Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1885 — Corns. [ARTICLE]

Corns.

Much has been saidTand written concerning corns by eminent scientists and theologians, who have given the subject earnest and prayerful attention, but there is still left a broad field for thoughtful investigation. The writer of this paper has an unrivaled collection of these exotics, and has devoted much careful study to their growth and habits, watched them in repose, and felt the passionate throb of their mad pulses when the gentle, but firm, pressure of a too contiguous boot stirred all their dormant energies to action; cooled their fevered brows with lemon juice and cold cream, and with a fond and doting parentfs tender care have nightly wrapped their parched and pain-racked frames in the soothing folds of an oleaginous rag; bound eelskin and tobacco on the soft variety, and have rasped down those of the hard-shelled persuasion with a rat-tail file; have patiently watched the microscopic germ in the cuticle, that to the inexperienced eye gave no promise of its future greatness, until it blossomed into a mighty bunion, capable of exciting more remorse and Scriptural language than an out-door revival meeting. In short, there is nb phase of corn lite with which I am not as familiar as with the tenets of the Emersonian school of philosophy. It is not, however, the purpose of this brief article to enter into a lengthy disquisition upon the birth or origin of the corn, or the relation it bears to modern civilization. In our forthcoming work entitled, “The Bunion as a Means of Grace,” these questions are fully and fearlessly discussed. The present purpose is merely to imparta few words of wisdom that will awaken interest and curiosity, and create a desire to become better acquainted with the subject in hand, or, more properly speaking, on foot Dtd you ever reflect that the corn is an index of refinement and enlightenment? You may seek for it in vain in the miserable habitations of the native, of Terra del Fuego, or the bushmen of Australia, but in the gilded homes of statesmen and men of letters you will find them by the score. Gaze upon the generous feet of the King of the Cannibal Islands, who never had acorn in his life—unless it was appended to a roasted missionary—and then search the embossed bedal extremities of Mr. Gladstone; or Lord Tennyson, or Lily Langtry, or the writer of this article, and you will realize that it is not the shriek of the locomotive, or the gaudy uniform of the somnolent telegraph messenger, but the humble and unassuming corn that speaks loudest of the onward-strides of civilization. If you are not convinced look backward into the ' dim past—into the ages when had even the tongue of prophesy lisped of the printing press, the steam engine, or the dude, its words would have been scouted as the ravings of a disordered brain. History records that Cleopatra had freckles, but where upon its pages will you find a syllable to indicate that any of the ancients had corns? Can it be supposed for a moment that a writer who wouid take pains to describe a paltry assortment of polka dots, would, had they then existed, have omitted to mention those anatomic oricles that now fill the gaiters of the human race so full of vain regrets? Certainly not It ■is clear that only for a few centuries have even the civilized nations of the globe known the chastening influences of the contumacious corn.— Detroit Free Press.