The Doctor's Fee.

At Waimamaku, Hokianga, the Commerce Train tourists last month enjoyed the chaffing-match between Dr. G. Smith, Medical Superintendent of Rawene Hospital, and Mr. E. Casey, Divisional Superintendent of Railways, on the subject of “trading in kind.” The Doctor suggested that it would be more advantageous to the country if instead of so much trading in finance, there were more trading in commodities, in other words, mutual barter. Mr. Casey's counter to this was page 11 a suggestion that a patient could pay his doctors for an operation with say, a ham or a flitch of bacon.

This payment in kind was not always mere matters for a joke at a convivial gathering. I remember well enough that it was the only way in which country settlers could discharge their indebtedness. There was once, for instance, a genial Irish doctor in the Upper Waikato whose patients paid him with a ton of firewood or half-a-ton of potatoes, or a load of fruit and vegetables, or a supply of oats for his horse; now and again a sheep or a few sides of bacon.

This was all very well in one way, but the doctor used to complain, good naturedly enough, that he couldn't pass the bacon or the “spuds” on to the town business house which supplied him with drugs for his surgery, and that when he wanted to buy a medical book to keep himself abreast of the times it wouldn't be a bit of use shipping a ton of tawa logs to the bookseller.