A FEW INCHES OF PLAIN ENGLISH.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXX, Issue 50, 28 February 1896, Page 4

A FEW INCHES OF PLAIN ENGLISH.

Nowadays men are doing all sorts of wonders by means of eleotricity, both in meobanioa and in chemistry. I see by theipapers that they expect to be able to to produce real diamonds by it. Perhaps they may; marvels never cease. Bat we will wait till they do before we orow over that Job. Up to this time, anyway, everything that is both valuable and useful ib tbe fruit of hard work. Even diamonds are mostly got out of rooky mines. And, within reasonable limits, it is good for us to have to work. Ten shillings honestly earned is better for a man tban twenty in the shape of a legacy. 'lie best condition of things for any country wonld be when fair wages could be earned straight along, vithout lose or deduction for any reason. But in the present aspeot of hnman affairs this is impossible. Whose fault it is we cannot now discuss.

One source of loss, however, is plain enough, and some remedy for it ought to found. In England and Wales every working man averages ten days of illneFS per! year, making a total loss of wages from this chuse abont £16,000,000 a year. We are talking of tbe average, you see. But inasmuch as all working-mon are not! ill every year, this average does not fairly show the suffering and loss oi those who are ill. In any given year many will lose no time at all .while others may lose individually from ten days to six. months each. No charity, no savings, no income from clubs, &c, can make up for this — even iu money alone — to Bay nothing of the pain and the misery.

Alluding to an experience of his in 1888, Mr George Lagdon says, " I had to give up my work." How this oaroe to pas.B be tells us in a letter dated from his home in White House Road, Stebbinp, nenrDunmow, August 24, lß92. He had no inherited disease or weakness, so far as be knew, and was always strong and well up to April of that year— lßßß. Then his strength and energy began to leave him. He felt tired, not as from work, but as from power gone out of him through EoraH bodily failure. He sat down to bis meals, bnt not with his old eagerness and relish. There was a nasty copper-like taste in his month, his teeth ond tongue were covered with slime, and his throat plogged with a kind of thick phlegm, difficult to " hawk up" and eject. He also speaks of a nagging pain in the stomach, fJatnleooy, and muoh palpitation of the heart as having been aniong bis symptoms. As the ailment — whatever it was— progressed, he began to ■ have a backing cough, which, he says, seemed as if it mnst shake him to pieces. He could Ecarcely sleep ou account of it. One of the most alarming features of his illneßs, however, were the night sweatß, for the reason that they showed tho existence of a source of weakness which must soon, unless arrested, end in total prostration, In fact ho was obliged to give up his work altogether. To him — as to any once active man — this was like being buried alive.

One doctor who Mr Lagdon consulted, aid be was consumptive, and it di indeed look that way. " For twelv! weeks,' 1 ho eaye, " I went on like this, getting weaker und weaker, and lwvi . lugioison to believe that it would ond iu my taking the one journey from which no traveller retnrns.

It was now July — summer time, when life to tho healthy is so pleasant and full of hope. At this time my Bißter-in-law got from Mr Linesttß (Stebbing) a medicine that I had not to led yet. After having used one botth 1 felt better, aad when I had used the second I was oured' and, have .'not lost an hour's work since.'

The reader will notice that between the date of bis taking this medicine and the da to of biß letter, there is an interval of fours years. We may, therefore, infer that his cure was real and perman-. ent. The medioine, by the way, was Mother Beigel's Curative Syrup. It iB not likely be will forget its name nor what it did for him. IHb disease was udigestion and dyßpepsia, the deadly enemy of every labouring man or woman under the sun, no matter what they work ut or work with — hands, brains, or both. Is it necessary to draw a " moral" — school-book style — from these facts ? No, it is not. We have talked plain English and that is enough.