Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/261

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262
The Strand Magazine.

cleaned for him with a small piece of wadding, though generally a fairly good specimen dentally is selected.


"The greatest Doctor of the London streets."

The writer once stopped to listen to another type of quack, more modestly served with the usual naphtha lamp and small box on stand. He was a man with a fierce eye and very sallow complexion, who rejoiced to find one of his audience at the time afflicted with face-ache or neuralgia. He had an instantaneous cure by inhalation, and, indeed, if unable to discover a face bound up with a handkerchief or some other apparent evidence of neuralgic pains, would boldly and thunderingly accuse any particular one of the listeners of sciatica, neuralgia, tic-doloureux, or some other complaint, to the blushing confusion and ineffable distress of the victim of his declaration.

Another gentleman, with every assurance, declared solemnly that he was not there for himself, he was working on behalf of a very dear friend laid on a bed of sickness. He (the quack) had made enough and plenty of money to last him all his lifetime, and, apparently forgetting what he had said before, was selling his herbal compound purely, solely, and simply for the benefit of the people.


"An instantaneous cure."

If he hadn't enough to last him a lifetime, he was apparently pretty well off, as his well-appointed pony and trap sufficiently testified.

But the open-air entertainments are, of course, if not more amusing, certainly more attractive to the crowd.

We have seen more than one very excellent conjuror at a street corner, and as it is necessarily more difficult to perform in the open with little or no apparatus, and the audience completely surrounding one, perhaps they may be entitled to some credit.

Guinea-pigs discovered under an old hat, which had the moment before been lifted to show its emptiness by a small wand held at tucked-up-sleeved arms' length, rapid manipulation with cups and marbles, card tricks neatly shown, and other feats of legerdemain are comprised in the street conjuror's programme.

Open-air recitations have become very prevalent of late years. Here is one who is a familiar figure perhaps to many.

"You see before you, ladies and gentlemen, a trained actorr