HOW IT IS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2368, 20 July 1899, Page 15

HOW IT IS.

In the streets of the town where I live 1 sometimes meet a poor fellow who is so badly off that his appeal for a penny or two is hardly to be resisted. He has lost both his legs above the knees, and punts himself along the pavement with his hands, like a loadea barge in shallow water. Thank Mercy, one doesn't often see human hulks like him., Where 'there is a single "instance of a man: having lost both legs or both arms there are a dozen where only one limb of the pair ia missing. And where there is a single case of the latter sort there are a hundred cases of people who are lame, or more or less disabled, by disease 'or minor iri juries, which are scarcely noticeable, yet in the long run very serious to those so afflicted.

Consequently/ when we sum up both classea wo perceive that it isn't the total WTecka and the incurables that are most expensive to society, but the prodigious host which must work, and does work, yet always under difficulties and against hindrances. Men and women are regularly employed, but who are continually breaking down in a small way, thus losing fragments of time and fractions of wages, are of the kind I mean. The amount of income lost in this way in one year in England is immense. And so far as the cause of all this is disease, and ndt accident, or bora bodily imperfection, it is almost always preventable and generally curable. Look at this for example, and take heart. "In the spring of this year~(lß97)," the writer says, " my health began to fail me. My appetite was poor, and after meals I had a pain and weight at the chest. I could not sleep owing to the pain, and I got weakei eveiy day. I had so much pain that I dared not eat, and rapidly lost flesh.

"J was in agony night and day, and often, sat by the fire at night as I could not rest in bed. I had a deal of muscular pain, particularly in the arms. I gradually got worse and worse, and in two months lost two score poiinds weight.

" I saw a doctor who gave me medicines ancl injected morphia to ease the pain ; but I waa no better for it. Then -I met with a friend, who told me of the great benefit he had derived from the" use of a medicine called Mother Seigel's' Syrup. I got a bottle of ifc from Mr £$. Richardson, chemist, Bridgman. sheet, and-< in .a" 'week I could eat well, and food no longer, distressed me. Therefore I kept on with the medicine, and soon was 3trong and' well. I am now in the best of health, and .recommend this remedy to all I meet with.- J.Y.ou are at liberty to, publish this letter as you. like. ytMSignecl) William Bridge, Grocer and Baker," 65 Bridgman street, Bolton, October sth, 1897." Here we have an illustration T of the- proposition with which this article sets out. From. Air Bridge's account of his own case, we see that he lost' a considerable time from hisbusiness. How much, that represents in money he does not say ; nor is it important to the^ argument. For two months or more he lost from his business practically all he was worth to it ; and what that situation would have signified, had it been indefinitely continued, any intelligent person can imagine. Men frequently become stricken with poverty as with illness in that way. However well any business may be managed in an emergency by others, it is not to be supposed that it gets on as prosperously as when the proprietor ia himself at the helm. And he cannot be there while- he is suffering agonies from disease. This is true even- if we make no calculation of the direct expenses created by illness, nor of the suffering experienced — the latter not computable in terms of money. Now, please remark how quickly Mr Bridge was cured of his ailment — bad as it seemed and really was. Dating from the time he began using Mother Seigel's Syrup, he says: — '" In a week I could eat well, and the food no longer distressed me. His trouble was of the digestion only (acute dyspepsia), for which thij preparation long ago proved itself a specific, Had he known of and employed it when th< attack began he would have lost no time, fel( no pain. ' The lesson of the case is this: — As indigestion is a common complaint, and dangerous, also when neglected, the remedy should be at hand for immediate use when.- needed. The more valuable the treasure the more strict should be the guard over it. And health is a jewel compared with which rubies are as th* tflasg beada of. i*vag;eg* • •