"Put Your Spare Time in the Bank."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7337, 18 July 1892, Page 1

" Put Your Spare Time in the Bank."

Did you ever hear of the Australian Time Bank {Limited) ? No? Well, then, you must know about it, and right away, too. Mr Anstey describes it. The idea is this. You don't use all your time to advantage. Most of it in fact runs to waste. You often have the time, but no chance to invest it profitably. So the time slides out of your possession, jnstas spilled water soaks into the ground and is lost. Suppose you could put your useless time into a bank, as you do money, and draw it out on cheques as you want it. Do you see? Wouldn't that be what the Americans call " A big thing ? " " Bosh ! Stuff ! Humbug ! " you say. "It ia impossible. If we could do that we might bank time enough to turn ub into boys and girls again." True, so we might, but as you say, it can't be done. Yet, isn't thore a moral in the idea? Open your eyeß and read. The moral is plain as the trunk on an elephant. If you can't get back your waste time, then don't waste it. Now, isn't a man wasting time when he gets ill? "Oh," you say, "but he can't help it." That's worse nonsense than the Time Bank. Yes, he can help it, nine times out of ten. Look for a second. Here's a man who goes on to talk like this: "There was never," he says, "a stronger man in England, than I was up to December, 1884. I am a gamekeeper, and about this time we had a deal of trouble with a gang of poachers. I had to Keep watch all night long, and was scarcely ever in bed, and often, slept in my damp clothes. At last we 1 nabbed the poachers and landed them in gaoL Shortly after this I was taken bad. At first I merely felt tired and dull. I had a bad taste in the mouth with slime covering my tongue and teeth. I could eat little or nothing, and what I did eat gave me great pain. I felt as if held in a vice ; my breathing was laboured and short, and I spat up a great deal of phlegm. I had a dreadful hacking cough, and could get no sleep at night for after ten minutes' sleep I would wake np and cough for two or three hours at a spell. Night after night I heard the clock strike every hour. " When the bad attacks came on I felt as if I should suffocate, and had to be bolstered up in bed. I was coughing and spitting up matter and phlegm all night long. Finally I got so weak I couldn't walk aoroes the floor, and if I ventured out my breathing was so bad that I had to stop aud rest every few yards. Of course I was obliged to give up my work, and for eight months I did nothing. I was under the doctor all this time, and from the first he said my case was a bad one. After a while he said to my wife^ • Tour husband is in a consumption, and it-ill never get better.' " I thought it was all over with me, and every one who saw me thought I would die. About this time I read in a Liverpool paper of & medicine called Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup, and fancied I should like to try it. So my son, who lives in Liverpool, got me two bottles, and before I had used up the Becond one my cough was all gone, my breathing was, easy, and I could eat anything. I soon got back to my work, and have enjoyed good sound health ever since. When I bsgan taking the Syrup I was so low I don't believe I could have held out much longer. I have lived all my life in this district, and in my present house forty years. (Signed) "Thomas Bateman, "Marbuvy Locks, "Near Whitohurch, Salop. " March 23rd, 1891." What are we to learn from Mr Bateman's experience ? First, that he had no real consumption. His cough and the spitting up of matter were eymptoms of a thoroughly disordered condition of the digestive organs, brought on by exposure, loss of rest, and the breaking up of all hi 3 regular habits of life. This resulted from his out- . lying for tne poachers and his foolish 1 sleeping in his damp clothes. Acute 1 indigestion and dyspepsia followed, of ) course, with all the suffering which hf ) details so well. But was the illness his fault ? We do not say it was his fault I for maybe his occupation compelled bin ) to take such risks, but where there is on< > case of this kind there are a hundred ii 3 which the evil might have been averted. b We conclude then that prevention i t better than cure, but when a cure must b