Nicholas Throckmorton. Not long ago, a girl died ing which he tells the following story of how things of hydrophobia at Bradwell, Bucks. At the inquest, are managed on board American temperance-ships. it came out, that after the dog that had done the 'It was of rare occurrence for me to feel sea-sick, mischief had been killed and buried, the girl's father but on this occasion I did; and in a state of misery obtained its liver, a neighbour grilled it before known only to those who are so situated, I asked the fire until it was dried up, and then the horrid the nearest nigger to give me some brandy. He morsel was given to the child with some bread, to grinned and said: "You get no brandy here, help it down. This was done in the belief that massa; him's a temperum's ship."- "The deuce it the bite of the dog would thereby be rendered is," said I. "What am I to do?"-"Stop a bit," harmless, as a relative who had met with a similar said he; "I'll get something for you." He immemisadventure had already proved to his own satis-diately returned with a soda-water bottle full of a faction; and in his case the dead dog had lain in a dark-looking liquor, which he poured into my ditch for nine days before his liver was taken from half-cup of tea, saying: "Dere, massa, sarsaparilla him! Even if a dead dog's liver possessed the-berry good ting for sea-sickness." I tasted, and virtue attributed to it, it would be nothing like so valuable as a living fox's tongue, at least not Inverness - way. The Inverness Advertiser, chronicling the capture of seven foxes by the gamekeeper of Mr Bankes, says: A distant neighbour, hearing that Stewart was in possession of living foxes, sent to him to have one of their tongues taken out alive. Being in possession of the tongue of a fox extracted in such a manner, is supposed by the common people to be all-powerful in curing all manner of disease. One of the foxes was shot, and before it was quite dead, the tongue was taken out, and sent to this credulous neighbour.' We think both the credulous neighbour and the man who satisfied his silly fancy might have been profitably prosecuted by the nearest magistrate.

Three nails,' says Lupton, 'made on the vigil of St John, called Midsummer Eve, and driven in so deep that they cannot be seen, in the place where the party doth fall that hath the falling-sickness, and naming the said party's name while it is doing, doth drive away the disease quite.' Equally efficacious in epileptic cases is the wearing of a ring made of a sacramental shilling, one out of the alms collected at the holy communion. Toothache may be cured by digging up a plant of groundsel with a tool having no iron in it; touching the tooth four times with the groundsel, taking care to spit thrice after each touch, and then replacing the plant. Plague and poison may be defied for twenty-four hours by a light refection consisting of two figs, two walnuts, and twenty rue leaves beaten together. Warts are easily got rid of by rubbing the ill-conditioned things with a piece of bacon, provided the bacon be stolen. If honestly come by, there is no such virtue in it. Theft would seem to impart a like curative power to vegetables, since a Lewes labourer, charged with helping himself to a farmer's turnips, excused the misappropriation by declaring he only stole them because he had been told he might make his crippled boy perfect-limbed by rubbing his neck with five stolen turnips and throwing them away, without saying anything to anybody about the matter. Not such an impudent defence as that of the fellow who decamped with one hundred pounds' worth of cotton because he wanted a little cotton

for a cold in his ear!

found it was excellent brandy. I gave him half a dollar, and requested a little more sarsaparilla, which he again poured into my cup, while he held his side with laughter, and grinned like a hyena. I found, in after-travelling, whenever I had the ill-fortune to get on board a temperance-ship, that the niggers were always supplied with sarsaparilla and similar pleasant medicines.'

The English singer's remedy would have been a boon to the Japanese ambassadors who visited Europe in 1862, for they suffered terribly on the voyage; even the chief envoy could make no head against the infliction, despite his courageous attempt to keep the foe off, by partaking freely of a soup of rice and horse-radish, seasoned with sardines and red herrings, and washed down with champagne! The Marquis of Anglesey, when Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, was a martyr to tic-douloureux, and the only man who could do him any good was Brophy, the Castle dentist. He did not, as one would guess, attack the viceroy's teeth; his method of treatment was more original, and vastly more agreeable to the patient than any that could have been devised by the College of Physicians. Brophy was gifted with marvellous comic powers, and before he got through The Blind Beggar of Carlisle Bridge, or one of his many other convivialities, the marquis found himself free from pain and ready for his dinner. We hardly know whether we may reckon marriage among pleasant remedies; it depends, we suppose, upon the form in which it is administered. Dr Cabarrus, a Parisian physician, being called in by a pretty actress, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and so on, and then gravely pronounced marriage to be the only thing he could prescribe. You are single, are you not, my dear doctor?' inquired his dangerously fair patient. But the doctor was not to be trapped. Taking up his hat, he replied: Yes, mademoiselle; but doctors only prescribe remedies, they do not take them!'

