How it Is.

Manawatu Herald, 27 June 1899, Page 3

How it Is.

In the streets of the town where I live I sometimes meet a poor fallow who is so bad y off that h's appeal for a penny or two is hard yto be resisted. He has lost both his legs above the knees and punts himself along the pavement with his hands, like a loaded barge in shallow water. Thank Mercy, one dosen't often see human bulks like him. Where there is a single instance of a man having lost both legs or both aims there are a dozen where only one limb of the pair is missing. And there is a single case of the latter sort there are a hundred cases of people who aro lame, or more or less disabled, by disease or minor injuries which are scarcely noticable, yet in the long run very serious to those so afflicted.

Consequently, when we sum up both c'asses we perceive that it isn't the total wrecks and the incurables that are most expensive to society, but the prodigious host which must work, and does work, yet always under difficulties and against hindrances. Men and women regularly employed, but who are continually breaking down in a small way, thus losing fragments of time and fractions of wages, are of the kind I mean. The amount of income lost in this way in one year in England is immense. And so far as the causa of all this is disease, and not accident or born bodi y imperfection, it is almost always preventible and generally curable. Look at this, for example, and lake heart.

"In the spring of this year, (1897)," the wiitersays, "my health hegantofail me. My appetite was poor, and after meals I had pain and weight at the chest. I could •not sleep owing to the pain, and I got weaker every day. I had so much pain that 1 dared not eat, and rapidly lost fksh.

" I was in agony night and day, and often sat by the fire at night as I could not rest in b.d. I had a deal of muscu'ar pain, particularly in the arms. I gradually got worse and worse and in two months, lost two score pounds weight.

" I saw a doc' or who gave me medicines and injee'ed morphia to ease the pain; but I was uo bet'er for it. Then I m^t with a friend who told m? of great benefit ht had derived from the use of a medicine ca'kd Mother Seigo"s Syrup. 1 got a bottle of i f , from Mr S. Eichardson, Chemist, Bridgman Street, and in a week I con d eat wo'l acd food no longer distressed in?. Th ref >re I kept on with the the mediaiao, and soon was strong and we!!, lam now in the best of health and recommend this remedy to al l meet with. You are at Ub j riy to publish this letter as you like."- (Signed) William Bridge, Grocer and Baker, i>6, Brtfginan Slreet, Bolton, Octobir sth, 1897.

Hf-re we have an illustration of the proposition with which t .is article sets out, Mr Bridge's account of his own case we see ihat he lost a considerable time from his business. How much that repr»sents in monoy he does not say ; nor hit important to tin* argument. For two monlhs-or more he lost from his business practioal'y all he was worth to it ; and what that situation wou d have signified, bad it been indt-finitely continued, any intelligent person enn imagine. M^-n frequently became "stricken with poverty as with illnest in that way. However wo'l any bnsin-ss may be managed in a emergency by others, it is not to be supposed that it gets on as prosperous y as when the proprietor is himse'.f at the helm, And he canno"; be the-'e while he is suffering agonies froai disease, T is is true even if we make no calc ilatoa of the direct expens-s created by ilines", nor of suffering experienc d — the latter not computable in terms of money. Now, please to remark how quickly Mr Bridge was currd of h's ailment — bad as it seemed and realiy wa •. Dating from the time he began using Mother Seigal's Syrup he saws: — " In a week I could eat well, and food no 1 nger distressed me." His trouble was of the digestion only (acute dyspepsia) for which this preparation long ago proved itself a specific. Had he known of and employed it when the attack began he wou d have lost no time, felt no pain.

The les3on of the caao it this : — As indigpstion is a common complaint, and dangerous also when neglected, the remedy should be t c guard over i f . And hpa'th is a jewel compared with which rubies are as the ga?s beads of savages.