‘KISS ME, JACK, AND LET ME GO.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue XVI, 20 April 1895, Page 380

‘KISS ME, JACK, AND LET ME GO.

Oncb. long ago, I was a witness to a duel in California. The two men had been bosom friends, but had quarrelled about (of course) a woman. Splendid fellows both—young, brainy, and ambitious. As they stood in a clear space among the pine trees near Sacramento, pale as lilies, steady as rocks, weapons in hand waiting for the word, the rising sun shining athwart the line of vision, they presented a picture too often seen in 1856. The pistols cracked almost simultaneously. One man stood erect, evidently untouched; the other fell upon his back and lay straight and still. Seconds, surgeons, and spectators rushed to his side. He was ‘ all there ’ mind as well as body. ‘ No, don’t disturb me,’ he said coolly to the doctor. ‘ I’m shot fatally and shall die in five minutes. Call Jack and be quick.’ Pistol still in hand, his antagonist came and bent over his erstwhile chum. The excitement among the crowd was intense ; the dying mau alone was calm. ‘Jack, my darling old boy,’ he said, ‘ forgive me and forgive her. Kiss me and let me go.’ A minute more and he was dead, with Jack lying across his body, crying like a baby. After I have told you another and very different story. I’ll show wherein they teach the same lesson. There is no tragedy in this one ; nevertheless it is of wider human interest than the other. A woman had been ill more or less all her life. The details are commonplace enough, and yet they will appeal to millions who care nothing for the jealousies of young men in love. ‘ At times,’ she says, ‘ I suffered from pains at the back of the head, and a sense of weight, and felt tired and weary, yet it was not from work only. I had a strange feeling, too, of something hanging over me, as of some evil or danger that I could not explain or define. ‘ My appetite was variable ; sometimes I could eat anything and again I could not touch any food at all. But I was never laid up. as it were.' Please note the last sentence. It may seem like the weakest but really is the strongest point in this lady's statement. We will tell you why in a moment. She goes on : ‘Still I was often in misery, but got along fairly well until August, 1890, when I had a severe attack of rheumatism. First the great toe of my right foot and the thumb of my right hand grew hot and painful. After a time the trouble extended to my back and hips. I could not straighten myself; I was almost bent double. Month after month I was like this, getting little or no sleep at night. Medical treatment proved of no benefit to me. In December 1891, the pain almost drove me mad. My face was swollen to nearly twice its natural size, and my eyes were so covered by the enlarged lids that I could scarcely see. There was a constant ringing in my ears, and the doctors said I had erysipelas. ‘ For days and days I could not walk across the floor, and for some time 1 was able to move about only by taking hold of the furniture or other objects. When all other means had been tried and had failed, Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup was recommended to me. A single bottle did me a great deal of good. I kept on with it, and soon was stronger and in better health than for forty years previously. I still take an occasional dose and continue in good health, notwithstanding my age (48) and the “change of life.” I’tell everyone what the Syrup has done for me, and give you permission to publish what 1 have said. Yours truly (Signed), (Mrs) Mary Jane Milnes, 18, Walker’s Buildings, Brewery Lane, Thornhill Lees, near Dewsbury, Yorkshire, October 12th, 1892.’ Now for the lesson of both these incidents ; what is it ? This ; that it is not people in desperate extremities who suffer most. Pain is in proportion to the resistance to disease. Those who surrender, who are in despair, who give up, have present punishment largely remitted. Dying persons are the most comfortable of all. Hopelessness and dissolution administer their own anodynes. Those who are nut laid up, who are ill, and yet work and struggle, need pity and he'p. This lady was one, and to such Mother Seigel always proves a friend.