Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-11-08
THE FUNNY PATE OF A SPRING

10 the stranger there is hardly man
passing along the boulevard with multi
colored rosette in the button. hole, receiv-
ing the salutation of those who gather
oiurnally in the cafes, who has not some
story or legend attached to his name.
Ihere Is D, aquondam friend and COM
psnion OF M. de Villemessant, who welded
ene pen OF Barnum with the grace and dex-
terlty OF the hero of Beaumarchais. He
could tell how he made fortune some
years ago by discovering one of those fer
ruginous and chaiybeate springs whose
water is recommended by the faculty in
proportion to the difficulty experienced by
the patient IN swallowing the draught. The
spring was well pulled in the daily press.
IL formed She subject of papers read before
tee FACULTY of Medicine and the Academy
OF Sciences, and periodical notes were sent
from the wooden shanty, which had been
dign!hed by the name of Casino. D
had great success he sold his land to
speculative builders, hotels were run up,
and proper Casino was built. A
local paper, called La Saison, was started
to enliven the stay of visitors, and the
place appeared likely to become quite as
fashionable as Bath in the days OF the
Prince Regent. D. lived in hope that
the Emperor might be persuaded to Wait
his miraculous spring, and his crony, De
Vlllemessant promised to do his best to
make the new wells take. Unfortunately,
D was economically disposed. He was
IN want OF resident physician and OF an
editor OF La SaiSon. He thought there
could be no harm in fixing his choice on a
man who could fill both functions, and
among the applicants who answered his adj
vertisement he picked ont gentleman
whose natural gifts eminently fitted him
for the position. DIR. Y transformed
the local journal into scientific and lit
erary review. His clippings from different
Journals were greatly appreciated, and lie
was looked up to by all the visitors. Un-
fortunately tbs. two qua relied, and parted
the most hEt.er OF enemies. The
doctor vowed he would be revenged,
while his patron declared he would ruin
him. The paper could not be left, and
the doctor had to remain two days in his
editorial chair, pending the arrival of his
successor from Paris. The morning of the
departure of the doctor the subscribers to
La SaiSOn were thunderstruck at the an
nouncement in the leading column of the
paper that celebrated savant and archas-
ologist had been staying for month at the
wells, and had made some very interesting
discoveries. Among them was that of an
ancient place Of burial of the early Gauls,
which he maintained, with a mass of argu-
ments in support of his statements, to have
been exclusively reserved for the Druids.
1t was said that the sayant in question was
drawing up memoir for the Academy, de-
failing the discoveries which mad rewarded
his researches. He asserted that the ceme-
terry, which had disappeared in course of
time, had been watered for some centuries
past by the tiny trickling stream
which was drunk with such gusto
by certain people, hypochordriacs
for the most part, who imagined that
they had liver complaint, and, further,
that the peculiar chaly beate properties of
the well were to be attributed to the water
having filtered through the bones of those
who had been buried in the cemetery.
The doctor, who had made many friends
during his literary career, was able to OBJ
tain the insertion Of similar paragraph IN
different other papers, and the fate of the
new spring was sealed. Patients, hypo-
chondriac or not, could not bear the idea
through the Druids of centuries ago, and,
notwithstanding the contradictions given,
the place M. D. had invented was
gradually deserted, lapsing into a state of
bankruptcy which affected the large for.
tune of NJ. D, but still left him enough
TO live on. He has forgiven the doctor,
and tells the story of the collapse of his
spring on the slightest persuasion of those
2ho find him at the cafe when the hour of
the Dsho drinker has sounded. / Lon.