"Mr. Tucker was proceeding, late at night, along the bottom of Paris-street, when a female came up to him, and said, 'My dear, are you good natured?' He declined to answer her at first, and to a second interrogation to the same effect, merely replied that his many years attendance on the poor as a poor doctor, had sufficiently established his reputation for good nature.
"Two fellows then walked up, and one exclaimed, 'How's Mr. Barnes?' Mr. Tucker made no reply. The other then put the same question. Mr. Tucker still said nothing. One of the desperadoes then put his hand to his collar. Mr. T. immediately made a blow at him with his life preserver. This desperate hit took effect in the mouth of the villain. He immediately staggered off, his teeth rattling on the pavement like a small shower of hail stones. Mr Tucker had the satisfaction of seeing that if he did not stop the robber, he succeeded in stopping his teeth. This fellow was no sooner struck, than the worthy doctor swung the life preserver - since called a Tucker - round with a vengeful aim, and with so much effect, that the second rascal took to his heels with what the Gazette calls 'the alacrity of a policeman'
"The particulars of this attack and discomfiture we derive from the police at the Station House, where they were communicated by the worthy doctor himself. But the incident of the teeth is from a popular version of the affair - Mr. Tucker being no braggadocio, does not vaunt of his own prowess."
*
A Victorian life-preserver was a mini mace, a short rattan handle and an articulated, heavy, often leaded, striking ball. The force was in the swinging, a skill which Mr. Tucker had clearly mastered.
"My dear, are you good natured?" sounds to me to have been a meme of the 'ladies of the town', rather more subtle than the 'wanna good time, love?' which once echoed from Soho doorways.
Mr. Barnes, another doctor, had been beaten and robbed by this same trio on the Barnfield road that same evening.
It would have been fun if The Times had established its neonism, never go without your tucker &c., but it seems it was not to be.
'Alacrity of a policeman' these days could only be heavy sarcasm.
A poor doctor was not necessarily poor, just as a diabetic nurse is not necessarily diabetic. It is unlike the Victorans to use a linguistic shortcut that could lead to confusion. Like Winston Churchill, let us in general prefer not to use hyphens but they would help here.
Braggadocio/braggadochio is, surprisingly, a word invented by Spenser for The Faerie Queen, at least so says my Encyclpaedic Dictionary, 1895.
Source: The Western Times, 20 August, 1842.
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