San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-05-04


81 had not been a week in the county 1
settled ;pon,' said the doctor, before |
heard accounts of clever vender of pat
ent medicine who was going through the
state selling his Wanted remedy at an as
tonishiug rate, and making money hand
Cve- list Everybody he got hold of he
-lrsuaded to buy. He seemed TO meet with
hardly any rebuffs, and. moreover, he sue
ceeceG IN thoroughly frightening his vic
tins a3ou. che state of their health. There
was good deal of Sever and ague in the
state then. and there is some yet, as you
may have heard.
Il had often tried to see the quack, but
had never succeeded, till one day at the
coanty .a:r came across crowd of gap
ing farmers surrounding glib fakir whom
recognized oy che first few sentences to
De tie agent Cor the famous ague remedy
that had been so long looking for. This
was about the way in which he harangued
the crowd:
Now, ladies and gentlemen, attend to
me. / am going 20 demonstrate to you b.
yond the shadow of doubt that my won
derful ague cure can do all claim for it;
that it, and it alone, can save you from
systems, as it has saved thousands of
others. In order to prove this to you
will make perfectly painless, but never
theless startling experiment upon any ague
strickea man, woman or child whom l
now have the honor to address. Step up,
ladies and gentlemen, each and every one
of you, who wishes to be cured of this ter
r;ble disorder. Now, whoever has the
worst case of shakes in the crowd let him
be the first to stand upon this platform be-
side me-
NO one stepped forward, but all hung
back, the men looking sheepish and the
women beginning to giggle. Now don't
he backward in coming forward continued
TIE fakir. Remember this experiment is
perfectly painless and l will give the man
VINO first comes forward box of my ague
care free gratis for nothing
SELLING THE NOSTRUM.
"At length a tottering old fellow was
helped up on the platform by his sons, and
the fakir set him down on a chair, felt his
pulse, looked at his tongue, tapped his
chest, listened to his heart beats and then
said solemnly, turning to the crowd: This
unhappy man, my friends, if he had not
lad the good fortune to be present today
and hear my invitation would soon have
been beneath the sod. His case is indeed
an advanced one, and his days are almost
numbered. His only hope, but l am happy
TO be able to say that he will not be disap-
pointed, lies in a close attention to the d.
rections put on each box of my sure ague
cure, of which shall give him one.
my friend he cried to the agitated
victim, your disease has reached such
stage that you can actually see it. Now,
watch and obey me and will show it to
you and to all the good company here aB-
mbied.' Then he handed an empty glass
10 the patient, who feebiy passed it in his
shaking hand. The fa&ir then poured out
some clear and colorless liquid, which he
loudly proclaimed was water, from a bot
tie he carried with him, into the glass.
Next he took glass tube, and putting
one end of it into the liquid in the glass,
told the old man to put the other end he
tween his teeth and breathe repeatedly into
the water. The old man obeyed orders,
and as ne breathed the water grew cloudy,
turbid, pale and at last as white as milk.
"Oh's and abs of wonder came from the
crowd, and the old man himself grew as
white as it was possible for his yellow skin
to do, while the fakir looked on with a
grave and oracular air. Taking the glass
in his own hands, he held it up between
his eye and the sun and exclaimed:
THE TRICK EXPOSED.
81 repeat, my friends, that the unhappy
man would not have lived many days long
er if he had not met me here today. The
discolorations which you see in the water
in the glass are the miasmatic exhalations
10, nj -
The water you see is full of these humors,
though you see he has breathed in it for
only moment. l have had him do this
to show you that my ague cure kills these
poisonous humors in the system the mo-
ulent it comes in contact with them. Watch
me closely-there is no deception here
''Then he dropped a little powder taken
from one of the boxes in which his ague
cure was put up into the glass of whitened
water, and told the man on whom he was
experimenting to stir the mixture and see
how quickly the cure would kill his MAS
matte humors. The old man stirred, the
water became clear again, and for the next
quarter of an hour the fakir had both
hands busy taking in the money of the
simple pumpkins and shoveling out his
worthless cure.
L tuinDIeu TO Une Urlck at once, OuC au-
mired the scamp's consummate gall so
much that had not the heart to expose
him. Waiting until the crowd had dis
persed, tapped him on the shoulder and
said: Look here, my good fellow. 1 I'M
derstand your little game perfectly. Your
colorless liquid is lime water. and the
mans breath, containing carbonic acid,
naturally made the water milky. The
ague healer you put in it was citrie acid
and sugar, and this instantly redissolved
the carbonate of lime and made the water
clear again.
Now, don't argue with me or interrupt
me, continued, as he was about to pro-