A Few Inches of Plain English.

Manawatu Herald, 22 October 1895, Page 3

A Few Inches of Plain English.

9 Nowadays men are doing all sorts jrf ' wonders by means of electricity, both io » mechanics and in chemistry. I see by the , papers that thpy expect to be able to pro- ' duoe real diamonds by it. Perhaps they ! may ; marvels never eoase. But we will I wait till they do before we crow over that ; job. Up to this time, anyway, everything i that is both valuable and useful is the fruit of hard work. Even diamonds are ' mostly got out of rocky mines; And, ' within reasonable limits, it is good for us r. to have to work Ten shillings honestly , earned is better for a man than twenty in the shape of a legacy. ' The best condition of things for any ' country would be when fair wages could • be earned straight along, without loss or f deduction for any reason* Btit^ ifa this present aspect of human affairs this is itn- [ possible. Whose fault it is we cannot ' now discuss. One source of loss, however, is plain . enough, and some remedy for it ought to ' be found. In England and Wales every Working man averages ten days of illness • peryeM, making the total loss of Wages i from this cause about £16,000,000 a yean r We are talking of the awriiije, you sec. ! Bin inasmuch as all working-men are not ' ill every year, this average does not fairly 1 show the suffering and loss of thoge who , are- ill. In any given year many will lose i no time at ftlli While others will lose no lime at all, while others will lose individu--1 ally from ten days to six months each No charily, no savings, no income from clubs, ! &c, can make up for this— even in money . alone— tir'say nothing of: the £am and the ! misery. Alluding to an experience of his in 1888 Mr George Lagdon says, " I had to give up < my work. How this came, to pass he tells i us in a letter dated from his home in White House Road, Stebbihg, near Dunxnowi August 24, 1892? He had no inherited disease or weakness, so far as he knew, and was always strong and well up to April of that yeftr— lßßs. Then His strength .and energy began to leave him. He Kit tlredi not as from work, but body failure. He sat down to his meals, but not with his old eagerness and relish. There was a nasty copper-like taßte in his mouth, his teeth and tongue were coverrd with slime, and his throat cogged with a kind of phlegm ( difficult to " hawk up " and eject.. He also, speaks of a nagging pain in" trie stomach, flatulency, and much palpitation of the heart as Having been jimong iiis symptoms* - AS the ailment— whatever it was — progressed he began to have a hacking conch which, he sftys^ seemed rb if i| must ciialte him to pieces-. He Could scarcely sleep on account of it. One of the most alarming features of his illness, however, <wre the night sWeats> for the reason that they show d the existence of a source of weakness which must soon, unless arrested, end in total prostration. In fact he was obliged to give up his work altogether. To him— as to any one* active raan— this was like being burned ftlivn Ouo doctor whom Mr Lagdon consulted Raid ho was consumptive, and it did indeed look that way " For iwrlve weeks," he says, " I wont on like tlji=, getting Weaker and weaker, and bavin}.; v> ason to believe that it would cud in my taking the one ; <ong journey from which no traveller re- ■ -u-ns. ' "It was now July—summer lime, when I lifr to the healthy- is so pleasant and fall loi hope. At this time my sister-in-law ; got from Mr Linsell's (Stebbing) a medicine I that t had not tried yet. After having I used one bottle I felt better, and when I j had used the second I was cured, and have no/ lout fl» hours' work since.'' The reader will notice that between the date of his taking this medicine and the date of his letter there is an interval of four years. We may, therefore, infer that hi* cure Was real find permanent. The medicine, by the way, was Mother Seigel's Curative Sjrup. It is not likely he will forget its name nor what it did for him. His disease was indigestion and dyspepsia, the deadly enemy of every labouring man or woman under the suu, no matter what they work at or work v;tt/i — hands, brains, or boih. Is it necessary to draw a " moral " — school-book style — from these facts ? No, it is not. We have talked plain English, and that is enough.