"TO ALL MEN OVER SEVENTY.—A philanthropist, desirous of carrying out the new system of rejuvenation wishes to get into touch with at least one hundred old men who would be willing to submit to a grafting of new thyroid glands. Applicants, who must be reasonably healthy and in possession of all their faculties, should communicate with the box number quoted at the end of this advertisement. They should give full particulars of their age, ailments (other than old age), and social position; state the reason for desiring to extend their life; and also express their willingness to defray the average net cost per individual of the actual treatment only. The glands will be provided free, and a special ship will also be chartered for the passage out to South Africa, where the operation will be performed by skilled medical men. A proportion of the applicants will be interviewed and a selection made of those suitable by a man of 95, who has himself submitted to this novel treatment and who will afford proof positive of its extraordinary power to banish old age."
It may not have been a particularly alluring announcement; but it was at least mildly intriguing. Many papers took up the refrain. Was it a hoax, asked some of them? Was it some new confidence trick? Or was it a genuine attempt to start a rejuvenation cult? Coming at a time when there were few divorces or murders, when Parliament was in recess, and when the labor world was temporarily quiescent, it proved to be of some journalistic value.
The papers in which we advertised sent down young and persistent reporters to try and get lurid details for their insatiable public. But Gran'pa and I were not to be "drawn." We whetted their curiosity, but insisted on the privacy of that box number. The papers in which we did not advertise speculated, and sneered, and joked, and moralized, each according to its lights. And slowly the whole thing developed into a little newspaper boom—and the letters began pouring in.
We got three hundred and seventy applications for a new lease of life within the first ten days. Some of them even came from the inmates of workhouses and almhouses.
An army pensioner of 97 wrote:—
"Dear Sir,
"I should like to try your glands but haven't enough money to pay for being done. Hoping you can arrange this for me, I beg to remain,
"Dear Sir,
"Yours fraternally,
"John Sleep.
"P.S.—Could you come and see me one morning. I am healthy except for my feet, which are eat up with rheumatics so that I cannot get about much."
"Chuck it aside," said Gran'pa. "This isn't a new bath salts or mineral waters treatment. We can't do anything with rheumaticky people."
"Poor devil," I said. "He'll think that poverty is the real bar."
"Very well! Write and tell him that it isn't. Say we're full up, but that he'll be put on the waiting list."
"And leave him hoping—in vain?"