A CURE DIABOLIQUE.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3511, 27 March 1880, Page 1

A CURE DIABOLIQUE.

Here is an account of a cure that is ; worth recording:

Once upon a time a wealthy gentleman, whose life, morally, had not been exactly what it should hare been, lay sick with a severe fit of lumbago—a terrible contraction of the muscles, and demoralization of the nerves of the whole lumbar region. He had been confined to his bed for several weeks, and for a week, at least, he had not suffered his servants to attempt to lift him, the pain attendant upon moving was so severe. Now it so happened that a cMimneysweep bad been employed to clean but the chimneys of a house adjoining that in which lay our lumbago patient, and he had come to his work accompanied by a boy who was to help him, and whose province it was to go down the chimney when necessary. By a simple-blunder the sweep mistook one of the chimneys of the adjoining tenement for one of the,; * number that he-was, to clean, and having looked into and found its flue xery large and very foul^ he bade his boy make-bit way down and clean as he went The boy entered the flue, and by a false step lost bis footing and fell, coming down with a cloud of soot into. the chamber of ihe ' sick man. ' *J»----k " 01—0! -Oho—boo! My mailer sent me, sir !" *\ Mercy! Mercy !" shrieked the mi valid, well assured that his visitor was an imp from Tartarean realms, and he leaped' from his bed, rushed from the room, and did not stop until he had reached the servants' hall. , • It was a terrible fright, and the man - was fearfully shaken by it; but.*his .. lumbago was gone as though by magic. ' The enforced exercise, «o sudden and so violent, had given the muscles a stretch* ing that set them to working freely and naturally.