worthy, is sketched on stone for printing. It part. The bones of such things are especially is then catalogued, and placed in spirit for desirable. Secure also the eggs in different preservation-minute portions, perhaps, being stages." "Snakes may be preserved whole, mounted on glass as objects for the microor in part, especially the heads, for the exami- scope. Thus disposed of, it becomes a “store nation of their teeth and fangs." "Eyes of preparation." From this store the lectures fishes are proper objects of preservation." at the College are illustrated by examples ;. Such are a few of the hints sent forth to their and from it also are the bright bottles in the medical disciples by the College, and the Hunterian Museum kept complete. From fruits of the system are a bountiful supply. time to time something very rare comes to Never a week passes but something rare or hand, and then there is quite an excitement curious makes its appearance in Lincoln's Inn in the place. It is turned about, examined, Fields; sometimes from one quarter, some- and discussed, with as much zest as a lady times from another, but there is always some- would display when first opening a present thing coming, either by messenger or parcel- of jewels, or first criticising a new ball-dress. cart. Apart from these foreign sources, there If the new acquisition be an animal but are other contributaries to the general stock. recently dead, a drop of its blood is sought Country doctors and hospital surgeons, from and placed under the microscope to see the time to time, send in their quota; the diameter of its globules; if it has a coat of fur, Zoological Society likewise contribute all perhaps one of the hairs are next submitted their dead animals. When the elephant died to the same test; and then a fine section of at the Regent's Park Gardens, a College stu- its bone passes a similar ordeal. Its brain is dent and an assistant were busily occupied for investigated, weighed, and placed in spirit days dissecting the huge animal. When the for preservation. Its general characteristics rhinoceros expired at the same place, a portion are then gone over, and a description of them of its viscera was hailed as a prize; and written down. If worthy of a place in the when the whale was cast, not long ago, upon Museum, this description goes to make a the shores of the Thames, the watermen who paragraph in the catalogues of the Collection claimed it as their booty, steamed off to the fine quarto volumes, of which there are College to find a customer for portions of the un- many now complete, containing more exact wieldy monster; nor were they disappointed. anatomical and physiological descriptions of Beyond all these, there still remains another objects, than perhaps any other work extant. searcher out of materials for the scalpel The last contribution to the series of Cataand the microscope. He is a character logues was made in the room we have been in his way. By trade, half cattle-slaughterer examining. Its production was the constant half-oysterman, he is by choice a sort of labour of two years; and the volume contains dilettante anatomist. One day he is killing exact particulars of many facts never before oxen and sheep in Clare Market, and the next noticed. Amongst other things, for instance, is scouring the same market for morbid speci- made out with certainty in this place by Mr. mens "for Mr. Quickett, at the College." He Quekett, after months of patient investigaknows an unhealthy sheep by its looks, and tion, was the elementary differences in the watches its post mortem with the eye of a character of bone. To the common eye and savant. Many a choice specimen has he common idea, all bone is simply bone; and caught up in his time from amongst the offal for common purposes the word indicates and garbage of that fustiest of markets in the closely enough what the speaker would defustiest of neighbourhoods. Indeed, through scribe. Not so to the naturalist and the him, all that is unusual in ox, calf, sheep, fish, physiologist; and so scalpel and microscope or fowl, found within the confines of Clare went to work: the sea, the land, and the air, Market, finds its way to the "work shop" of lent each their creatures peculiar to itself, the College to be investigated by scalpel and and the labour of the search was at length microscope. When a butcher is known to rewarded by a discovery that each great class have any diseased sheep, our collector hovers of living things has an elementary difference about his slaughter-house, and that which is in the bones upon which its structure is built bad food for the public, often affords him and up. Hence, when a particle of bony matter is his patron a prize. He is a sort of jackal for now placed under the microscope, come whence the anatomists-a kind of cadger in the ser- it may-from a geological strata, or from the vice of science-a veritable snatcher-up of ill-depths of the sea, or from within the cere conditioned trifles. Returning to the room in the College roof, where the general cornucopia of strange things is emptied, we find its presiding genius in Mr. Quekett, a quiet enthusiast in his way, who goes on from month to month and year to year, watching, working, and chronicling cloth of a mummy-the observer, guided