IT WAS MARY SHERLOCK'S WAVE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 39, 15 July 1892, Page 11

IT WAS MARY SHERLOCK'S WAVE

" There lays a hundred years o' peace and happiness." It was the wake of Mary Sherlock. whr> bad died of old age ; and it took place on the night of Thursday. March 19, 1891, in the Oity of New York. The room was crowded with men and women, old and young, and an aged junkman, wbo sat on a keg in the middle of the room, said to every new comer, " There lays a hundred years of peace and happiness," to which the party responded in a chorus, " Faith, Mike, niver truer words did ye bpeak." 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 a story as this, for instance, told by a woman I •• I wa3 never well in my life." she says, always weak and ailing, constantly sick, and troubled with giddiness and swimmiug 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 my mouth in the /norning, and pain after eating. I had great pain and tightness in the chest and side, and was languid and tirad after the least exertion, so I was unable 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, so I bad to stop and hold myself, for fear of falling. I was nearly always under the docter, and when I was so, something formed in my mouth that the doctor called 'ranula,' and aad I wns confined in the Exeter Hospital 17 weeks with it. " From that time I w.is worse than ever ; and after eating the least morsel of food I heaved at the stomach and would spit up a aour fluid , Better and worse 1 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 ont. Indeed, I was in such agony I could not stir hand or foot. Jnst then my neighbour, Mrs Harris, wife of Joshua Harris, the road contractor, came in, and I bad to be carried to bed. So 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, wbo lived at Kouedon, 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 be could not telir^what was the matter, and a second doctor was sent for from Smeaton by the clergymen, 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 casa and kept changing my medicine, but I got no relief. My brother and others who caaoe to see me all believed me to be dying. After two months of this a lady named Mrs Stocker who lived at Bousdon came to see me and told me about a medicine called Mother Seigel's Syrnp, and said, ' you try it, for it once saved my life." " I sent to Mr Gage, the grocer at Beaton, and got a bottle, and before I had taken the contents I felt better, the. paia was easier, and the swelling I have spoken of gradually weut 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 tbun when I was a girl. But oh, if I had known of Mother tieigel's Syrup sooner, ie would have caved me years of misery. (Signed) '• Mts MARY HOARE. " Combpyne, Axminster, Devon, Feb. 16, 1891." This was a case of chronic indigestion and dyspepsia, with terrible constipation ; the swelling was caused by matter in the inttstines which had probably been accumula'ing for months. In the me<ntim° this festering ma-s filled the whole eystem with poiaon causing all the other symptoms described. Women are subject to this far more than men, on account of their careless habits. It occasionally happens that surgical interference is necessary. There was no tumour, of course, but in the end there might have been, had not Seigel's Syrup removed the lo ithaome deposit before it was too late What a pity that women (and men too) will not check the first symptoms of diaea9e, aad thus, like Mary Snerlock, enjoy a hundred years of peace and happiness, An immense wooden box, bound in iron, was recently found at Helsinfors, in Finland, by workmen engaged in excavating in the cellar of an old house. Upon opening the box the men found that it contained a large parchment and a quantity of pieces of iron of odd shapes. Being unable to make out the contents of the parchment they carried it to Mr Bizeff, the nearest magistrate, who found that it was written by Father Soger, one time Minister to Louis VII. of France. It was an elaborately written treatise upon the use of steam as a motive power, and further examination revealed that the bits of iron were numbered parts of a iudimental but complete steam engine. It is proposed to fit the parts together and to exhibit this pioneer steam engine at the Exposition. This machine would, if put in operation at the time, about the year 1137, have given the people the same facilities as were had in the days of Newcomen, Watt, and FultoDj for which they had to wait something like 600 years.