Cleanings.

Kaikoura Star, Volume XIV, Issue 734, 1 May 1894, Page 7

Cleanings.

The Doctor’s Troubles.

‘ My dear fellow ’ said the doctor to me, you have no idea what we have to put up with. If 1 call to see a patient frequently 1 am ‘ trying to run up a bill ’ ; if I don’t ‘it is shameful neglect.’ If I manage to get to church, and am called out, I hear afterwards, * Working the Bob Sawyer dodge on Sunday, eh, docttor ?' If I am so busy that I cannot go I am sure to be asked, ‘ How is it that you doctors are all atheists ?’ If my wife calls on people, •it is because she is trying to get patients for me’; but if she doesn’t, it is because she is ‘too stuck up.’ If I cure a patient quickly—get credit, you say ? oh dear no ! the patient ‘ wasn’t half as bad as the doctor tried to make out; why be was quite well in a week’; but on the other hand, should the case develop serious complications, ‘Ab ! the doctor never understood the malady ; in fact, he was worse when he had been taking the medicine a week than when we called him in.’

‘ If I suggest a consultation, it is only because I don’t know what is the matter; if I pooh pooh the idea as unnecessary, I am ‘ afraid of showing my ignorance.’ I am expected to, so to speak, cast a horoscope on a baby’s life, and tell its mother what its ailments will be. If 1 can’t do that, I ‘cannot possibly know much.’ lam also expected to forsee all the ‘ ills that flesh is heir to ’ six months before they come. I once lost a patient whom I had treated for influenza, because I did not foretell an attack of rheumatism which came on three months later. In all cases, if they get worse, the fault lies in the medicine ; if they get well, it is ‘ the goodness of Providence.’ If I send in my bill they say, ‘ he is in a terrible hurry for his money if I don’t it is •so unbusinesslike.’ ‘But we get well paid ?’ do you say. My dear sir, if I received payment for one half I do I should die from the shock.’

Children in Kashmir.

The author of ‘ Where Three Empires Meet’ was interested in the way in which the people of Kashmir bring up their children. The three H’s are neglected as useless accomplishments, he says, while a thorough instruction is given in the three arts of towing, punting and paddling. His own native crew consisted of one man, some women, and several small children. One day the smallest child, a pretty little girl of three or four, had to take her little lesson. She was too small to tow, but was put on the bank to trot alongside her brothers and get accustomed to stepping out barefooted on the rough track. She came to a place where the path, cut in the face of the steep mud cliff, was only a few inches broad for a short distance, and where a false step would mean a ducking. The little maiden got frightened, and refused to attempt the dangerous passage, but the boat did not stop for her ; her parents laughed and left here there weeping.

Seeing that no one would return to pick her up, she philosophically wiped her eyes and tripped across the place quite merrily. Her nervousness had been mostly simulated. Kashmiris, even at four years old, have good heads on precipices, and the little humbug advanced without fear when she realised that malingering was useless. She was then brought on board, was much applauded and caressed, and was rewarded with apples for having done her lesson like a good child. One nice trait of these people is their affection for their children. These half naked boat urchins live happy lives, and many English children would like to exchange places with them and enjoy for a time this free, outdoor existence on the rivers of the Happy Valley. ☆ * ☆ it <r ir

In consequence of the mining depression at Mount Zeeban a thousand miners are idle. Many are leaving for Western Australia.

A small soul has plenty of elbow room in a narrowminded man. Inquisitive people are merely the funnels of conversation. They do not take in anything for their own use, but merely to pass it to another. ****** The bride's veil is a relic of the ‘ care cloth,’ a canopy held over the virgin bride by our Saxon forefathers to conceal her embarrassment. ****** ‘ Brains clothed where formerly feet were covered ’ was the notice put up by a New York bookseller on moving into premises formerly occupied by a shoemaker. *☆☆☆☆* In the anatomy of the mind, as of the body, more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open and perceptible parts, then by studying too much finer nerves. ****** Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength. ****** The telephone has lately been adopted for the use of divers. A sheet of copper is used in place of one of the glasses in the helmet, and to this a telephone is fixed, so that the diver, when at the bottom of the sea, has only to slightly turn his head in order to report what he sees, or receive instructions from above. ****** LASSITUDE, HEADACHE, BACKACHE, AND INDIGESTION ARE SYMPTOMS OF A DISORDERED LIVER. CLEMENTS TONIC IS THE ONLY RELIABLE AND RADICAL CURE.

HAVE NO OTHER.

Mr J. J. Langridge, Tahaha, New Zealand, who writes on May 25th, 1893 :—I have much pleasure in saying that I have used Clements Tonic and do so now. I am a storekeeper and often feel that tired and done up sort of feeling peculiar to our trade, and I find by taking two or three doses of Clements Tonic occassionally that it puts me right again. I have often tried doctors, but not since I have used Clements Tonic, and I find it sells well, and people who once use it invariably purchase it again.—J. J. Langridge, Tahaha, New Zealand.