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406 A DISCONTENTED PAPES.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
. 4 - Mm Ii. "Now, Here's Another Discon...
instantly , and enquire touching the death of Henry Blank . Now ensued the counting of the jurymenand three being * found wanting-,
the beadle rushed outand soon returne , d with that number of neigh-, bours to niake up ,- —one a panting barber with crumbs in his
whiskers , and in a state of quite indescribable undress . When the barber had winked at everybody but methe Coroner administered
, the oaths ; and I am sorry to say I took my part of the adjuration in a very irreverent manner , and most positively did not kiss the
book , but only pretended to do so , not liking the look of it , or of the fingers through which it had passed . Fortunately for methe humour
, of the whole procedure was stronger than the pathos , except once or twice during the examination of the weeping mother ; but I had a
headache afterwards which lasted two or three days . The mother of the dead child was a nice , pretty little creature ; her
husband was one of those ' men' ( by courtesy ) concerning whom you wonder how women can be found to marry them , and how it . is that
there is not some exceptional dispensation of nature to prevent , at all eventstheir becoming the fathers of large families of ricketty children .
He was , harmless , ( except by default , ) yellow-faced , lank-haired , small and insignificantand sathat on kneewith wooden face and
lack-, , , lustre eye through the whole ceremony . As soon as the medical man appeared—he was the only person in the room known to me— -the
examination , commenced . It had the usual features of all examina , - tions conducted hy men of quite moderate intelligence . The Coroner
repeatedly told both the surgeon and the mother not to be " alarmed " or not to go from the question , when all the while his own
interrogations were so ill-franied that the wonder was that he got anything at all relevant in reply . I will mention one curious , almost incredible
instance on his part , of incapacity in a mind of fiffch-rate culture to take for a moment the stand-point of another of fiffceenth-rate culture .
Instead of saying to the mother , " What did the doctor tell you was the matter with the child when you took it to him ? " he must needs
use a word of Latin origin , and say—carefully dropping his _iaTby-thebye—" What did he lead you to appre-end ? " The mother did not
understand this , and answered apropos de rien . The Coroner kept on , over and over again , making the same demand of her , and at last
was losing temper , when both the doctor and the poor little husband struck in with" She don't know what that is—ask her what he told
, her . " With a soupcon of offended pride in his manner , the Coroner came down from the heights of his Latinityand put a plain English
, question to the woman , receiving in return a reasonable answer . But the most startling part of the whole story was the cause of the
child ' s death . The husband was a journeyman painter , not out of workand the family had Irish stew for supper the same night ; but
for dinner , these wretched little olive-branches had , it seemed , red herrings ! Poor little Henrywith whooping-cough yet hanging about
, him , and not more than thirteen months old , had been helped first ,
and had swallowed a bone which ( the child half-whooping at the
406 A Discontented Papes.
406 A _DISCONTENTED PAPES .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1858, page 406, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081858/page/46/
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