Bulstrode Whitelock, when a young man, sprained his leg, and the best doctors of the day failed in their efforts to remove the consequent lameness. As a last resource, a German, one Dr Mathias, was sent for. He made a brick red hot, slaked it with a liquor made from muscadine, or marrow and herbs, wrapped it in a napkin, and applied it where the pain was most acute, every morning and night There are such things as pleasant remedies. for ten successive days. Whitelock says the brick Cherries, grapes, lemons, cucumbers, have been first soaked up the liquor formed in the hollow of vaunted as certain cures, if taken in sufficient the bone; then, by fumigation, and infusing the quantity, for that English scourge, consumption; liquor into the lame part, the pain was much a malady for which Aaron Hill prescribed the daily lessened, and his strength increased, so that he imbibing of a quart of coffee made with milk. Mr was able to go about upon crutches, in a short Henry Phillips found a not very nauseous remedy time afterwards to exchange them for a staff, which for sea-sickness in brandied tea, a remedy respect- in a little while longer was cast aside, and he

found himself cured. Lameness of a certain kind may often be cured by fright. Hone relates how an old gentleman, hobbling along as well as gouty feet would allow him, suddenly became aware that a bull was making a rapid advance on his rear, and forgetting his gout, and dropping his stick, by a dashing bit of steeple-chasing, in a very few moments put himself on the safe side of a gate, and left his gout behind him. We knew a man cured of rheumatism quite as quickly. He had kept his room for six weeks, when somebody advised him to try the effects of a cayenne lotion. A jugful was made, and the very first night of using it, he awoke, feeling very dry-throated. He always kept a jug of water at his bedside; so, stretching out his hand, he seized the jug, and took a good pull at its contents. He was on the floor almost before he knew it. He had got hold of the wrong jug, and taken his lotion internally; but the blunder frightened away his rheumatism for ever. Fright,' says a writer in the Book of Days, 'is looked upon as a cure for ague. An old woman told me that she was actually cured in this manner when she was young. She had had ague for a long time, and nothing would cure it. Now, it happened she had a fat pig in the sty, and a fat pig is an important personage in a poor man's establishment. Well aware of the importance of piggy in her eyes, and determined to give her as great a shock as possible, her husband came to her with a very long face, as she was tottering down stairs one day, and told her that the pig was dead. Horror at this fearful news overcame all other feelings; she forgot all about her ague, and hurried to the scene of the catastrophe, where she found, to her great relief, the pig alive and well; but from that day to this (she must be about eighty years old) she has never had a touch of the ague, though she has resided on the same spot.' When a man discovers, to his dismay, that his

Hair is thinning away at the crown, And the silver fights with the worn-out brown, he is sometimes tempted to stave off the evil day, when a general verdict shall set him down as an irreclaimable fogy, by trying some well-puffed nostrum, guaranteed to restore gray hair to its original colour, and force the growth of hair upon the smoothest of pates. A French tobacconist, who had reached this unhappy stage, heard a hairdresser boast he had discovered an infallible restorer, and pointed out as such by Nature herself. The discovery came about in this wise. Taking a walk one Sunday morning in the woods, the hairdresser was astonished by the multitude of mushrooms he beheld whichever way he turned. It flashed upon his brain that he saw before him the real remedy for baldness. Filling his handkerchief with mushrooms, he hastened home, and lost no time in boiling them down, in readiness for the first chance of testing the truth of his theory that might present itself. The bald-headed tobacconist was marked out as his prey; he could not resist the ardent eloquence of the eager artist, and a bargain was soon struck between them. For two months, both parties patiently persevered with the mushroom lotion; then the tobacconist was horrified at finding that his head was not only as hairless as ever, but dotted over with hideous little wens. He was furious; he went to law; but what

came of that we cannot tell.

|

A good pendant to this sad story comes to us from Madras. A native government employé, owning to fifty-five, entreated an Englishman to give him a receipt for something that would convert his gray beard and moustache to a more youthful hue. Thinking a refusal would offend him, though he had the best of reasons for denial, the Englishman wrote at random a perfectly original prescription, never dreaming his native friend would follow his instructions. He did, though. Procuring a drachm each of oil of roses, oil of cloves, gum-arabic, lamp-black, and sulphuric acid, he mixed them well together, and before retiring for the night, rubbed the concoction well into his beard and moustache, afterwards drinking a stiff glass of arrack, to expedite the action of the dye. Next morning, he arose betimes, in hopes of beholding himself the proud possessor of a mass of glossy jet-black hair. His amazed horror may be imagined when he looked in the glass and saw no signs of beard or lip ornaments; they had vanished altogether, leaving nothing but a sorely blistere skin to tell they had ever existed. Possibly he might have recovered his lost hair if he had tried the Yankee plan of applying brandy externally until it began to grow, and then taken plenty of the same internally, to clinch the roots.

