Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1852-07-16
Cores spondenoe Of the Lewishurs Chronicle.

orrespoGdence of the Lewishurs Chrcncis.
HARRISBURG, July, 1852.
Patent Medicines, Almanacs, and Signs.
On leaving home, your last if not most
solemn injunction to me was, "Write ..
write. often" Well, | have just COM
menced my journey, and with it must CON-
mencc my epistle. l have reached the
Canal, and am now bearing under a July
sun as a philosopher only could. Three
hours too early for the packet, and not a
single newspaper in my pocket, only think
of that. Fortunately, gentleman came
that way his kind eye rested upon me for
4 moment. / could see the milk of hui
man kindness yelling up into his counte-
nance. Either plying my loneliness, Or
from my thin, bony appearance, supposing
me out in quest of health, he handed me
book. l graspcd it eagerly, and as eager
ly opened it, but, 10! niHe-tenths of its
pages were puffs of patent medicines the
pdIalCc Nds al diiududC. iedu IL IIUu
A to z, and though l do not as yet fully
understand the whole science of medicine,
| think one more reading would put me
through. AS to Almanacs, l shall no.
need to look into another for a year to
come, unless it be for the proper sign to
trim my corns or to cut my toe nails. I'm.
fortunately that book had no picture indi-
eating the signs, and l believe it to have
been most basely designed omission-
Give the people light ON the subject of
signs, and they will plant their potatoes,
cabbage, beets, onions, squashes, and
beans, in such sign as will make them grow
up SO tender as to destroy the demand for
Pcpsin. In the good old days when we
bought say bomght-almanacs as were
almanacs, We could tell what the weather
would be each day for twelve months to
come, and have our time 50 allotted az not
to go out when it was too cold or too damp,
and of course needed no sugar-coated Pills,
nor Jayne's Expectorant, or other such
stuff, to drive away colds and coughs
Had that golden age continued little
longer, We should not have needed Maine
Liquor Law, for it was even then known
to few that only the children born in the
sign of the Fish would be afflicted with
dryness, and we could either have dispen-
sed with that sign, or had no children born
in it, and drunkenness would have been
extinct. Don't you see that sticking out, I
clear as mud
We have fallen upon evil times. A great
man once said, "let me make the songs
for people, and | will mould and fashion
public sentiment TO my own liking -
Some master of roots and herbs has caught
up more sublime idea--he wields pow
er more potent, by furnishing the people
with almanacs, minus the signs. You see
Ignorance, gross and dark, is already pre-
vailing on that important science we SOW
and reap, We plant and gather, we eat and
drink, we marry and are given in marriage,
all at random. Ills come thick and fast
upon us, and though we get our almanacs
for nothing. the pills they recommend are
not SO cheap. If the people would Danish
patent medicine almanacs from their fam
lies, and pay sixpcnce for tho old fash.
oned kind, the abatemeht of human suf.
erings would be greater than we may at
irst sight imagine; such men as Bran
lreth, Jayne, Townsend, and thousand
'thers, would cease fattening on the Gre
'ulity and ignorance of the masses their
ioting and sumptuous living on human
70 would be ended.
But the sun has reached me, and must !
hift my position, and with it my subject q
What delightful view presents itself from a
his point, and as look out upon the i'm
'ense valley before me, upon its thousand ?
elds Of waving grain whitening for the
arvest, its priucely mansions, its thriving c
hinges, its fourishing boroughs, Just = +,
merging frcm the town into the city, and O