Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1878-06-11

long arms and his long legs. but every
time that he got himself tree from the
tree, the tree, as if it were living crea-
ture, took hold of him again and folded
him in its long branches.
my soul - said she. II am not all in
a hurry to 90 to paradise. Thou art very
well off. Stay where thou art, my good
fellow. The human race will owe me u
debt of gratitude"
And Misery shut her door aud left
Death perched up in her pear-tree.
At the end OF a month. as Death no
longer did his work. everybody was as
tonished to find that there had not been
single loss of lie at Vicq, at Fresnes.
and at Conde. The astonishment was
redoubled at the end of the next month,
when il was learned that
it was the same at Yalenciennes. al
Douai. at Lille and throughout all
Flanders.
A Ike thing bad never been heard OF,
and when the new year came in, it was
known by the almanac that the same
thing had happened 10 France, in Bel
GUM, in Holland, as we'll as with the
Austrians, the Sgedes and the Russians.
The year wer. by, and it was settled
fact that Tor fifteen months there had not
been throughout the entire world single
case Of death. All the sick had got well
without The doctors knowing how nor
why. which had not at all prevented
them from taking 20 themselves slI tho
credit OF the cures.
This year rolled round ike Inc previ-
Gus one, without any doaths, snd when
It came to 81. Sylvester, day, from one
end OF the land 10 the Other men om-
braced one another. auI croyralulated
on having become immortal.
There were puDdc reioiciags, snd they
had fcte in Flanders. such as had not
been seen since the world was.
The good F.cmings 10 longer having
any fear OF dying of Indigestion, or from
gou, or apop'eXy, ate and drank their
oil. It was calculated that in three days
each person ate bushel OF grain without
counting mosi and vegetables. and drank
a barrel OF beer. to say nothing OF Gen
eva aUd braudy.
confess for my part that find i, hard
10 believe this. but all tho same the world
was never 50 happy aud nobody suspected
Misery oil being the cause of this un'ver-
sal felicity; Misery did not boast OF it,
from modeSiy.
All went well for ten. twenty, thirty
years; but, at the end of thirty years, II
WAS no. q rare thing to see old men si
one hundred and ten and QUO hundred
aud twenty years, which ordinarily Is The
age Of the most extreme decreptudo.-
Now, these last, loaded down with IN
with memory gone. blind aud
deaf. deprived oi taste, feeling and smell.
iasensible OF the slightest enjoyment,
began 10 ind that immortality is not at
all the great blessing which it had been
at first thought TO be. They were seen
dragging themselves along in the sun,
bent double over lhoir stats. with hoary
locks, shaking hesds, sighIess eyes,
totiering, their flesh gone, out
Of shape, withered up, like 50 many
enormous snails. TIE women were even
more horrible than the men.
The ieeblest of the old men kept their
beds, and there was not house where
you did not find five or six beds where
the ancestors bsbbled TO the great weari-
ness Of their great grandsons and the
sons of their gres'-grsudsons.
They were even obliged TO get them
together IN immense hospitals, where
each new generation was occupied IN
taking care of the preceding once who
could not be cured Of lie. More than
this, as there were no longer any wills
made, nobody inherited,suJ thing and the
new generations pnss ssed nothing Of
their own, all the property belonging by
aw TO the great-grandiathers and great
great-grandfa,hers, who could not enjoy
il.
Under invalid kings. govcrnments
grew weak. laws relaxed. aud soon the
immortals, sure OF not being punished
after death, gave themselves up 10 every
crime; they pillaged, robbed. burned, but
alas. they could not kill
10 every kingdom the cry Long live
tho king" became seditious cry, and
was forbidden under the severest penal
ties, with the exception OF the penalty OF
death. This was not all. As the ami
mails did not die any more than the men.
soon the world was so overrun with in
habitants that il could not nourish them
then came a terrible famine. and men
wandered half naked through the fields
Tor want OF roof to cover their heads,
suffered cruelty from hunger, without
being able to die Of it.
If Misery had only known of this
frightful state OF things she would not
have been willing to prolong it, even at
the price of life, but. accustomed of Old
to privations and infrmities. she aud Fa-
70 suffered less from them than others;
aud then they had become, as it were.