FOUR HOURS TOO LATE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 45, 9 March 1894, Page 31

FOUR HOURS TOO LATE.

" Oh, God! if I could recall the past three or four hours. See wJiat trouble a man may bring upon himself all in a moment. 1 ' Mr. James Curtis and Mr. 0. S. Bennet, both of San Francisco had been intimate friends for years. Last summer they quarrelled* for the first time, each accusing the other of wrong. Better thoughts prevailed and they were reconciled. But you can't undo what is once done. Memory kept the record on her slate. They avoided each other as much as possible. Still, living as neighbours, men must meet sometime. These two met in the street. The quarrel was renewed. Bitter words flew fast and thick, and Cnrtis beside himself witb rage, drew bis pistol and shot Bennet dead on tbe spot. Later in the day he used the above language— so laden with self-reproach and sorrow. Yet how useless, how hopeless bow vain. ' But was Curtis right in saying that trouble may come all in a moment? True, it often seems so, but is there not a deeper fact whicb we doo't Bee 1 It matters nothing what the nature of the trouble is. Therefore let us consider a different case on the same principle. An intelligent woman says :— '« ln October 1890, 1 had an attack of illness from which I never expected to recover. I had echin? pains all over me, and a cough that nearly shook me to pieces. I obtained no good sleep night or day, and had to take to my bed I was fed with liquid food from an invalid's cup, for I could not raise myself in bed. My heart flattered so you could hear it beat on the pillow, and often pains struck through it as though somebody had stabbed me. I lay perfectly helpless, and could scarcely breathe. A doctor attended me over a month, but I grew weaker and weaker Sometimes at night I was so bad he feared I would not live till morninpr. He called in a consulting physician, and both agreed that my condition was critical. I was fed with brandy to keep me alive My husband and daughter stayed with me almost constantly. None of the medicines administered had any effect. I was almost at death's door. " At this time Mrs Keeling, of Mutley, near Plymouth, a friend of mine, urged me to try a medicine called Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup. I procured a bottle, and after a few days I was able to take and digest sufficient food to give me *ome strength, and the worst Bymptoms were greatly abated. After having used six bottles of the Syrup my health was completely restored, and I have Bince felt better than fitr the previous thirty years. My two daughters have also been cured of indigestion by it. I will gladly answer any enquiries *. (Bigned) Mrs Louise Jackson, Builders' Arms Hotel, Bridge Road, Hammersmith, London, January 11, 1892. In the letter from which the above is an extract, Mrs Jackson further gays that for over twenty years before the attack of October 1890, aha had suffered from a disordered stomach and liver. She had a bad taste in the mouth, a poor appetite, and what little she ate gave her pain. She felt dull, languid, and tired, and bad a miserable sinking feeling in the stomach, great pain in the chest and sides, palpitation, giddioees, and frequently fell in the street and had to be astUtfd home. So we perceive that in her case a cause, long in operation at last produced the crisis which came near ending her life. It is always thus, whether we recognise the cause or not. The crime committed by Curtis was the sudden passionate act of a man who allowed thoughts of hate and vengeance to take possession of bis mind and breed the condition which made murder possible. In the very different case of this lady's illness it was an enemy of her body, indigestion and dyspepsia, which at length broke out into violence. The lesson is the same. Watch the beginning of evil and check it while yet it may be easily controlled.

Mr W. T. Stead finds some means of making a sensation wherever he goes. In Chicago he addressed the members of the Woman's Club and denounced them as " the most disreputable women in the city ' because having been favoured by Providence with all his bounteous gift*, they lived entirely for themselves. Bach women, he said were worse than the moat abandoned creatures on the streets. The ladies indignantly protested, and during his subsequent stay in Cbicaeo Mr Stead has had a lively time. ' s

According to the Gaacbta, di VeneMia, published in Venice the commander of the forces in Liguria and Piedmont has received orders to immediately complete arming the forts on the French fron. tier and tbe batteries on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The same paper alleges that several other army corps have been ordered to be in readiness for an outbreak of war. This report has caused great excitement in Venice, where it is believed tbs Government has sufficient evidence to prove that France has been aiding and abettins the revolutionary movement ia Sicily. *