LADY PILLULA— A PEN AND INK SKETCH.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 295, 25 September 1873, Page 7

LADY PILLULA— A PEN AND INK SKETCH.

(By the AutJm- of " Oinx's Baby.") Lady Pillula was nearly 30 years of age, with the withering marks of time deeply; written on her features, and her mittened hands. Yet no small nerve and vivacity remained iv her frame. She had nothing to do, so she took medicine. With little of interest to those who were about her to attracb her attention, she fixed it on herself, and that part of the body which became the sole and specific object of her regard was her intestines. It is affirmed by physicians that one may by nervous concentration of thought upon one spot in the body induce or aggravate a local morbid action. This was Lady Pillula's peculiarity. Her passion was pills. Of these she was at once an artist, a connoisseur, and a miser. Vast collections of empty pill boxes lumbered in her room. She took pills before she rose in the morning, before breakfast, at 11 o'clock a.m. and at 1. She took Holioway as an appetiser for lunch, and counteracted the ill effects of that untimely meal with tbe celebrated antibilious pills of Cockle. Her dinner was inaugurated with three boluses of rhubarb and concluded with aloe. Her nocturnal podophyllin was nevei* a pretermitted. She scanned the newspapers every morning, for one purpose, the discovery of new pills; while her sister, Lady W-, sought the columns of fashionable intelligence, and Lord W. perused the stock lists, she was busy registering the latest novelties in pillular inven- \ tions. On the first occasion of her reading the advertisement of the notorious Eevalentia Arabiea, headed, "No more pills or any other me-li-cine," the announcement proved too much for her, and she fainted. She only recovered upon the exhibitiou of a whole box of "Brandeth's." One form of pill she abhorred — namely, the niiaute globules of the Homoßpathisfcs. These she condemned as ntterly unworthy of a trial by any adult interior. The most agreeable surprise you could pass upon her was to present : her with a box of new pills. She I would take them the same evening, and pronounce on their qualities next day with the precision and gusto of a connoisseur. Indeed the mania affected her morality. She became morbid in

pursuit of her fancy ; invading her sister's boudoir, or even Lord W.s dressing rporaf in the hope of finding some stray box of her condiments. If a visitor happened to carrj&such specifics about with him or left ttiem in his room, Lady Pillula took tithe of them. She had several times nearly been poisoned. Once she swallowed a number of buckshot which an incautious sportsman had turned into an empty pill-box on unloading his gun. In another instance some glass beads met with a similar accident. One item of comfort to be extracted from this strange but authentic case, should not pass unmarked. Notwithstanding the vast number of portentous patents, from the exhibition of which innumerable consequences were pledged to ensue, Lady Pillula's organs seemed to be contrived to resist them all. It was only effected by blue pills in unusual quantities, or prescriptions administered by her physicians — the harmlessness of most patent pills was a constant source of vexation to her, though it amply testified to the simplicity of the material with which people are gammoned. Lord W. used to amuse himself occasionally at his sister-in-law's expense. He asked Savory or Corbyn for the latest inventions, and brought home boxes of them. He himself slily mixed some rare and monstrous compositions, ranging from pitch to beeswax or bread, and was entertained to find that the old lady placed some of these high in her standard of excellence. When, however, he twitted -her with her credulity, and with the perils to which she was exposing herself by her unreasoning addiction to such fraudulent devices, she replied upon him rather sharply :— " Everybody takes pills of some sort," she said. "Some swallow opinions wholesale, without knowing much of what is in them. Some people take their priest's prescription as if it were certain to contain a specific for their souls. Others take their political ideas from political quacks, and gulp thejen with the most credulous simplicity. I have seen you take for granted an^r pill the editor of the " Chimes " makes up for you of a morning, and have known you to be the worse of it. Other people" — here she looked wickedly at her brother-in-law, who took a turn at speculation now and then — " swallow the lies of prompters and stock-jobbers and suffer a great deal more than I do for their temerity. After all I would rather be deluded anywhere than in my brains." — " St. Paul's Magazine."