Part 29 (1/2)

A humorous druggist on Was.h.i.+ngton Street recently exposed some cakes of soap in his window with the pertinent inscription, ”Cheaper than dirt.”

In the country, you know, they keep almost everything in the apothecaries'

shops. We mentioned the fact in our chapter on Apothecaries. A wag once entered one of these apotheco-groco-dry-goods-meat-and-fish-market-stores, and asked the keeper,--

”Do you keep matches, sir?”

”O, yes, all kinds,” was the reply.

”Well, I'll take a trotting match,” said the wag.

The equally humorous druggist handed down a box of pills, saying,--

”Here, take 'em and trot.”

_A sure Cure._--Henry Ward Beecher is currently reported as having once written to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes as to the knowledge of the latter respecting a certain difficulty. The reply was characteristic, and _encouraging_.

”Gravel,” wrote the doctor, ”gravel is an effectual cure. It should be taken about four feet deep.”

The ”remedy” was not, however, so remarkable as the following:--

”_Time and Cure._”--A good-looking and gentlemanly-dressed fellow was arraigned on the charge of stealing a watch, which watch was found on his person. It was his first offence, and he pleaded, ”Guilty.” The magistrate was struck with the calm deportment of the prisoner, and asked him what had induced him to take the watch.

”Having been out of health for some time,” replied the young man, sorrowfully, ”the doctor advised me to take something, which I accordingly did.”

The magistrate was rather amused with the humor of the explanation, and further inquired why he had been led to select so remarkable a remedy as a watch.

”Why,” replied the prisoner, ”I thought if I only had the _time_, Nature might work the _cure_.”

_Dye-stuff._--During the cholera time of 1864, in Hartford, Conn., a little girl was sent to a drug store to purchase some dye-stuff, and forgetting the name of the article, she said to the clerk, ”John, what do folks dye with?”

”Die with? Why, the cholera, mostly, nowadays.”

”Well, I guess that's the name of what I want. I'll take three cents'

worth.”

The Hartford Courant told this story in 1869:--

”_Cholera fenced in._--You have noticed the flaming handbills setting forth the virtues of a cholera remedy, that are posted by the hundreds on the board fence enclosing the ground on Main Street, where Roberts' opera house is being erected. Well, there was a timid countryman, the other day, who had so far recovered from the 'cholera scare' as to venture into the city with a horse and wagon load of vegetables; and thereby hangs a tale.

He drove moderately along the street, when he suddenly spied the word 'Cholera,' in big letters on the new fence, and he staid to see no more.

Laying the lash on to his quadruped, he went past the handbills like a streak of lightning, went--'nor stood on the order of his going'--up past the tunnel, planting the vegetables along the entire route,--for the tail-board had loosened,--hardly taking breath, or allowing his beast to breathe, till he reached home at W.

”Safely there, he rushed wildly into the midst of his household, exclaiming,--