Sly and Dangerous.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue XXII, 30 November 1901, Page 1052

Sly and Dangerous.

It was not very long ago that .r. George Monk thought his days were numbered. It was certainly a very depressing conclusion to arrive at. When a man is so corners; that he can neither fight tor fly his courage oozes out of him like water from a squeezed sponge. Even the bravest swordsman* is afraid of cold steel when his hands are tied behind him; and the sailor who has laughed : t hurricanes shivers with horror when he feels his wrecked ship sinking under him on a smooth sea.

The facts, as given by Mr. Monk in a. letter dated January 20th, 1900, and written at his home, Willowbank, Makara, New Zealand, are these: —■

About eighteen ears ago he was troubled with occasional attacks of indigestion, which are more common among young persons than parents are apt to imagine, and lay up a store of mischief for the future. For of nil the sly and subtle kings which, are enemies to man this ailment is the most dangerous.

Like the Red Indian it is both deadly and patient. It waits and it kills.

In Mr. Monk’s case .lie disease culminated in a condition which, he says, was a martrydom. He was almost continually belching, the foul gas being so rapidly produced in his stomach by the fermentation of the undigested and rotting food therein. When he rose from a sitting posture, or stooped for any reason, his head swam with giddiness. Dyspeptics fall in the street from this cause, and the police and the doctors often think it drunkenness or apoplexy. “My stomach,” says Mr. Monk, “ pained me severely, and there was a feeling at my chest as though I carired a great weight there. 1 became so bad at length that I was obliged to give up all but th lightest work, and I thought my days were numbered.

“Of course you will take it for granted that I, and my friends on my behalf, made every effort to obtain relief. Everybody who knew me had some sort of remedy to suggest, and many of them I actually tried; yet I grew worse in spite of them all.

“ The man who persuaded me to use Mother Seigel’s Syrup will always occupy a cosy nook in my heart. He had to do a bit of talking, because I was like a fish that sees the hook through every piece of bait; I was afraid of, and disgusted wit.i, everything in papers or in bottles. So I kept on saying ‘no,’ and he kept on saying ‘ do.’ But he stuck to his text, and I gave up. ‘ Be quiet, and I’ll have a go with Mother Seigel’s,’ I told him.

“ Before I had finished the first bottle I was much better. and began to believe I mught pull through yet. In two words, I continued taking Seigel’s Syrup, and no other medicine, until the three empties on my shelf showed how far I had gone with it. And I had no further to go. I was a well man, and have since enjoyed better health than ever before in my life. “ I am the oldest settler in Makara, having resided here for over 41 years, and most of my neighbours can vouch for the truth of the statement I have made.” One of these, Mr. W. Trotter, writes that he knows Mr. Monk, and can testify to the facts as the latter has related them.