The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1896-03-29

The patent medicine fakirs are on
hand all over the country. They've
got 'em here in STRONG contingent.
What the connection is between the
Apache Indian hair restorer and q
woman standing in show window put
ting the finishing touches on her toilet
Is something l cannot comprehend,
but the managers of the enterprise
seem to find an affinity, and the public
seems to entertain a similar concep-
ton, good deal like the situation
when rather vague and far drawn
joke is sprung, and the joker, who
really does know what he is talking
about, let's himself out but forgets to
include some essential facts in his
hsrangue, and then looks majestically
around and laughs very lond. The
rest look at one another, take on
slightly darker hue and then join in in
a sort Of frightened manner, but still
laugh. And not one has the moral
courage to say, "What is it, anyway;
where's the laugh?" So it is with the
advertising fakir of medicines. saw
one once trying to sell a
preparation that was guaran-
teed to cure anything from iu-
growing nails to tuberculosis of the
lungs. Deafness, blindness, paralysis
and apoplexy when in a not too adj
vanced stage, all were amenable to the
powerful arguments Of his nostrum,
proach. A poor fellow in the crowd,
who was suffering with deafness, or the
Inconvenience arising from it, stepped
up to be revolutionized. The fakir
took glass. of water, gave the victim
a tube of glass, and told him to
put one end in his mouth and
the other in the glass Of water
and blow upon it. The countryman
did so, and the miraculous effects were
seen at once; the water had taken on
whitish tinge, and as the ''jays" stand
ing around looked on with wide-open
eyes, the fraud assured them that even
a simple test like the one before them
was enough to prove the overpowering
virtues of his heaven-sent remedy.
And how the stuff did scatter itself
around the assemblage.
= =
The man who can establish a respect
table set of rules for observance at
dining table, relating to the choice of
subjects for verbal discussion deserves
to be canonized. Many man with an
appetite which contained the elements
that never say die, has seated himself
at table, and called for the sort of
viands which do the hearts of men
good, and when bis anticipations were
reaching the acute stage Of realization,
felt the pleasing presence suddenly
halt, tremble and fade away.
I can testify to this, I can. Listen
and see.
I sat down the other day, empty, but
still full, of that craving which only 35
cents we'll invested can appease. The
order was given. The crimson hue of
the slab OF roast beef was exactly in
the position where it's Waterloo was
inevitable, when paused-a fatal mis-
take.
Two hard-cheeked individuals across
the table from me we're converting.
"Jim," said one whose face material
could only be ascertained by a jewel
er's acid test, II gave an order for 100
dozen white shoes when down in Bung-
town last week."
"a hundred dozen of white shoes.
man. Why, you're crazy, sure thing"
said the other remnant Of q brass
foundry.
NE, you can bet your silhouette
that I'm giving 1t dead straight. The
orders gone In"
"But- man," returned his companion,