24 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



merely a formal acknowledgment of attendance during the 

 specified periods. 



In the various situations he had filled he had proved himself a 

 faithful and painstaking servant, and his good qualities enabled 

 him to find favour with his employers, and had the efi'ect of 

 establishing relations of friendship and confidence between Mr. 

 Douglas and himself. 



During the months of summer, Mr. Douglas frequently re- 

 sorted to Millport with his daughters, and Robertson, when free 

 from home engagements, was often invited to accompany the 

 family. At this time he was chiefly interested in chemistry and 

 anatomy, and these visits to the country afforded him opportuni- 

 ties of cultivating the latter pursuit by the dissection of mice, 

 birds, frogs, and other animals. 



He had now fully recovered from his illness, was over thirty 

 years of age, and had completed his course of study. All that 

 remained was to present himself for final examination, obtain his 

 diploma, and start life as a medical practitioner. A change, how- 

 ever, had gradually been taking place in his views, and the causes 

 and purport of this change can best be understood from his own 

 words. " I had reasoned with myself," he says, " that I had not 

 any means of my own to make an independent start, and that if 

 I struggled on till I was able to do so, the class of patients I 

 should have, at any rate to begin with, would be much more 

 numerous in their persons than their payments. Then there was 

 another phase of the matter to be contemplated. In all the 

 duties of the profession one is brought face to face with pain to a 

 more or less distressing degree, nor is there any hour, night or 

 day, that one can call one's own. But the greate*^*" ^'^nsideration 

 with me was that all depended on myself. On the otuci .....id, I 

 thought that if I got into business, even in a small way, it might 

 by industry and close attention increase and enable me to employ 

 other hands as well as my own, and should illness or death over- 

 take me. the business might be carried on without me. I was in 

 good favour wdth my employer, Mr. Douglas, and his family. I 

 had entered into an engagement with one of his daughters. He 

 had, besides the dyeing establishment, a china and earthenware 

 shop in Jail Square, Glasgow, in w^hich my betrothed was an 

 attendant. 



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