month; a first dose gave him relief, and "I
am now," he says, "as robust as I was when
thirty years of age." That is a strong
testimonial, and I must beg to say that I am not
inventing it. I put down the name of the
medicine in my pocket-book, in case I should
ever be on the point of suffocation, when I
shall know what to get.

Under Doodle's Balsam I found a remarkable
case of the cure of Paralysis by Galvanism.
The platform fell in at a teetotal
meeting; and a poor man who was standing
upon it, jumped out of window. Having got
through this article I stuck fast at the bottom
of the column in Holloway's Ointment. That
I did not read about, and do not care about,
because I am considered to have very good legs.

I next opened my paper well out, and began
at the top of the first column on the page
with which I had set out. That was a
column of advertisements, one half Pectoral
Candy, the other half Dreadful Skin Disease,
Ulcerated Bad Legs, and Scorbutic Humours.
Rather annoyed, I tried the effect of a little
generalship, and by a sudden movement,
turned the paper to the right about face in
search of a page of wholesome matter. What
more wholesome could I want? The opposite
page, one-eighth of the newspaper, I found to
be wholly devoted to the business of directing
the inhabitants of Brocksop, Garringham, and
Washby, to the means of health. It contained
nothing but quack medicine advertisements.
There was "By Her Majesty's Royal Letters
Patent. The Great Lincolnshire Medicine."
There must be something peculiar in the air
of that county, for the great medicine required
by the Lincolnshire men I found was "Wind
Pills." There were Bamboozle's Bilious and
Liver Pills, there was a Rapid Cure of
Consumption, "Under Royal Patronage."
There were certain Cures of Deafness, Pectoral
Balsam (not the Candy, which is a counterfeit),
and Do you want Luxuriant Whiskers?
Chiefly, there was a large body of that kind
of vermin, with which sickly newspapers, and
more or less, also, too many strong ones are
infested. While there are simpletons with
open mouths and pockets, there will be
always cunning lies and Cordial Balms and
Purifying Pills for them to swallow.

Having got so far into them, I thought
that I would work my way quite through the
Brocksop, Garringham and Washby advertisements.
I took another page, and found the
following: Guano. An advertisement in a
black border, sacred to grief, of a "Mourning
and Funeral Warehouse," which contained
Bayadere robes, Bareges, &c., and a show-
room replete with the very newest styles.
A mourning show-room! O the luxury of
woe! Well, that was civilised at any rate.
Next followed Camphor Tooth-paste, and then
"Publications" two in number—first, "A
Weekly Newspaper for Twelve months, and a
chance of a Hundred Pounds gratis;" (literature
must really be a liberal profession); and
next, another quack puff. Then followed three
advertisements of vessels sailing for Australia,
offering a certain means of cure for all diseases
of the pocket, shortness of cash, difficulties of
payments, stoppages of meat or beer, duns,
distraints, evacuation of abodes, &c. Then
followed three columns of Sales by Auction,
varied only by a Court of Sewers, a new Life
Assurance Office, and the Galvanist's
advertisement, which I had been requested on
another page to see. There was a Gardener's
advertisement, dated from Calcavella Nursery.
There was an entire column occupied by a
Manure Company, and then a Fire and Life
Assurance, then a Hydro-Nitrated Compost,
then an Unrivalled Sauce, or compost, for
fish, game, and cold meats.

Those announcements occupied almost
another page; and there was still another,
namely the first, filled with matters a great
deal more miscellaneous. Among them were
two other long appeals to persons in want of
whiskers, and the advertisement of "a lady
of cultivated mind," who "would be happy"
(as there are not many who are) "to enter
upon the duties of a governess," and who
could exclaim in the happiness of her
disposition, "remuneration is no object." Had indeed
remuneration been an object, she would have
perhaps found nothing to make her happy in
the prospect of a governess's place. Then
there was a Windmill to be sold, and there
was a "British Remedy for the cure of
Ringbones, Spavins, &c.," with a "Synovitic Lotion
for grogginess" in horses. There were two
Jew tailors, and there was an Association
for the Prosecution of Felons, which would
have Dinner on the Table at Two o'clock, and
celebrate, no doubt, a jovial anniversary.

All these advertisements made me begin
to feel a little curious about the people for
whose information they were issued. I
could not refrain from picturing to myself
a native of those parts in luxuriant whiskers,
riding forth after a light breakfast of Wind
Pills, on a steed watered with British
Remedy, or well rubbed down with
Synovitic Lotion. He would be going out to
buy a windmill, or to engage a governess
who did not want remuneration, and he
would meet by the road, perhaps, a neighbour
with magnificent legs who would talk over
with him the news supplied by their gratuitous
paper, and speculate upon the chance of
the odd hundred pounds that might be paid
them for the job of reading it. The women
coming out of the show-rooms, weeping in
Bayadere robes for those husbands or children
who had omitted to use any Pill, Drops,
Elixir, Wafers, Lotion, or ointment, for the
sustenance of existence, would also form some
interesting groups illustrative of life in those
comparatively unknown regions. I turned
to the News department of the Brocksop,
Garringham, and Washby Standard, curious
to learn what sort of deeds were done in its
peculiar clime.