A Hard Case
Abernethy's well-known prescription for gout was : ' Live on sixpence a day — and earn it '. But last week, in the capital of ' G-od's own country ', the trustees of the Benevolent Institution came across a case in which an aged and respectable woman and her adopted son (a rheumatic patient) were both living on half-a-crown a week— all that was left of the former's pension after seven shillings and sixpence had been expended upon the rent of a hovel that was described as ' damp, dark, and wretched '. How they continued to live in this country on about twopence a day each (one-third of Abernethy's allowance for England), is a mystery which they can best solve. But we rather fear that at times they must have been short of even the modicum of comfort required by the old Spanish proverbial saying : ' All sorrows are bearable if there is bread '.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT19080604.2.12.3
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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 4 June 1908, Page 9
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149A Hard Case New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 4 June 1908, Page 9
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