The St. Johns herald., 1892-03-10
CANDY HEART.
A New Kind of Fate That BefaIls
 Modern Young Women.
The Constant Use Of SweetI1eats Disas4 trous to the HeaIth-Its TIisidious Effects Ultimately Lead to
 Death.

She swept into a fashionable candy store in the shopping district, placed her bundles on the counter, tied her pet dog to the leg of c chair, sank down before an ice-cream table and ordered a glass of hot soda. Then she sent word to the clerk for four pounds of cara n1els, assorted favors.
 When she had gone I ambled up to the proprietor and asked him a few questions about young women who buy candy. says q New York World writer.
 The kind chiefcst in demand?' l said.
 "Without doubt caramels. These are the first choice of the average American girl. I could never explain it." he went on, "but for some seasons caramels have held the call"
 How about gum-drops?"
 'Oh, that is fallacy of the funny man. Acc ording to that genius, the young women of our land feast day and night on gun-drops and bonbons; but they don't, and so that settles it. Just stand here Q moment and listen to the orders"
 went over to the big counter and watched the ebb and flow of women buying candy. Every third order was for caramels.
 All this settled it at once in my mind that the candy devotee is no longer con- tent with few modest varieties, as in the good old days when you and I used to esteem it the privilege of our lives to have a stick of barber-pole candy out of dingy glass, in the old white grocery store, down in the Twelfth ward. Time was when the generations ate molasses candy and peppermint, but that time is now swept away for good and all. Here are some of the changes:
 The young women of the hour call for such things as these: Nut bars, crys- tallized fruit, rose leaves, violet drops, buttercups, jujube paste, crushed straw berries
 Nor are these changes without their effect. It takes but a glance, as one trips through the shopping district, to notice and point out the young woman who is the pronounced candy devotee.
 What is the fate of the candy devotee? It is not long since the world was startled by the announcement of gum chewer's cramp, an afiliction that carries off American girls by the hun dreds, as the result of overtaxation of the muscles of the jaws, the result be- ing a sort of loclljaw rigidness of those muscles, fairly defying medical treat ment.
 You will hear to-day for the first time, perhaps, of another strange evil that has crcpt into American life and will soon be moving down the fairest girls in the land. 1t is no less deadly an affiiction than what physicians, un- able to find q better name, have re- solved for the present to call candy heart"
 Candy heart, what is it?
 When girl begins to feed herself day and night on all sorts of candies she is on the fair way towards becoming afflicted with this new and deadly dis ease, candy heart First, she becomes listless and languid; her complexion becomes sallow; her eyes lose their lus- ter; she yearns for the unattainable; her days arc passed in a strange atmos- phere of deep-blue haziness. In time the tissues of her heart change to the fiber of juiube paste! No longer does she find pleasure in life. Her appetite is gone. Her complexion is gone. She lives in hay dreams. As for beef steak, potatoes, ham, eggs, pickles bah! She despises them. She yearns for sweets. Day and night it is the same. She eats nothing but candy. Her fate is terrible. Then for the last scene of all. Life has become bur den. She wishes she had never seen a caramel. She wishes that she had never touched a pound of crystaliZed violets. Rose leaves she despiSes. In vain.
 Then, one bright day in the glad springtime, when all nature is smiling and glad, she dies. The old family phy- sician hesitates between duty and de- sire to save the old family Ghis last cruel blow. Shall he tell lie in filling out the death blank? Shall he say that she died of blighted love or of hyperesthe- sia? He thinks it all over carefully. He knows the truth will be terrible shock to the family, who are in socie ty and run a yellow dog cart in the park. Then duty conquerS. He closes his eyes. He draws a long breath. His pen falters, but he writes the fatal words.