their favrite remedies. Wanst people were cured iv fatal maladies be
applications iv blind puppies, hair fr'm the skulls iv dead men an'
solutions iv bat's wings, just as now they're cured be dhrinkin' a
tayspoonful iv a very ordhinary article iv booze that's had some kind iv
a pizenous weed dissolved in it.

"Dhrugs, says Dock O'Leary, are a little iv a pizen that a little more
iv wud kill ye. He says that if ye look up anny poplar dhrug in th'
ditchnry ye'll see that it is 'A very powerful pizen of great use in
medicine.' I took calomel at his hands f'r manny years till he told me
that it was about the same thing they put into Rough on Rats. Thin I
stopped. If I've got to die, I want to die on th' premises.

"But, as he tells me, ye can't stop people from takin' dhrugs an' ye
might as well give thim something that will look important enough to be
inthrojuced to their important an' fatal cold in th' head. If ye don't,
they'll leap f'r the patent medicines. Mind ye, I haven't got annything
to say again patent medicines. If a man wud rather take thim thin dhrink
at a bar or go down to Hop Lung's f'r a long dhraw, he's within his
rights. Manny a man have I known who was a victim iv th' tortures iv a
cigareet cough who is now livin' comfortable an' happy as an opeem fiend
be takin' Doctor Wheezo's Consumption Cure. I knew a fellow wanst who
suffered fr'm spring fever to that extent that he niver did a day's
wurruk. To-day, afther dhrinkin' a bottle of Gazooma, he will go home
not on'y with th' strenth but th' desire to beat his wife. There is a
dhrug store on ivry corner an' they're goin' to dhrive out th' saloons
onless th' govermint will let us honest merchants put a little cocaine
or chloral in our cough-drops an' advertise that it will cure spinal
minigitis. An' it will, too, f'r awhile."