Daily camera., 1900-09-07

There are many cures nowadays
that do not cure," said an American
who, according to the Philadelphia
Press, returned the other day from
Europe. 'Who among us does not
know of a woman really in need Of
good hard work and bicycleriding
putting her. faith and money in rest
cures? And, in the same breath, some
overtired, overworked, overworried
creature massaging away and per
forming the most nerve-racking gym.
nastic feats to get rid of that dread,
full nervous feeling
1.-The world is full of otherwise sem
sible men and women being violently
manipulated by machinery, massaged
by knobs, expanded by wheels and
pulleys, Strengthened by revolving
pillows or pumped up ana down by
saddles that never touched a horse.
In fact, many seem to spend theiT
lives in the pursuit of fresh cures.
"Yet they still complain.
"Among all the cures of which one
hears the praises sung there has been
no mention of the toboggan cure.
have been trying it this January in
Sweden, and have learned to believe
in it more than in electricity, baths,
massage, hot water and minced raw
beet, the mechanical boat or four
weeks of undiluted feather bed. No
body in Stockholm calls it the to.
bogganing cure; thatnameisg given to 1t
by one who has realized it's benefits
and who thinks it delightful REM
edy for dyspepsia, a splendid builder
up of nerve force.
"When the snow comes and stays
in this northern latitude the world
toboggans, and as the snow comes
early and stays many weeks, the
world has plenty of time in which to
revel in this most exhilarating
sport. The innumerable infants of
Stockholm content themselves with
the diminutive slide behind the IL
brary in the humlegard. The school,
boys rush down the curving ice
slope that surrounds the skating
park The king and the royal princes
and princesses frolic at Saltsjobaden,
beyond the great hotel that is a para
disc in summer. But the romantio-
ally inclined-those who love touch
of wildness in scenery, and those,
more practically, who adore a really
splendid ice hill (steep, smooth,
straight and long)-go out into the
woods of Djursholm, village that lies
among the pine trees and the frs upon
the edge of the frozen deep. And
the Djursholm slide is the best within
reach of Stockholm. About 1000 feet
in length, it is swept daily, and is
daily visited by those who love to
undergo the cure, and they We many,
and include young men and maidens,
an occasional old man, very per-
sistent girls school, and. Of course,
any number of pink-cheeked. shrill-
voiced children.
"It is an amazing sight to behold a
solemn mite Of eight or nine launch
ing forth alone on the flying jour
ney, calmly resting sideways-like an
ancient Roman at the feast-upon a
toboggan. 1t is, per-
haps, even more wonderful to see
some boy of IL or IA lying face down.
ward. his hands grasping the run
ners of one sledge, his feet tucked
through the runners of another, pio-
neering a crowd of II companions at
breakneck speed through the keen,
frosty air, keeping G. straight course
by almost imperceptible wriggles of
his body, and shooting clear of his
burden when the level ice is reached,
There are indeed good many spills,
a good many plunges made into the
soft snow that lies heaped on each
side of the track. But nobody seems
much the worse, and as for me, I look
upon an occasional shock as part Of
the cure, like the douche that puts
the finishing touch to a Turkish bath.
seriously, the tobogganing cure,
whether undergone in Switzerland or
in Sweden, is a superb tonic, the very
best know. 1t puts gayety into the
heart, color into the cheeks. light into
the eyes, strength into the nerves. 1t
gives the patient an appetite that is
alarming, a long succession of nights
passed in dreamless sleep. It BAN
ishes pessimism and drives away dys-
pepsia. The toll up the hill, dragging
the sleigh, is lightened by the thought
of the excitement of the rush down,
the flying vision of the hurrying
trees, the leap at the little ledge Of
ice that forms a bunker the music
of the runners over the sparkling sur
face of the slide, the whirlwind OF
snow in which the patient reaches the