THE MISER'S DIAMOND NECKLACE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 21, 19 September 1890, Page 31

THE MISER'S DIAMOND NECKLACE.

In the year 1740 there lived in the Latin quarter in Paris, a famous miser named Jean Avere. The wealth concealed in the obscure rookery where he resided was believed to be fabulous, and was no doubt really very great. Among his treasures was a celebrated diamond necklace of immeuee value. This he concealed bo carefully that he ultimately forgot its hiding place himself. He sought diligently for weeks, and, failing to find it, became almost insane. This rendered him even less capable of remembrance, and be took to bis bed broken in body as in mind. A few weeks later a doctor and an old woman, who bad sometimes done odd jobs about bis bouse, were both at his bed-side, seeing that the end was near, As the clock in the neighbouring town tolled one, he ceased bis low muttering and sat up and shrieked, " I remember where it is now, lean put my hand on the necklace. For God's sake let me go for it before I forget it again !" Here his weakness and excitement overcame him, and be sank back among his rags, stone dead. Physicians and students are familiar with these sudden outflasbings of memory at the great crisis of human fate. Let the reader consider this while we relate an episode in the humble career of a Signalman, Andrew Agge, who may be found on duty in his box at Cnlgaith, a little station on the Midland, twentythree miles south of Carlisle. Mr. Agge is on duty nearly every day, and must break bis fast without leaving his poet. The confinement and mental strain tell on the system. The strongest men cannot stand it long without feeling its effects. It makes one think of the passionate exclamation in Tom Hood's " Song of tbe Shirt," " Oh, God 1 that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blocd so cheap." Our friend bad been at the same work for many years, although he was only thirty-five when these lines were written. In 1884 he began to feel that he was about to break down, " I don't know what ails me," he would say, •' but I can't eat." Wb&t he forced down produced no sense of satisfaction or strength. Sometimes he was alarmed at finding he could scarcely walk on account of giddiness. He said to himself, " what if I should be seined with this at some momeDt when there is trouble on the line, and I need all my wits •bout me f " Other features of this ailment were pains in tbe chest and sides, costiveness, yellow skin and eyes, bad taste in the mouth, rißings of foul gas in the throat, etc. The doctor said Agge most give up his confining work or risk utter disability. He could cot, wife and children were in the way, so ne remained at his post and grew worse . But his work was always right, telegrams were properly received and sent, and no train got into trouble through any neglect or fault of his. His disease — indigestion and dyspepsia — took a step further and brought on kidney and bladder trouble. The doctor, at Appleby said, " Mr. Agge, you are poisoned with the foul stuff in your stoma oh and blood." Sis doom seemed to be sealed, it was like a death warrant. Six months more rolled by. On duty one morning be was attacked with so great and so sharp a distress he could neither Bit nor Btand. He says : '.' I tumbled down on that locker and lay there all the forenoon. Signals might be given, tbe telegraph needle might click, but I heeded them no more than a man in the grave heeds the beating of the rain against his own tombstone." He was alone at first, but help arrived, and the poor signalman was carried home. Physicians laboured on his case without avail, Around his bed were his five little children, the mother being absent in an institution, to be treated for a serious ailment. Here he lay for weeks, part of tbe time unconscious. Nothing was to be done but to wait for tbe end . Then the torpid faculties awakened for a moment. Memory flaslied vp, and he recalled the fact that a medicine which lie had used rvith benefit years before, and then thrown aside and forgotten, mas concealed in a secret place at the signal box. He sent for it, and took a dose. Soon his bowels moved, the kidneys acted, the pain was ceased, he felt better. With brightened hope be sent to Carlisle for more, it arrived. He used it and in a few days tbe doctors were astonished to find their patient out of doors, and on the road to recovery. He regained his health completely, and, in speaking of his experience, said to tbe writer, •' What a wonderful thing it was that, on what promised to be my death-bed, I suddenly remembered where I had put that half-used bottle of Mother Beigel's Curative Syrup. That flash of memory probably saved me from death."

The Emperor of Germany is not a man who toys with an idea for a moment and then casts it aside. His crusade against duelling is a serious matter, as the students of Strasbourg University have just learned. The student corporations of that university had pronounced a boycott against those who refused to take up a challenge to a dual. The resnlt is that by order of tbe Government the Btudent corporations have iMen dissolved for twelve months. This measure is without precedent in the history of duelling in Germany, and it cannot but have a most excellent effect in repressing a practice utterly at variance with the dictates of Christianity, Signor Finocbiaro Aprile, Royal Commissioner, has decreed the " laicisation " of all the charitable institutions, hospitals, and refnges, which depend directly on the commune of Rome. Tbis, of course, nuaas tbe banishment of the Religious and Meligieuses who have served these asylums of charity. Tbe measure is one of particular gravity. Tbe most fanatical Freemasons under the regime of Pianciani, the ex-syndic, respected tbe Sisters and tbe Religious, if for no other reasons, from prudence and a leaning to economy. But Crisp, has inspired tbe secret societies with the feeling that they are absolute masters of the situation and that there is no form of audacity whicb they may not perpetrate. Crispi's object is to make Rome a centre of irreligion so that it may become a continual source of sorrow to the Sovereign Pontiff,