After ages of experiment and experience, the art of curing is still such an uncertain art, that thousands might say, as the poor invalid said: "I never took a remedy, but I've had lots of physic.' Dr Whately could have said just the contrary; he did not take lots of physic, but had a remedy nevertheless that stood him in good stead at all times and seasons. A gentleman making an evening call at Redesdale when the snow lay two feet thick upon the ground, was much scandalised at beholding an old man in shirt sleeves hard at work felling a tree, while the sleet drifted pitilessly in his wrinkled face. Upon expressing his surprise that the archbishop should let an old labourer work in such fashion, he was astonished to learn that the poor fellow exciting his wrathful pity was the archbishop himself, getting rid of a headache in his usual way, which was, to throw off his coat, lay hold of an axe, rush out of doors, and belabour some stout old trunk till he found himself perspiring freely; when down went the axe, and off went Dr Whately as hard as he could tear to his bedroom, to wrap himself up in his newest blankets, go to sleep, and arise by-and-by 'as fresh as a four-year-old.' Sydney Smith prepared for all eventualities, by devoting one side of a room to a collection of medicines, on the efficacy of which he plumed himself not a little. There's the Gentle-joy, a pleasure to take it; the Bull-dog for more serious cases; Peter's Puke, and Heart's Delight-the comfort of all the old women in the village; Rub-a-dub, a capital embrocation; Dead-stop settles the matter at once, and Up-withit-then needs no explanation. This is the house to be ill in; everybody who comes here is expected to take a little of something. I consider it a delicate compliment when my guests have a slight illness. We have contrivances for everything. If you have a stiff neck or a swelled face, here is this sweet case of tin, filled with hot water, and covered with flannel, to put round your neck, and you are well directly. Likewise, a patent tin shoulder, in case of rheumatism. There you see a

stomach-tin, the greatest comfort in life; and lastly, here is a tin slipper, to be filled with hot water, which you can sit with in the drawing-room should you come in chilled, without wetting your feet.' Sydney Smith had almost as much faith in hot water as Burke, only he was for its external use; some of his contrivances might certainly be generally adopted with advantage. Scott's Ashestiel blacksmith, who, upon the strength of a little veterinary skill, set up as a doctor of humankind in a small English town, was a man of few remedies. As he told Sir Walter, his practice was very sure, and perfectly orthodox, for he depended entirely upon 'twa simples.' 'And what may they be?' asked Scott, with some curiosity. I'll tell your honour,' said Lundie; 'my twa simples are just laudamy and calamy!'-Simples with a vengeance!' exclaimed the poet. But do you never happen to kill some of your patients, John?' -Kill? Ou ay, may be sae! Whiles they die, and whiles no-but it's the will o' Providence. Onyhow, your honour, it wad be lang before it makes up for Flodden!' That last touch went straight to Scott's heart, we may be sure. Johnny Lundie was not quite so frank with the unlucky victims of his orthodox practice; frankness with them would have been unprofessional. It would perhaps be a change for the better if European doctors could imitate the plain-speaking Chinaman, Li Po Sai, who, when called in by a Californian gentleman, after the usual examination, said: "I think you too much dance, too much eat, too much goot round. If you dance, you no get better; too much eating, no good; too much gooting round, no good. -Good-bye!' Dared our medical advisers be as honest as their Chinese brother, drugs would be at a discount indeed; but then, it is just possible the Registrar-general might be able to shew a cleaner bill of health.

OUR FEATHER FARM.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER III.

launched with unerring aim, and as I gazed about me with haggard eyes, I saw that the noose was tightening round the reptile's neck; while Juan, with the end of the stout cord fastened to his saddle, had started off at a canter, towing along the alligator after him, as he had tugged along many a bull and many a wild steed.

