288 PETERSFIELD. 



improved condition, adding, I could not do 

 better than follow out his advice. I told 

 him I was about to leave town the 

 following day for Hampshire. "Not into 

 Hertfordshire then ? " he said, interroga- 

 tively. I said, no Hampshire was my 

 native County. Upon my naming the 

 locality, he asked me many questions 

 as to the medical practitioner of that 

 place, who it appeared had been a very 

 favourite pupil of his, and then dwelt 

 with remarkable exactness and much 

 sympathy upon an unfortunate fatal in- 

 cident that had happened but a few 

 years before at Petersfield, to the gentle- 

 man to whose practice his young friend 

 had succeeded. A poor sailor had been 

 found dead in that neighbourhood, and 

 in sewing up the body, after a post 

 mortem examination, he punctured his 

 finger, and decomposition having already 

 taken place, the wound festered, mortifi- 