by Mr. Quekett's observations, knows whether it belonged in life to bird, beast, or fish. Glancing round this anatomical workshop, we find, amongst other things, some prepara tions showing the nature of pearls. Examine them, and we find that there are dark and dingy pearls, just as there are handsome and All things brought here, and capable of it, ugly men; the dark pearl being found on the are injected somewhat after this fashion before dark shell of the fish, the white brilliant one they pass under the scalpel. Besides this upon the smooth inside shell. Going further oven-looking structure there are pans, and in the search, we find that the smooth glitter-tubs, and casks; one containing a small ing lining upon which the fish moves, is dromedary, another being "a cask of camel." known as the nacre, and that it is produced A painter's easel stands there ready for use, and by a portion of the animal called the mantle on the floor are some bones of a megatherium; and for explanation sake we may add, that the tables are covered with bottles and gourmands practically know the mantle as jars, and the walls are similarly decorated. the beard of the oyster. When living in its Strings of bladders hang about, and under glossy house, should any foreign substance foot we see thin sheets of lead coated with find its way through the shell to disturb the tin-foil; these latter being used for tying smoothness so essential to its ease, the fish coats the offending substance with nacre, and a pearl is thus formed. The pearl is, in fact, a little globe of the smooth glossy substance yielded by the oyster's beard; yielded ordinarily to smooth the narrow home to which his nature binds him, but yielded in round drops-real pearly tears-if he is hurt. When a beauty glides proudly among a throng of admirers, her hair clustering with pearls, she little thinks that her ornaments are products of pain and diseased action, endured by the most unpoetical of shell-fish. down the preparation bottles so that they may for years remain air-tight; a tedious and somewhat difficult operation. In this place every year they use scores, sometimes hundreds of gallons of alcohol; one fact which helps to show that museums on a large scale are expensive establishments. Here, as elsewhere, however, in our establishments, whatever may be expended on materials, the men who do the work of science are but indifferently paid. But lucre is not their sole reward. No mere money payment could compensate (for instance) a man for Leaving the centre-room of the three in spending a lifetime in this College of Surgeons' the College roof, let us just glance at the roof. Forget the object in view; ignore the other two apartments. Upon entering one charm that science has for its votaries; and we see the walls lined with boxes, something this place becomes a literal inferno, filled with like those in a milliner's shop, but, instead pestilential fumes, and surrounded by horrible of holding laces and ribands, we find them sights. But they who fix the salaries know labelled "Wolf,” 66 Racoon," "Penguin," how much the pursuit of science is a labour of "Lion," ," "Albatross," and so on with names love; and so they pay the man of science badly, of birds, and beasts, and fishes. On lifting not here alone, but in all the scientific branches a lid, we find the boxes filled with the of the public service. But the science-worker bones of the different creatures named; though he may feel the injustice, yet moves not a complete skeleton of any one, perhaps, on his way rejoicing, pleased with his unbut portions of half-a-dozen. In this room, ceasing search into the secret workings of the two students attached to the College nature, and exhilarated from time to time by carry on dissections, under the directions of the superior authorities. What they do is entered in a book kept posted up, and this affords another source for reference as to anatomical facts. When they have laboured here for three years, they have the option of a commission as Assistant Surgeon in the Army, Navy, or East India Company's service, as a reward for their College work. some discovery, or by the confirmation of some cherished notion. And though the glittering prizes of life be bestowed on strivers in far different walks, the student of nature holds on his cheerful and philosophic way, rewarded by the glimpses he gets of the power that made and sustains all terrestrial things, and rewarded, moreover, by the holy contact with that infinite wisdom seen at If the atmosphere of the two apartments work in the construction, the adaptation, and we have investigated was bad, that of the third the continuance of the marvellous and illimitroom was infinitely worse, though windows ably varied works it is the business of his and ventilators are constantly open. In this life to investigate. place large preparations are kept, and all the specimens are here put into the bottles required for exhibition in the Museum. This third room, like the first, has a curiously characteristic look. It would make a fine original for WE shudder at the cruelties practised upon a picture of an alchemist's study. On one side Strasbourg geese to produce the celebra.ed is a large structure of brickwork with pipes pâtés de foie gras; but