Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — An Anecdote of Bret Harte. [ARTICLE]

An Anecdote of Bret Harte.

Bret Harte was lecturing in Pennsylvania a short time ago. At one of his appointments he felt very much depressed. It is a peculiarity of humorists, we are told, to be unaccountably melancholy and gloomy at times* Harte was in this mood now. One of the committee went in back of the scenes to see him, and the depressed humorist welcomed him as a gleam of unugual good sunshine. They shook hands—Harte earnestly, and the committeeman decorously. “ Mr. Harte,” he said gravely, “you will find this an unusually healthy city." “ Ah!’’ said the pleased humorist. “ Yes. The death-rate is only one a day.” At .this juncture Harte took the committeeman by the arm, and hurriedly asked: “Is he dead?” “ Dead!” ejaculated the committeeman. “ Who dead?” “Why, the man for to day,” was the grave reply*. The committeeman stared with all his might into the immovable face of the lecturer. “ Isn’t there a clerk here, or register or coroner or something like that, of whom you could find out whether a man for this day has died?” “Why, yes, I suppose so,” slowly replied the committeeman. “ Would you be so good tllen as,to find out, and before I commence the lecture if possible,whether that man is dead? If he is dead, then I am all right, for I am to leave the city early to-morrow’ morning; butjif he isn’t dead I cannot help but feel uneasy about myself, and I am not well to night.” The kind-hearted committeeman immediately hurried away to get the information. When in his room at the hotel that night a servant told him a gentleman wished him to step down-stairs in the hall as he wanted to see him. Mr. Harte went down, and there met the committeeman.

“ I am sorry, Mr. Harte, to disturb you,” he said: “ but I could not get that information earlier. It is all right. Thatdeath rate I spoke of was merely the average.”— N. Y. Graphic. Charles Reade says that the children of England require a longer time to learn to read than the children of other countries dp. Rc&enck's Pulmonic Syrup, Sea Weed Tonic and Mandrake Pills.—These deservedly celebrated and popular medicines have effected a revolution in the healing art, and proved the fallacy of several maxims which have for many years obstructed the progress of medical science. The Wise supposition that ” Consumption is incurable” deterred physicians from attempting to find remedies for that disease, and patients afflicted with it reconciled themselves to death without making an effort to escape from a doom which they supposed to lie unavoidable. It is now proved, however, that Consumption can be ctfrea. and that it has been cured in a very great number (,-f cases (some of them apparently desperate ones) by Schenck’s Pulmonic Syrup alone; Aad in other cases by the same medicine in connection with Schenck’s Sea Weed Tonic and'Mandrake Pills, one or both, according to the requirements of the case. Hr. ScKenck himself, who enjoyed uninterrupted rood health for more than forty years, was supposed. at one time, to be at the verv gate of death, his physicians having pronounced his case hopeless. and abandoned him to his fate. He was cured by the aforesaid medicines, and, since his recovery, many thousands similarly affected have used Dr. Schenck's preparations with the same remarkable success. Full directions accompany each, making it not absolutely necessary to personally see Dr. Schenck unless patients wish their Inngs examined- and for tliis purpose he is professionally at bis principal office, corner Sixth and Arch streets. Philadelphia, every Monday, where all letters for advics mu>t be addressed. Schenck's medicines are sold by all druggists. Burnett’s Cocoaine. Secadvertisement. Gentian was our grandmothers’ hobby for a tonic, and no bitter would be considered complete wi'hout it; hence i| enters into nearl'y all. But experience has proved that it is injurious to the stomach if frequently used. A far better tonic is found in Guarana Bitters Dr. J. W. Jfason.—“ From actual experience in the use of this medicine in my practice I have been and am satisfied to use and prescribe it as a purgative MON’S’ LIVEK REGULATOR.” Burnett’s Cocoaine. Set advertisement.