For an instant it seemed as if the Guacho's would be an easy triumph; but it was only the surprise of the shock that had mastered the alligator, a very large one, and the great weight and strength of which soon began to tell. I saw the horse brought, with a jerk, to a stop, and then, to my dismay, beheld steed and rider dragged by sheer force towards the lagoon, vainly striving to resist the superior power of the gigantic tyrant of the waters. Juan drove in his spurs, urging his panting and terrified horse by voice, hand, and knee, to put out its whole strength; but it soon seemed plain that unless the saddle-girths gave way, dragged down into the pool he would be, horse and man, while there could be in such a case little doubt of the issue of the conflict. To cut the cord, would have been the only mode of separating the combatants in this unequal duel; but I had let fall my broken knife in the long Pampas grass, and a Guacho clings to his lasso with the same mechanical impulse that causes a seaman to hold fast to shroud or stay. * Let go the rope!' I called out to him as loudly as I could. Loose the end from the saddle-ring, and let the brute go!' But Juan paid no heed to my advice, but spurred his struggling horse, uttering at the full pitch of his voice the tiger-call' of the herdsmen.

The child had crept close to me, and was holding on to my coat, weeping and calling on his absent father, and his presence embarrassed me; for, wearied and disarmed as I was, I felt eager to come to the aid of the bold lad who had saved me from the very jaws of death; but just at the moment that the mulatto girl, Charlie's nurse, came running down the hill with sobs and outcries in search of the truant charge who had strayed off while she was threading scarlet berries for a necklace, four of our mounted men came thundering down with cheery shouts and lassoes whirled aloft; and in a very short time the alligator, strong and savage as he was, noosed and entangled by the pliant cords, stabbed with knives, and beaten down by bolâs, lay dead and harmless.

6

EVENTS which it takes many words to describe, even inadequately, sometimes occupy but a very few seconds or minutes of actual time; and from the period of my hurrying up in response to young Charlie's scream for help, to that of Juan the Guacho's arrival on the scene of action, probably but a few moments had passed. But, to judge by my feelings, they might have been ages. I had rushed to the rescue just in time to save the tender Before we left the spot, a number of other limbs of Don Miguel's heir from the greedy jaws of persons, alarmed by the tiger-call-never before the monster, and had made as good a fight as I heard so near the hacienda itself-came up, and could, nearly paying with my own life for the among the last of these was Don Miguel, already instructed by a mounted messenger as to what had young life I had saved, when this new champion occurred. He arrived, pale with emotion, sprang rode in hot haste to encounter the common foe. from his horse, and clasped his little son in his Reeling, breathless, and dizzy of brain, I under-arms, eyeing the child all over with jealous stood the Guacho's meaning sufficiently to stand back, letting go my hold of the tough whip-handle, which, with the tattered poncho wrapped around it, I had hitherto obstinately kept between the alligator's churning jaws. The infuriated brute followed me up with bitter hate, his hateful snout all but brushing my knee as I staggered back. But just at that instant, whirr! crack! came the wellknown sound of the heavy lasso whistling past,

anxiety, as if to be assured that he was really unscathed; then, coming up to me, he grasped both my hands, and before I could prevent him, kissed them as fervently as ever devotee pressed his lips to the relics of a saint.

'I kiss these hands,' he said aloud, 'that have saved my darling to me! Englishman, I would say, ask and have, even to the half of the fortune that it has taken me thirty years to win; but I know too well that it would be an idle compliment, for

you would accept no reward from me but the deft fingers had twisted up, dreaming the while of thanks that I pay you from my heart. Let the Alice, of England, and of the scanty probability opportunity come, and I will not be forgetful. Men that I should see either the one or the other again -mozos-here is a man, a true caballero! Stand-to be sure!' I said, for Toni was a zealous and to him in his need, I charge you, as you would good-humoured attendant, and I was glad to grant merit Paradise and your master's good word and him any trifling indulgence. What is going on good deed!' to-night? Is there a tertulia at St Jago, or fireworks? Or has the marionette show with the French puppets arrived at last?'

populace. Promptly he helped me to attire my-casts the evil-eye on children, and makes a horse self, and was eager to act as my guide through the lame by looking at him.' shadows of the semi-tropical sundown.

'You see, señor,' babbled the boy, as we trudged briskly on, the Mozos were waiting till Don Miguel, our lord, should be out of the way, since he is rather strict, you know; and now we can make a bonfire worthy of the king of Spain's birthday. This old wizard has been hanging about the place these eighteen months, and how he lives nobody knows, except the demons that bring him money and food. He has been heard talking to himself dreadful words, worse than a wolf's snarl. He reads, ay, and writes, such things as even El Cura of the Church of the Eleven Apostles, two miles out of St Jago, would not understand. Look at this he dropped it one day on the road; I picked it up.'

And the boy, shuddering with no counterfeit terror, put into my hand a pencilled piece of paper, inscribed with square Hebraic characters.

'Is the wizard an old man with a long gray beard, a velvet skullcap, and a long loose black coat full of pockets-an old fellow with blue spectacles, and white gaiters over his clumsy shoes?' I asked.

