CHAPTER II 



1841-1846 



The migration to Rotherhithe, noted under date of Janu- 

 ary 9, 1841, was a fresh step in his career. In 1839 both his 

 sisters married, and both married doctors. Dr. Cooke, the 

 husband of the elder sister, who was settled in Coventry, 

 had begun to give him some instruction in the principles 

 of medicine as early as the preceding June. It was now 

 arranged that he should go as assistant to Mr. Chandler, of 

 Rotherhithe, a practical preliminary to walking the hospitals 

 and obtaining a medical degree in London. His experi- 

 ences among the poor in the dock region of the East of 

 London — for Dr. Chandler had charge of the parish — sup- 

 plied him with a grim commentary on his diligent reading 

 in Carlyle. Looking back on this period, he writes: — 



The last recorded speech of Professor Teufelsdrockh pro- 

 poses the toast ' Die Sache der Armen in Gottes und Teufels- 



namen' (The cause of the Poor in Heaven's name and 's.) 



The cause of the Poor is the burden of Past and Present, Chart- 

 ism, and Latter-Day Pamphlets. To me . . . this advocacy of 

 the cause of the poor appealed very strongly . . . because . . . 

 I had had the opportunity of seeing for myself something of 

 the way the poor live. Not much, indeed, but still enough to 

 give a terrible foundation of real knowledge to my speculations. 



After telHng how he came to know something of the 

 East End, he proceeds : — 



I saw strange things there — among the rest, people who 

 came to me for medical aid, and who were really suffering from 

 nothing but slow starvation. I have not forgotten — am not 

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