As to old Cullingworth, he is booming along as
merrily as ever. You say in your last, that what you
cannot understand is how he got his hold of the public in
so short a time. That is just the point which I have
found it hard to get light upon. He told me that after
his first coming he had not a patient for a month, and
that he was so disheartened that he very nearly made a
moonlight exodus. At last, however, a few cases came his
way--and he made such extraordinary cures of them, or
else impressed them so by his eccentricity, that they
would do nothing but talk of him. Some of his wonderful
results got into the local press, though, after my
Avonmouth experience, I should not like to guarantee that
he did not himself convey them there. He showed me an
almanac, which had a great circulation in the district.
It had an entry sandwiched in this way:
Aug. 15. Reform Bill passed 1867.
Aug. 16. Birth of Julius Caesar.
Aug. 17. Extraordinary cure by Dr. Cullingworth of a case of
dropsy in Bradfield, 1881.
Aug. 18. Battle of Gravelotte, 1870.
It reads as if it were one of the landmarks of the
latter half of the century. I asked him how on earth it
got there; but I could only learn that the woman was
fifty-six inches round the waist, and that he had treated
her with elaterium.
That leads me to another point. You ask me whether
his cures are really remarkable, and, if so, what his
system is.
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