"GOOD ADVICE AND A WOODEN LEG."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 3

"GOOD ADVICE AND A WOODEN LEG."

If I hadn't given my friend Jim Smalley the best piece of advice one young fellow could give another we should be friends still —that is, if Jim could have lived without the advice. This may sound rather strange and mixed to you, but it's all right when you take it by the handle. You see it was this way. Jim was a handsome chap, 25 years old, foppish and dressy, fond of society, had plenty of money, but with the seeds of consumption in him. Got 'em from his mother, who died of it. Well, Jim began to cough, and ran down hill fast. The doctors couldn't help him, and told him so. One day he was talking to me about it, and actually broke down and cried. "Jim," said I, "there's just one chance for you, and I want you to jump for it right away. That's to go out West in America, and live on the slopes of the Rocky mountains, in the pine woods, in a hut or a tent, and stay there till you are dead or well. Don't write to me for a year, thee come back or let me hear from you." Bidding a sad farewell to the young girl he was engaged to be married to, Jim went. Two years afterwards I met him in town; he was as hearty as a buck, but walked with a limp. He had lost his right leg below the knee in a fight with a grizzly bear, and now hobbled around oil a wooden one. "And it's all your fault," he said ; " if it hadn't been for your advice I'd never gone there. Now Edith won't marry me. Says she don't want a husband with a wooden leg, and I don't want a friend who gave me the wooden leg." Well, there ! I was never so taken aback. My advice had saved Jim's life and restored his health, yet because he couldn't have two sound legs and a wife besides, he threw me overboard. I vowed I'd never give anybody a bit of good advice again. I'd let them die first. Bub that's where I was hasty and wrong. It is a man's duty to keep on doing food, whether people are grateful or not. [ere is Mr. Frank Stanley Langman. His wife gave him a piece of good advice, and he was sensible enough to act on it. In June, 1882, it was that he fell ill. He felt weak, tired, and weary without any outside reason for it. His appetite was poor, there was a bitter taste in his mouth, and a bad pain in the chest and stomach after eating. Sometimes he would break out into a sweat, and feel so prostrated he'd have to lie down. It was feared he had some kind of internal tumour. Once he had an attack at the railway station, and people crowded round him thinking he was dying. During another attack he kissed his child, believing his time had come. A doctor ) examined him for heart disease, but couldn't find any. #e advised Langman to take only milk and brandy, milk and water, and such slops. Still he had those frightful periodic attacks. After attending him some time the doctor said, "I can't find out what is the matter with you ; you had better see a West End physician." Mr. Langman did so, and the West End doctor said th«. patient's liver made too much bile, am ordered medicine and a milk diet. j Two more doctors were consulted with n better result, and the unhappy man remained in that miserable form for seve*i years. In February. 1889, he read in a newspaper of a case like his own having been cured by Mother Seigel's Curative fcyrup, but inasmuch as the best medical advice in London was of no use, what could lie expected _ from an advertised medi:ines 'Nothing, of course," said Mr. Langini*«i, His wife thought differently. " Ton trp Seigel's Syrup," she said, " Everybody spscX: well of it." He did try it, and in three montm he was well, and has been well ever since. In a letter dated December 17, 1891, he sayi* " Mother Seigel's Curative Syrnp saved mv life," and signs his name to what he says : — " Frank Stanley Langmaii, 44, Comberfoni Road, Brockley." | His malady was not heart disease or tumours, but indigestion and dyspepsia, tho cause of almost all pangs and pains, call them what you will. Mr. Langman was saved by : good advice and a good medicine, for which he is grateful. So I take notice that everybody isn't like Jim Smalley, with his grizzly bear and his wooden leg. . G. W.G London, February, 1892.