At St. Gervais is one celebrated bathing establishment conducted by an Englishman and patronized almost entirely by English and Americans, the principal treatment being for rheumatism and kindred diseases, and especially for the alcoholic habit. It is claimed that the most inveterate drunkard can be cured by the use of these waters, and therefore it is continually full of men who have burned life’s candle at both ends, and who need rest from their vices, and moral, as well as physical recuperation.
MR. TIBBITTS’ LETTER.
Tibbitts determined to stay a week and test the efficacy of the waters.
“I shouldn’t need it if I could have the regular Oshkosh sod-corn, but a foundation of vile English brandy, and the edifice built up and topped off with French cognac is too much for me. I will test the waters.”
The fact that a half-dozen very wild Americans of his own age and tastes were at the establishment was really what induced him to stay, but he repeated over and again, that what he wanted was to stay a while in a place where rum was impossible. He wanted to get away from it.
We left him, and the next week I received a letter, the following being an extract therefrom:—
“I did not go over to the Cure at once, for the day you left I met a young American, troubled as I was, who decided to go with me. Slosson (he is from St. Louis) and I, having met the proprietor of the Cure and taken a fancy to him, determined to do him a good turn, and to that end we would not go to his establishment till we had got ourselves into a condition that would make a cure creditable. I am always ready to make sacrifices for those I love.
“We then went over to the establishment to get out of the way of rum.
“We had been in the house perhaps five minutes, when the proprietor took us one side and remarked, casually, that while he would not advise any one in the establishment to drink, if one must, he could furnish much better liquor than could be had in the village. And it was injurious to those taking the baths to walk much either before or after.
“It is a good thing to get out of the way of rum.