rather unusual to speak of a man's corns as
celebrated or renowned. Something of
Persian hyberbole may be supposed in this
matter to influence the speaker. In the
second word, charm, we come a little nearer
to the actual fact, its meaning being leather, a
skin, a hide. This symbolises well enough
the external aspect of a corn ; but it is in the
third form, sakht, that we get the full
significance of the phrase. Could anybody
but a confirmed martyr to corns have
heaped up such a series of adjectives as
these : Sakht, hard, painful, strong, rigid,
austere, disturbed, unfortunate, afflicted,
severe, cruel, stubborn, obstinate, wretched,
intense, violent, base, worthless—stingy, even,
and sordid ! As you read this long string
of vituperatives you immediately picture to
yourself the state of mind of one who is groaning
out his soul in the agony of corns. At first,
his expressions are short, quick, incisive,
and speak of initiatory sharp twinges. The
pain increases ; he begins to pity himself,
and gradually loses his temper. At last
come the indescribable throes, and then he
loses all self-command—he foams at the
mouth, and raves in all the impotence
of madness. I am not at all astonished
at the violence of his language, having paid
the penalty myself of wearing over-tight
boots. Indeed, I am clearly of opinion that
more cases of lunacy have arisen from corns
than from any other physical malady. We
all remember the story of the old Scotchwoman,
who, being reminded, on her deathbed,
that a number of mercies had been
vouchsafed to her during her long career,
replied, "It's a' very true, but they've been
takken out o' me in cor-r-rns !" The emphasis
which she laid on the last word, no less
than the general conclusion at which she
had arrived, sufficiently denoted the absorbing,
over-mastering character of the torture
she must have endured.

How many a man has suffered, not in
person merely, but in reputation, owing to
corns. I defy anybody, however stoical, "to
keep the even tenor of his way" under
the visitation. Equanimity is not possible
with corns. The moroseness of a husband,
the snappishness of a friend, the severity of a
master, the impertinence of a dependant, the
overweening insolence of an official—say of a
post-office clerk who only shows his head
through a trap and answers in monosyllables
—are all more or less attributable to these
painful callosities.

But perhaps the worst feature of this sad
infliction is the indifference which those who
are scatheless, manifest towards the afflicted.
Like toothache, rheumatism, gout,
seasickness, and rnany other of the commoner
"ills that flesh is heir to," corns are
never objects of commiseration. You hobble
towards the friend whom you accidentally
meet ; your countenance assumes the most
piteous expression ; you are about to tell
him what dreadful agony you undergo,
when—guessing at once what is the matter—
he cuts you short by saying, "Ah, corns, I see,
bad things, why don't you get rid of 'em ?"
and away he strides, glorying in his immunity
from the pain you suffer. "Why don't you
get rid of 'em ?" just as if you wouldn't if
you could ! "What a heartless beast that
fellow is !" you say to yourself ; but he sets
you thinking. Is it possible to do what he
so cavalierly suggests ? Haven't you tried
rasping, and cutting, and plastering till you
are positively sick at heart ? Haven't you
gone about the house in slippers—dirty old
slippers—a shame to be seen ? Haven't you
patched up your feet in every possible kind
of way, buying, for thirteen-pence-halfpenny,
including the stamp (that very word makes
you quake), Sadbuck's Superior Solvent,
Ruggles's Annihilator, Bullpett's Infallible
Destroyer, Campkin's Certain Cure, and I
know not how many more invariable remedies ?
Haven't you, moreover, fed upon
Testimonials till they coloured all your objects ?
Listen to this plain, unvarnished tale, and
then doubt if you can :—

SIR,—Few persons have suffered more through
corns than my wife. She had eighteen hard ones on
the joints of her toes for upwards of twenty years ;
they had white specks, attended with fiery redness
and inflammation, which often extended all over
her feet and ankles. In one hour your corn-
plasters relieved the pain, and entirely subdued the
fiery redness. It gives me great pleasure, sir, to add,
that in less than three days her corns were totally
removed. JOHN SMITH, Yorkshire.

Or take this, a case of personal experience :—

"It would, perhaps, be difficult to find one who
has endured more from corns than I have. I had
eleven soft corns between my toes for thirty-eight
years, which caused me perpetual torment and
indescribable misery. I tried many remedies without any
real benefit, till the application of your Gliokaiouskoiene,
or Root-and-Branch Exterminator, effected an
instantaneous cure. Make any use you please of this
for the advantage of my suffering fellow-creatures.
SAMUEL HOOKEY,
47½ A, Little Upper John-street, London.

If you have been too hard of belief to accept
these Testimonials for facts, I haven't. To
such a state of servility have I been reduced
by corns, that, though nothing ever did me
any good, I grasped at every new announcement
in the same spirit of undiminished
confidence. My credulity, indeed, extended to
things utterly foreign to the malady by
which I was afflicted. Maria Jolly's frightful
account of her fifty years' indescribable
agony, from every known disease, which were
cured by one canister of De Bowski's
Delicious Deglutionatory Drops, was received by
me as pure gospel. The same with Professor
Howlaway's Magnum Bonum Boluses, for
renovating the constitution, which combine
the elements of granite and starch with other
simple ingredients. I even pinned my faith,