nearly exhausted my waning exchequer, but I managed to pay for a blue board, on which in gold letters was inscribed the word “Surgery,” and this I erected at the entrance of the smaller half of my canvas abode. This board was neatly executed by a Boston sign-painter, and cost me six dollars and fifty cents, so much dearer is the ornamental than the useful. Four dollars procured me a sort of flag or banner, which I fixed between two posts in front of my tent, and which bore in red letters on a white ground, the words—“Dr. Edward Willis, M. R. C. S. Surgery and Physic in all branches. Sets bones. Draws teeth painlessly. Bleeds. Advice gratis.” Before I had well perfected my arrangements, I had plenty of visitors; plenty of visitors, but few patients. It was rather a slack time at the diggings just then; all the miners were waiting impatiently for the rains, because the rivers and gullies were all but dry, and there was not water enough for the cradling to go on anywhere but in a few deepish pools, where some lucky gangs were hard at work. And as Mariposa County mostly consists of very hard dry soil, intersected by the auriferous quartz reefs, the pick and spade could scarcely scratch the baked ground until the rains should soften it; consequently the diggers had not much to do beyond “prospecting” for future claims, or lounging about the groceries and grog-shops. My surgery made quite an amusing place of resort for them, and I arranged my phials and pounded my drugs under the gaze of seldom less than half a dozen very rugged neighbours, in tattered jerseys and picturesque black beards. They would stroll in unceremoniously enough, those wild-looking acquaintances of mine, and spend an hour in lubricating the earthen floor with tobacco juice, as they chatted and asked questions, but they somehow never seemed to want any medicine; and yet there was only one other practitioner in Placerville, though I will answer for it, in a place in England that should have been equally populous and rich, there would have been at least half a dozen brass plates on as many doors, with coloured lamps over them, and monstrous bottles, crimson, green, and blue, flashing through the trim surgery windows at night. There was but one other doctor, an American born, from one of the Western States I believe, and who was said to be a man of learning and ability; but, unhappily, what skill Dr. Hullings possessed was not often available to the sick of Placerville. The doctor was generally too drunk to feel a pulse, much less to perform an operation, and the most part of the practice of California is surgical, on account of the frequent accidents and affrays among the diggers. Hullings was a tavern-haunter, a coarse, brutal debauchee, whose character was notoriously bad, and who never pretended to respectability. Report said that he had lost several excellent practices in the Southern States because his excesses rendered him unfit to be admitted into decent households, and being quarrelsome as well as profligate, he had been at last obliged to leave New Orleans for California to elude the law, of which he had incurred the penalties by manslaughter in a café.
“And a mild word manslaughter is, to use in such a case,” said my kindly informant, the surveyor who recommended Placerville to me; “New Orleens ain’t a squeamish town, I assure you; and if what I’ve heerd be true, I guess a Northern jury would have brought in murder, I do.”
I mention this, not needlessly to blacken the memory of a man who has gone to his account, but to show that I was unlucky in having such a competitor, and how very difficult it would have been for the most pacific person breathing, under the circumstances, to have avoided the course I found myself in a manner compelled to take.
Briefly, in California, never a very moral atmosphere, Dr. Hullings sank from bad to worse Seldom sober, he would drink “on end” for a week together, selecting the greatest scamps in the community for his boon companions, and his orgies seldom ceased till his pocket was empty. Then he would arise from sloth and self-indulgence, and go about with blood-shot eyes and uncertain gait, to seek for the means of providing future revelry. Being a very strong man, of a fine though much-abused constitution, he contrived in a wonderful manner soon to shake off the effects of his debauch, and to set vigorously to work. Once at work, he toiled like a horse, prescribing, bandaging, healing, dosing, and tooth extracting, with considerable skill. He managed the miners, too, uncommonly well, knowing their ways, and humouring their prejudices dexterously, so as while physicking and bleeding, to screw out of his rough patients such fees as would the sooner enable him to return to the bar of the tavern, its choice spirits, and cunning compounds. Once regularly settled among a jovial company, and with a pocket well replenished with nuggets and Mexican “boards,” Hullings would scarcely have condescended to visit the sick bed of royalty itself; no bribe could tempt him, no entreaty move him, and indeed he was not long able to put forth his unquestionable skill on behalf of the suffering. It may be asked, why did not such a scampish and negligent doctor lose his practice? In England, of course, a person of such habits would have been speedily supplanted by more decent and useful practitioners. But California is a new and ill-organised land, where no crime is punished, save when the whim of the mob goes hand-in-hand with the decree of law; and duelling is regarded as needful, and even salutary. Now Hullings was a notorious duellist, who boasted of eleven antagonists killed or wounded, and who was always ready, pistol in hand, to warn off interlopers. Indeed he was one of the “crack shots” of the county, and was known to be willing to engage in mortal conflict with any one who should meddle with what he considered hi: property. My friend, the surveyor, had informed me how two or three young surgeons had attempted to settle at Pacerville, but had been driven away by the threats of Hullings, threats weighted by his formidable repute.
“But they, Doctor, were chicken-hearted young fellows, that weren’t fit for California at all,” said the surveyor. “Now, Doctor, do you take my advice—don’t let Hullings crow over you. No need to quarrel any, and I know your temper’s a good one; but don’t let him hector too much at