long distances to satisfy their
respective curiosity, or vent their scepticism, as the case might be.
As a rule they were long-visaged, not a few were unkempt, and many
were downright seedy in wearing apparel. Almost invariably they
insisted upon boring the doctor with numberless questions, many of
which were idle. The majority displayed ignorance, and it might
truthfully be said, they were rude almost without exception. One man
insisted upon feeling Dr. Tanner's arms and legs; another wanted to
feel his pulse; a third demanded a view of his tongue; a fourth
declared food must be given to him surreptitiously, else he would be
dead; a fifth wanted to search his pockets; the sixth asserted his
professional reputation (_sic_) that there was fraud about the whole
business; the seventh had some patent surgical, or other appliance,
which he wished to test upon the patient; and yet another wanted to
analyze even the water he used, before the faster drank it.

"The effect of these boors in their constant inroads upon a fasting
man, whose surroundings and conditions were not of the best, to say
the least, may be easily imagined. When these fanatics were prevented
by the watchers from extracting what little of life was left in the
object of their devotions, their indignation took various forms of
expression. As a rule they denounced the whole thing as a humbug, and
every one participating as frauds. Now and then it became positively
necessary, in common decency and self-respect, to show these
charlatans the way to the door, notwithstanding their protests that
they had paid twenty-five cents for the purpose of ventilating their
empty heads. As a general thing, by Dr. Tanner's direction, the
admission fee was returned to these people. Even on the thirty-ninth
day, when the doctor desired all the quiet he could obtain, one of
these gentry, who said he was a physician from Long Island, talked so
loudly that he had to be called to order, and then nothing daunted, he
asked the faster to go in his enfeebled condition to the south
gallery, where his writing materials were, to prepare an autograph for
the applicant. The _Herald_ reporter on watch at the time, through
whom the request was made for the autograph, gave the fellow a settler
by remarking, that he, as a layman, thought the first rudiments taught
in the medical profession, were those of feelings of humanity.

"Then the wits had their time of it. They showered in caricatures an