IT WAS MARY SHERLOCK'S WAKE.

Observer, Volume XI, Issue 707, 16 July 1892, Page 18

IT WAS MARY SHERLOCK'S WAKE.

There lays a hundred years o' peace and ' happiness.' . It was the wake of Mary Sherlock, who had died of old age ; and it took place on Thursday, March 19th, 1891, in the City of New York. The room was crowded with men and women, old and young, and an aged junkman who sat on a keg in the middle of the room, said to every newcomer, 'There lays a hundred years o' peace and happiness,' to which the party responded in chorus, ' Faith, Mike, niver truer words did ye speak.' For Grandma Sherlock had come to America from Ireland before any of them, and, no doubt,.was at least 105 years old when she ended her long journey. But she was one of the old stock, and never knew what illness was. How different is such as story as this, for instance, told by a woman ! ' I was never well in my life,' she says, 'always weak and ailin>\ constantly sick, and troubled with giddm-FS and swimming in the head. People who did not know me would at times think I was tipsy. I always had a poor appetite, with bad taste in the mputh in the morning, and pain after eating. I had great pain and tightness in the chest and side, and was languid and tired after the least exertion, so I was unat.le to do any work or get my • own living. 'As to sick headache, I was seldom free*"from it, and often my heart would palpitate, po I had to stop and hold myself for fear of falling. I was nearly always under the doctor, and when I was so, something formed in my mouth that the doctor called 'ranula,' and I,was confined in the Exeter Hospital seventeen weeks with it. ' From that time I was worse than ever ; and after eating the least morsel of food I heaved at the stomach and would spit up a sour fluid. 'Better and worse I continued until April. 1889, when I became much worse, and my abdomen swelled until it reached a great size, and a pain in the side and back made me scream out. Indeed I was in such agony I could not stir hand or foot. Just then my neighbour, Mrs Harris, wife of Joshua Harris, the road contractor, came in, and I had to be carried to bed. Bo dreadful was the pain that I broke out into a heavy sweat, and a faintness came over me. Mrs Harris stayed with me and poulticed me, but as I got no better my mother, who lived at Bousdon, was sent for. She came at once, and sent for a doctor, as I was in terrible distress, and fighting for breath. • The doctor said he could not tell what was the matter, and a second doctor was sent for from Seaton by the clergyman, who thought I was dying. So critical was my condition considered that prayers were made for me at the church. ' The swelling of the bowels increased,, and the doctor said if this swelling did not go down I could not get better, as it must be a tumour. He seemed puzzled by my case and kept changing my medicine, but I got no relief. My brother and others who came to see me all believed me to be dying. 1 ' After two months of this a lady named Mrs Stocker, -who lived at Eousdon, came to see me and told me about a medicine called Mother BeigePs Syrup, and said, k "you try it, for it once saved my life." I ' I sent to Mr Gage, the grocer at Seaton, and got a bottle, and before I had taken the contents I felt better, the pain was easier, and the swelling I have spoken of gradually went away. After having taken three bottles I was able to move about, and now feel better than I ever did in my life before, and am stronger than when I was a girl. But, oh, if I had known of Mother Seigel's Syrup sooner, it would have saved me years of misery. (Signed) ' Mrs Mart Hoare, 'Combpynp, Axminster, Devon, Feb. 16, 1891.'" This wu s a case of chronic indigestion and dypp-v^i&i wish terrible constipation; the swelling wa=) caused by matter in xhe intestines which had probably slowly been accumulating for months. In the meantime this festering mass filled the whole sya>sem with poison, causing all the other symptoms described. Women are subject to this far more than men, on account of their • areless habits. It occasionally happens that surgical interference is necessary. There was no tumour of course, but in the end there might have been, bad not Seigel's Syrup removed the loathsome deposit before it was too late. What a pity that women (and men too) will not check the first symptoms of disease, and thus, like Mary Sheilock, en-, joy a hundred years of peace and happiness.