THROUGH George Bird I made the acquaintance of the leading surgeons and physicians of the North London Hospital, where I frequently attended the operations of Erichsen, John Marshall, and Sir Henry Thompson, following them afterwards in their clinical rounds. Amongst the physicians, Professor Sydney Ringer remains one of my oldest friends. Both surgery and therapeutics interested me deeply. With regard to the first, curiosity was supplemented by the incidental desire to overcome the natural repugnance we all feel to the mere sight of blood.
Chemistry I studied in the laboratory of a professional friend of Dr. Bird's. After a while my teacher would leave me to carry out small commissions of a simple character which had been put into his hands, such as the analysis of water, bread, or other food-stuffs. He himself often had engagements elsewhere, and would leave me in possession of the laboratory, with a small urchin whom he had taught to be useful. This boy was of the meekest and mildest disposition.
Whether his master had frightened him or not I do not know.
He always spoke in a whisper, and with downcast eyes. He handled everything as if it was about to annihilate him, or he it, and looked as if he wouldn't bite - even a tartlet.
One day when I had finished my task, and we were alone, I bethought me of making some laughing gas, and trying the effect of it on the gentle youth. I offered him a shilling for the experiment, which, however, proved more expensive than I had bargained for. I filled a bladder with the gas, and putting a bit of broken pipe-stem in its neck for a mouthpiece, gave it to the boy to suck - and suck he did. In a few seconds his eyes dilated, his face became lividly white, and I had some trouble to tear the intoxicating bladder from his clutches. The moment I had done so, the true nature of the gutter-snipe exhibited itself. He began by cutting flip-flaps and turning windmills all round the room; then, before I could stop him, swept an armful of valuable apparatus from the tables, till the whole floor was strewn with wreck and poisonous solutions. The dismay of the chemist when he returned may be more easily imagined than described.
Some years ago, there was a well-known band of amateur musicians called the 'Wandering Minstrels.' This band originated in my rooms in Dean's Yard. Its nucleus was composed of the following members: Seymour Egerton, afterwards Lord Wilton, Sir Archibald Macdonald my brother-in-law, Fred Clay, Bertie Mitford (the present Lord Redesdale - perhaps the finest amateur cornet and trumpet player of the day), and Lord Gerald Fitzgerald. Our concerts were given in the Hanover Square Rooms, and we played for charities all over the country.
To turn from the musical art to the art - or science is it called? - of self-defence, once so patronised by the highest fashion, there was at this time a famous pugilistic battle - the last of the old kind - fought between the English champion, Tom Sayers, and the American champion, Heenan.
Bertie Mitford and I agreed to go and see it.
The Wandering Minstrels had given a concert in the Hanover Square Rooms. The fight was to take place on the following morning. When the concert was over, Mitford and I went to some public-house where the 'Ring' had assembled, and where tickets were to be bought, and instructions received. Fights when gloves were not used, and which, especially in this case, might end fatally, were of course illegal; and every precaution had been taken by the police to prevent it. A special train was to leave London Bridge Station about 6 A.M.
We sat up all night in my room, and had to wait an hour in the train before the men with their backers arrived. As soon as it was daylight, we saw mounted police galloping on the roads adjacent to the line. No one knew where the train would pull up. Ten minutes after it did so, a ring was formed in a meadow close at hand. The men stripped, and tossed for places. Heenan won the toss, and with it a considerable advantage. He was nearly a head taller than Sayers, and the ground not being quite level, he chose the higher side of the ring. But this was by no means his only 'pull.' Just as the men took their places the sun began to rise. It was in Heenan's back, and right in the other's face.