remorse would asand taps, conveying the idea of a furnace and suredly afflict the amateurs of veal with instill, or of an oven. Alongside it is a bath and digestion, if they reflected on the tortures to a table, and the purpose of the whole is which calves are subjected to cause the very for injecting large animals. This is a very unnatural colour of the meat which they so difficult operation, the object being to drive much prize. The natural and wholesome a kind of hot liquid sealing-wax into every tint of veal is not white, but pink. An artery of the body, even the most minute. ancient French traveller in England (1690) CHIPS. NICE WHITE VEAL. says that the English veal has not the "beautiful red colour of the French." Dr. Smollett, in "Peregrine Pickle," upbraids epicures, on the scores both of cruelty and unwholesomeness, saying that our best veal is like a "fricassee of kid gloves," and the sauce of "melted butter" is rendered necessary only by the absence of the juices drained out of the unfortunate animal before death. When old Winter, cold and hoar, With a mate so full of sorrow? Nor wake till th' Eternal morrow! THE LAST OF A LONG LINE. IN TWO CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER II. The process of killing a calf is a refinement of cruelty worthy of a Grand Inquisitor. The beast is, while alive, bled several times; in summer, during several hours of the night, and frequently till it faints; when a plug is IN Great Stockington there lived a race of put into the orifice till "next time." But the paupers. From the year of the 42nd of lengthened punishment of the most unoffend- Elizabeth, or 1601, down to the present geneing of animals is at the actual "killing." ration, this race maintained an uninterrupted It is tied together, neck and heels, much as a descent. They were a steady and unbroken dead animal when packed in a basket and line of paupers, as the parish books testify. slung up by a rope, with the head down- From generation to generation their demands wards. A vein is then opened, till it linger on the parish funds stand recorded. There ingly bleeds to death. Two or three "knocks" were no lacuna in their career; there never are given to it with the pole-axe whilst it failed an heir to these families; fed on the hangs loose in the air, and the flesh is beaten bread of idleness and legal provision, these with sticks, technically termed "dressing" it, people flourished, increased, and multiplied. some time before feeling has ceased to exist. Sometimes compelled to work for the weekly All this may be verified by those who insist on dole which they received, they never acquired seeing the penetralia of the slaughter-houses; a taste for labour, or lost the taste for the or the poor animal may be seen moaning and bread for which they did not labour. These writhing-by a mere glance-on many days of paupers regarded this maintenance by no the week, in Warwick Lane, Newgate Street. means as a disgrace. They claimed it as a This mode of bleaching veal is not only a right,-a -as their patrimony. They contended crime, but a blunder. The flesh would be that one-third of the property of the Church more palatable and nutritious killed speedily had been given by benevolent individuals for and mercifully. But were it otherwise, and the support of the poor, and that what the had it been twenty times more a luxury, who, Reformation wrongfully deprived them of, the professing to honour the common Creator, great enactment of Elizabeth rightfully-and would, for the sensual gratification of the only rightfully-restored. palate, cause the calf to be thus tortured? "ALL THINGS IN THE WORLD MUST WOULD'ST thou have it always Spring, That thy womanhood were nearer ? Longing yet for something dearer ? Would'st have Summer ever stayDroughty Summer-bright and burning? Dost thou not, oft in the day, Long for still, cool, night's returning? Of thy pleasures, vain though pleasant- And thy heart with love's o'erflowing, Dost thou never long to see What is in the future's showing? Those who imagine that all paupers merely claimed parish relief because the law ordained it, commit a great error. There were numbers who were hereditary paupers, and that on a tradition carefully handed down, that they were only manfully claiming their own. They traced their claims from the most ancient feudal times, when the lord was as much bound to maintain his villein in gross, as the villein was to work for the lord. These paupers were, in fact, or claimed to be, the original adscripti glebee, and to have as much a claim to parish support as the landed proprietor had to his land. For this reason, in the old Catholic times, after they had escaped from villenage by running away and remaining absent from their hundred for a year and a day, dwelling for that period in a walled town, these people were amongst the most diligent attendants at the Abbey doors, and when the Abbeys were dissolved, were, no doubt, amongst the most daring of these thieves, vagabonds, and sturdy rogues, who, after the Robin Hood fashion, beset the highways and solitary farms of England, and claimed their black mail in a very unceremonious style. It was out of this class that Henry VIII. hanged his seventy-two thousand during his reign, and, as it is said, with |