The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1877-03-10
The WhOopi ing Cough,

once III tnlS SUMMARY world. An
obtained through all
the various stages of that pecu-
liar disease has convinced me
that good men can and do have it
twice. All the theory of all the
kind old ladies' aud wise heads,
who assert the contrary, might be
hurled at my poor Uranium for
six years and produce no more
than a sermon on honesty
would have Oh the skulls of Mat.
Wells aud Tom. Anderson.
| have been a victim of that
theory for one halt a century, but
the wisdom acquired during the
last six weeks, have knocked that
foolishness plum out OF my
sight. At first, my friends said |
had a bad cold, and l was inclin
ed to believe them, but when I
awoke, one night, out of a pleas
ant dream, and found myself
whooping in a manner that would
have rejoiced, beyond measure, a
Sioux brave in the, act of lifting a
scalp from a pious Quaker who
had gone West to clvilize him the
conclusion was forced into my
soul that there was no chad cold"
in that whoop. Oh, no, it echoed
around and around my room and
over the neighboring houses SO
grandly, that there has not even
a solitary owl dared since to
chant bis to wnoo, to WHO'D, with.
in IA mile Of the corporation limits,
aud from that period, about the
first of February until after the
inauguration of his Fraudelency,
r.. B. Hayes, as President, has
that whoop made itself hear
night after night. In considered
ton of the extreme tenderness Of
the nerves of my nearest neigh
bors the whooping has been rather
mild during the day time.
But that blessed cough /! it
sticks closer to a fellow than a
creditor who holds ones note,
that is overdue.
Now there are many useful
things that a man learns when he
has the whooping cough of which
he would have died profoundly ig
norant otherwise.
Now. | have been living here
in Thibodaux for 20 years and
practically knew nothing of the
stability of the buildings, fences,
gallery posts, horse racks, lamp
posts, &c But since that whoop>
ing cough got hold of me | have
leaned up against the side of ev>
cry house and fence, and hung on
to every gallery and lamp post in
one half OF the town, in a spasmo
die fit Of coughing, and nearly
raised myself clean out of my
boots in "a futile effort to turn my
throat inside outwards.
And it Is a source of gratitica-
ton to notify my country friends
that occasionally come into town,
whom walking on the hard bau-
quotes is apt to make very tired,
that they a lean up against
any house or hang on to any post
long enough to rest themselves.
without occurring any danger, by
their giving way. l speak OF
thugs that | do know, l have
been there myself and tried them.
If man thinks the fountain
FROM which his tears used to flow
has dried up let him get the
whooping cough and be will find
out his error very promptly.
l have shed more tears, every
day, in the month of February,
than any man in this parish ever
shed. in all his lifetime, over all
the graves of his wife's relatives.
There is also another adage
very glibly used, that every child
ought to have the whooping
cough because it does not 20 so
hard with them as it does with
grown folks.
Now no child can appreciate the
benefits of a genuine case of that
disease.
The other day I saw a little
girl fall into a fit of coughing and
instead of hugging a bedpost. she
threw herself face foremost on the
floor aud about the time she was
through her pet cat Came along,
rubbing its soft body against the
head OF It's mistress, when the lit
tie girl jumped up, and threw her
doll at the cat. She missed the
cat and hit her sister, and then
had to run under the bed until
her sisters beau came in the eve
ming which cooled her anger, or
at least. made her "let on So"
Now that little girl could not
appreciate a case of whooping
cough, and l am bold to say that