THE HANDFUL OF THINGS WE KNOW.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1200, 1 March 1895, Page 14

THE HANDFUL OF THINGS WE KNOW.

Several years ago an American humorist and poet published some verses called " Little Breeches." This was an odd name given to a very small boy who was caught out in a tremendous snowstorm, and finally found in some hay quite a distance from the ' house. However the boy got there bothered everybody to explain. It was certain he never could have walked. So his father said -the angels must have done it; " they just stooped down and toted him to where it was safe and warm, he said." The poetry about it (supposed to have been written by the youngster's father) starts of in this Way: ■•,,; > ■;•/. ■.; " \ . I don't go much on religion, I never ain't had no show ; But I've a middling tight grip, sir, On the handful of things I know. That's it; the handful of things we know. There aren't many of 'em, but there are a few. And one of them is this: That for a hundred results there is only one cause. Nature develops and makes differences; never a new force. Here, for example, is an incident which shows our meaning. About Christmas, 1889, Mr E. B. Wright had an attack of influenza. Previous to this he ' had always been strong and hearty. , Well, he got over the influenza; still, it had given him (as he says) "a shake." After this he got along fairly well until February of this year (1892) when the influenza attacked him again. This time the malady "meant business." Nearly, every bone and muscle in his body ached like sore teeth. His skin was hot and dry, and to bed he was obliged to go. For sixteen days he was under a doctor. At the end of that time he found himself alive, and that was about all you could say for him. In his letter he goes on to tell what happened next. " I had a foul taste in the mouth," he said, "and my teeth and tongue were covered with a thick slimy phlegm. My wife says my tongue was like, an oyster shell, and I'm sure it was rough as a nutmeg grater. What I ate, which wasn't much, gave me pain in the chest and sides. After a mouthful or two I felt full and blown out, and I used to swell to a great size. By-and-by a hacking cough set in and my breathing got short and quick. At night I lay for hours gasping for breath, and often , coughed so I was ' afraid I should burst a blood Vessel. I got weaker and weaker, and was like a brokenwinded horse. The doctor said it was asthma, but he wasn't able to relieve it. Although I live only two minutes* walk from the factory where I work, I had to stop and rest on my way many a time. "Thus matters went with me until'June, 1892. Then one day I took up the Essex Newsman, and read of a man living at Earsham, near Bungay, having been cured by Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup. I got some of this medicine from the International Tea Company, Braintree. After a few doses my breathing grew easier, and by keeping on with the Syrup my food soon digested, the cough left me, and I gained strength. I am now as strong as ever, can , eat anything, and walk for miles. lam a, brushmaker, and work at the factory of Messrs John West and Sons, High street, Braintree, and have lived in this town oyer forty years. (Siyned) E. B. Weight, Sandpit road, Braintree, Essex, August 23rd, 1892." Now let us see how this illustrates the proposition we started out with. For almost three years Mr Wright was ill with what seemed like a series of different diseases. He had the influenza- twice, the asthma once, and another disease which, he gives no name to —even if he recognised it. Look for a moment at the variety and incongruity of the pains and. troubles he mentions, and he doesn't describe them all either. You would fancy he had half a dozen ailments at least. Yet he had but one indigestion and dyspepsia—of which all his bodily disturbances (influenza included —a blood disease) were symptoms. All came out of the stomach, and when Seigel's Syrup set that right the others quietly departed. What, then, is one thing of "the handfull of things we know ?" Answer: That nearly all sort of diseases are really symptoms of indigestion and dyspepsia, and that Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup cures it. Double that fact up in your fist and hol<l on to it tight.