'Your worship's right. The old villain is just such a one,' replied Toni.

I did remember to have met in one of my rides with a queer old man answering to this description, who was sitting on the rail of a clumsy wooden bridge that spanned a creek, reading a book. He had not spoken, or responded otherwise than by a stiff inclination of the head to my bow and good-morrow,' after the Spanish style; but his appearance was that of a foreigner and an eccentric personage, and I could hardly doubt that this was the man whose incremation was to afford the amusement of the night. Presently we came in sight of the wizard's hut, a poor wooden dwelling, surrounded by sheds, and situated close to the high-road, where now were gathered together the largest crowd of people that I had ever seen collected in those wild regions. A great pile of wood, thorns, and dried grass had been formed around the house, which, built as it was of inflammable materials, would have burned like touchwood, and still the Guachos were busy in carrying up fresh armsful of fuel to the heap, laughing the while in unthinking merriment, while others kept up a chorus of execration against the unhappy object of all this turmoil and clamour, a graybearded old man, who stood at a window, vainly trying, in imperfect Spanish, to calm and conciliate the crowd.

'Huzza, lads, here's the brave Englishman, Don Warburton, come to see the fun of to-night!' shouted Toni, vain of his Telemachus. But what was Toni's astonishment when, springing forward, and scrambling up by the aid of the pile of fuel, I stepped into the rude balcony of unbarked logs that was nailed outside the upper window of the hut, and stood at the old man's side.

'Now, Mozos,' I cried, "if you burn this poor man, you burn me as well. Here I am, and hence I shall not stir till you go home.'

There was an angry thrill and a surly growl among the packed mass of people.

What have you to do with the wizard, English señor ?' called out a voice, that of Sancho, one of our Guachos. He is a wretch accursed, and

I was meditating my plan of action. What charges the mob could bring against the unfortunate old man, I did not know, but I thought it improbable that any but the vaguest accusations would be alleged. On the other hand, logic is not in much vogue among the Pampas herdsmen; and to talk of merciful considerations to such an audience would be sheer waste of breath. I took time to consider, and then burst into a shout of laughter. Nothing else could have so completely startled the Guachos. They stood silent for the moment, staring stupidly.

'Why, lads,' I said, as soon as my fit of feigned hilarity was over, a pretty mistake you were making-a pretty mess you were going to get your selves and us into, with the government of the Republic, with the pope, with-who knows-the saints themselves, very likely! This a wizard! This a wretch to be burned! Why, men, where are your wits, that you don't know a friar, ay, and a hermit, when you see him?'

There was a great swaying to and fro, and a buzz of voices, in the crowd.

'He's no friar,' said one sturdy fellow; 'if he is, let him shew his rope-girdle and his tonsure.' 'Now, be reasonable, cavalier,' I answered, with a promptitude that surprised myself: you are not deaf, and must have heard it said that the frock does not make the monk. Nor does the want of a shaven head prevent a man from being a friar such as the church of the Atocha could hardly match. I give you my word that this' (exhibiting the page of Hebrew pencilled characters) could only have been written by one who knew the history of St Joseph, and St Rose of Lima, and St James of Spain. Had you harmed him, the locusts would have come again, before the springgrass could feed the cattle.'

There was a sullen murmur of discontent. A mob, like a wild beast, does not like to be balked of its prey. 'Ach! Himmel!' muttered the old man at my elbow, 'what utter savages ignorance and laziness do convert men into !' Then suddenly breaking off his German soliloquy, he boldly asked in bad, but intelligible Spanish what harm he had done, and what grievance any present could allege against him. Some embarrassment seemed to prevail amid the crowd, and then a voice exclaimed: 'The old rogue stopped to pat little Isabel's head as he passed my door; the child sickened next day. He wished me good-luck when I rode out to the chase, and my best horse put his foot into a chinchilla burrow, and left me to limp home with the saddle on my back,' said another witness. He looks like the Jew that never dies!' squeaked a boyish voice, which I shrewdly suspected to belong to my mulatto body-servant. And he tames and feeds strange beasts, and birds, and snakes, such as no man ever tamed before, nor would an honest one attempt it,' vociferated a fourth accuser,

Come, come, Spaniards and gentlemen,' said I with argumentative politeness, 'let us act as becomes Old Christians and descendants of the Conquista dôres, and not as if we were a pack of barbarous Indians out of the wilderness. That worthy man whose child is ill of a fever, I'll be bound he has had others of his children sicken of it before, long before this elderly personage came into the country. This appeared undeniable; and so did