Modular Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - DSpace

808 MISCELLANEA [cHAP. XXIX
dismal journey home and the plunge from Arcadia intc
Cheapside.
Strange it is that in 1830 the open-air treatment for
consumption was · discovered by Boddington, but the
published fact brought scom and derision upon him,
though his mockers-medical men-could only point to
one fatal ca&e, after another among their patients against
his unquestionable CUl'es. Till the human mind is ready
for a new idea, no amount of evidence has any chance
whatever against mental inertia and vested interests.
Again, nobody pays attention to the striking news of the
Arctic and Antarctic explorers, showing that cold wind
kills the microbe of catarrh. Therefore the undeniable
cure for a cold in the head-when there is no temperature
indicating fever-is to scramble on the top of a bus and
drive about in an east wind till the " tyranny is overpast."
People may say that they have no time to spare; but
they have not got so far as to discuss it at all. The notion
seems lunatic; an insult to the understanding. Later
on it will be cursed as a lie ; then derioed as a harmless
joke ; then considered ; then adopted; and by that time
we, the older generation, will be called fools : and the
verdict will not be easy to gainsay; In truth sunlight is
more precious than fresh air; and our ruining of it when we
know that it prevents and cures disease, at a time when
we all are crazy about health, is a truly unaccountable
form of criminality for wp.ich all classes of society are
responsible.
PICKPOCKETS
...
Several years ago I had. my watch stolen in an under•
ground station, and have !!Joked into the matter of pickpocketing
and the ways of that most deft fellowship of
rascals. Portly men--protuberants, as they are sometimes
called-should be on their guard, as they, so to
speak, go out of their way to offer temptation ; or, as a
friend of mine puts it : " X conveys his watch into the
next room before he gets there himself." Lately I spotted