There is an anecdote related of Thomas Hood to the effect that when he was just upon the point of dying, his friend, Mr. F.O. Ward, visited him, and, to amuse him, related some of his adventures in the low parts of the metropolis in his capacity as a sanitary commissioner. "Pray desist," said Hood; "your anecdote gives me the back-slum-bago." The proximity of death could no more deprive poor Artemus of his power to jest than it could Thomas Hood. When nothing else was left him to joke upon, when he could no longer seek fun in the city streets, or visit the Tower of London and call it "a sweet boon," his own shattered self suggested a theme for jesting. He commenced this paper "On Health." The purport of it, I believe, was to ridicule doctors generally; for Artemus was bitterly sarcastic on his medical attendants, and he had some good reasons for being so. A few weeks before he died, a German physician examined his throat with a laryngoscope, and told him that nothing was the matter with him except a slight inflammation of the larynx. Another physician told him that he had heart disease, and a third assured him that he merely required his throat to be sponged two or three times a day, and take a preparation of tortoise shell for medicine, to perfectly recover! Every doctor made a different diagnosis, and each had a different specific. One alone of the many physicians to whom Artemus applied seemed to be fully aware that the poor patient was dying of consumption in its most formidable form. Not merely phthisis, but a cessation of functions and a wasting away of the organs most concerned in the vital processes. Artemus saw how much the doctors were at fault, and used to smile at them with a sadly scornful smile as they left the sick room. "I must write a paper," said he, "about health and doctors." The few paragraphs which follow are, I believe, all that he wrote on the subject. Whether the matter became too serious to him for further jesting, or whether his hand became too weak to hold the pen, I cannot say. The article terminates as abruptly as did the life of its gentle, kind, ill-fated author.
E.P.H.]
Ontil quite recent, I've bin a helthy individooal. I'm near 60, and yit I've got a muskle into my arms which don't make my fists resemble the tread of a canary bird when they fly out and hit a man.
Only a few weeks ago I was exhibitin in East Skowhegan, in a b'ildin which had form'ly bin ockepyied by a pugylist—one of them fellers which hits from the shoulder, and teaches the manly art of self defens. And he cum and said he was goin in free, in consekence of previ'sly ockepyin sed b'ildin, with a large yeller dog. I sed, "To be sure, sir, but not with those yeller dogs." He sed, "Oh, yes." I sed, "Oh, no." He sed, "Do you want to be ground to powder?" I sed, "Yes, I do, if there is a powder-grindist handy." When he struck me a disgustin blow in my left eye, which caused that concern to at once close for repairs; but he didn't hurt me any more. I went for him. I went for him energet'cally. His parents live near by, and I will simply state that 15 minits after I'd gone for him, his mother, seein the prostrate form of her son approachin the house on to a shutter carrid by four men, run out doors, keerfully looked him over, and sed, "My son, you've been foolin round a thrashin masheen. You went in at the end where they put the grain in, come out with the straw, and then got up in the thingumajig and let the hosses tred on you, didn't you, my son?"
You can jedge by this what a disagreeable person I am when I'm angry.
But to resoom about helth. I cum of a helthy fam'ly.
The Wards has allus been noted for helthiness.
The fust of my ancestors that I know anything about was Abijah Ward and his wife, Abygil Ward who came over with the Pilgrims in the "Mayflower." Most of the Pilgrims was sick on the passige, but my ancestor wasn't. Even when the tempist raged and the billers howled, he sold another Pilgrim a kag of apple sass. The Pilgrim who bo't it was angry when he found that under a few layers of sass the rest was sawdust, and my ancestor sed he wouldn't have b'leeved such wickedness could exist, when he ascertained that the bill sed Pilgrim gave him was onto a broken bank, and wasn't wuth the price of a glass of new gin. It will be thus seen that my fust ancestor had a commercial mind.
My ancestors has all bin helthy people, tho' their pursoots in life has been vari's.
* * * * * * * * * *