THE STICK AND THE CRUST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2363, 8 June 1899, Page 59

THE STICK AND THE CRUST.

A stick and a crust of bread. Like the lmnds of a clock these two articles told the time o' day for nearly a year in a certain man's life. Yet, unlike the hands of a clock, they were not visible at once. When he needed the stick he had no use for the crust ; and when the crust was welcome he had no further occasion for the stick.

Albeit he was a young fellow of twenty-eix, you would be wrong in supposing this stick to have been in the nature of a weapon for attack or defence. In that case the crust and the stick would have harmonised. As it was, they did not. For the stick was a support, not a club.

Now, when a man feels the pressure of eighty or ninety years, he is apt to want, a travelling companion of that so'rt f but one in theftrerjr •heyday .of ybujth, .not 'suffering Ifrom any in- | ptry and nob constitutionally feeble, or mailformed, should commonly be able to walk without a stick. And so this young man had always done up to the time when he fell out with the crust and with all 'that the crust stood for or represented.

His own account of the circumstances runs thus: — "Up to October, 1895, I had been;a strong, healthy, and active man. "^ Then I commenced to feel weak and out of sorts. I was heavy, tired, and had no ambition or energy. What had come over me I could not imagine. I had a foul, nasty taste in the mouth, and was constantly spitting up a thick dirty phlegm. My appetite left me, and what little I ate lay on my stomach like lead, causme great pain about the chest. A short, distressing cough settled upon me and troubled me day and night.

"At night my sleep was disturbed and broken with night sweats and frightful dreams. I had great pain at the left side around the heart, and my breathing was hurried and short. Next I began to spit blood, and was greatly alarmed at it. I wasted away rapidly, losing over a stone weight in a month, and became fo weak that I was unable to rise on my feet without assistance.

"Although only a young'man' of twenty-six I was obliged to hobble about with a stick, and could walk but a short distance even at thai. Worried and anxious I attended the York Comity Hospital, where the doctors sounded me and saW I was in a consumption." Hero we have- another of the serious and often fatal mistakes that are made in cases like this. Misled by'Bymptomu which in some respects-resemble- thoVe of consumption, medical men hastily decide that the lungs are affected, treat thfi patie\nt perfunctorily for tho hopeless disease he is afflicted with, and leave the .result to chance. Hence he often dies of dyspepsia and its complications — his true disease — which; unlike consumption, is easily curablo .by the remedy our friend finally employed. • x " They gave me cod-liver oil," he continued, "and medicines, but I got no" better. Indeed, I was so low-spirited and miserable I didn't care what became ,of me. As time passed I grew weaker and weaker.

"After I had endured ten months of this, Mr R. W- Dickinson, the chemist in Walrngate, advised me to try Mother Seigel's Syrup. After taking it a few days I felt much better, my appetite reviving and my food_ giving me no pain. T continued to take this medicine only, and noon the cough and breathing trouble left me and I began to gain strength and flesh. When I had taken three bottles I was as strong as ever, and could eat and enjoy even a dry craft. I have since had good health. You aro at liberty to publish this letler and refer all inquirers to me. — (Signed) Isaiah Lewis, 124, Walmgate, York, April Bth, 1894."

If the reader wonders how_ a man could suffer so much, become so emaciated and weak, and be pushed so near the grave's edge through what is sometimes flippantly called "mere indigestion," he has yet to learn that the digestion is the arbiter of life and death. The " crust " (food), enjoyed and digested, means life and strength. Rejected it means the " stick," to supplement swift-coming weakness ; and then the prone position, when help is vain. Mother Seigel's Syrup enabled Mr Lewis to substitute the crust for the stick. It cured his dyspepsia.

— • The tramways, omnibuses, and underground railway round London within a mr!iu3 of five miles carry each year about 453,0QQ,G0G passengers. 6 _ — China still has the old-fashioned system of private letter-carrying. Letter shops are to be found in every town. If he has a letter to send, the Chinaman goes to a letter shop and bargains with the keeper thereof. He paya two-thirds of the cost, leaving the receiver to pay the rest on delivery

—In London there is one blind person to iovery 1000 of the population. — There are more persons over 60 years of age in France than in any other country in. Europe. Ireland comes next. The eniure wealth of the Buonaparte family is estimated to be not more than four millions sterling, most of which is owned by the ex-Empress Eugenic. The actual claimants to the Imperial throne are not worth £20,000 a year between them. On the other hand, the House of Orleans is reputed to be Worth at least £15,000,00%

■ — Football was a crime in England during I the reign of Henry VIII. — Slaughter houses where dogs are prepared for human consumption exist in various towns in Germany. — To me a sea< foyage \mder the most favourable circumstances is never exhilarating. Your bunk is never like your own bed tit I home, and the pushing-, driving, grinding of ' the vessel, keeping up a constant sense of fatij gue, subject the passenger to a constant musf cular effort, pitiless, unceasing. — J. F. Nisi befe.