While we are on the subject of Advertisements a word must be said about the Medical branch of this fine art; and knowing the enormous fortunes which have often been made out of a casual prescription for acne or alopecia, I freely place at the disposal of any aspiring young chemist who reads this paper the following tale of enterprise and success.  A few years ago, according to the information before me, a London doctor had a lady patient who complained of an incessant neuralgia in her face and jaw.  The doctor could detect nothing amiss, but exhausted his skill, his patience, and his remedies in trying to comfort the complainant, who, however, refused to be comforted.  At length, being convinced that the case was one of pure hypochondria, he wrote to the afflicted lady, saying that he did not feel justified in any longer taking her money for a case which was evidently beyond his powers, but recommended her to try change of air, live in the country, and trust to that edax rerum which sooner or later cures all human ills.

The lady departed in sorrow, but in faith; obeyed her doctor’s instructions to the letter, and established herself not a hundred miles from the good city of Newcastle.  Once established there, her first care was to seek the local chemist and to place her doctor’s letter in his hands.  A smart young assistant was presiding at the counter; he read the doctor’s letter, and promptly made up a bottle which he labelled “Edax Rerum.  To be taken twice a day before meals,” and for which he demanded 7s. 6d.  The lady rejoicingly paid, and requested that a similar bottle might be sent to her every week till further notice.  She continued to use and to pay for this specific for a year and a half, and then, finding her neuralgia considerably abated, she came up to London for a week’s amusement.  Full of gratitude, she called on her former doctor, and said that, though she had felt a little hurt at the abrupt manner in which he had dismissed so old a patient, still she could not forbear to tell him that his last prescription had done her far more good than any of its predecessors, and that, indeed, she now regarded herself as practically cured.  Explanations followed; inquiries were set on foot; the chemist’s assistant sailed for South Africa; and “Edax Rerum” is now largely in demand among the unlettered heroes who bear the banner of the Chartered Company.

That combination of pietism with money-making, which critics of our national character tell us is so peculiarly British, was well illustrated in the Christian Million of September 22, 1898:—­

“BETHESDA, Hest Bank.  Beautiful country home, near the sea.  Christian fellowship, 3s. per day.  Sickly persons desiring to trust the Lord will be considered financially.  Apply Miss——.  Stamped Envelope.”

When poetry is forced into the service of advertisements, the result is peculiarly gratifying.  This is an appeal for funds to repair the church in which Nelson’s father officiated:—­