REMEDIES AND RESULTS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 37.

REMEDIES AND RESULTS.

THERE are thousands of proposed remedies for the ills which afflict the State and Church, most of which are but revamped and rehashed ideas of the centuries past, which have been tried over and over again, and have deplorably failed. Among these is the strike and boycott for the betterment of the condition of the laboring man. A good illustration of the practical value of the strike, as well as of many other proposed remedies which will suggest themselves to the minds of our readers, is found in the following from an article on "A Ward of the Government," in Home and Country for July, by Captain Lawrence Fish. In speaking of one Indian character, he says:—

"Indian Jim was sitting in my shack, one day, and, while regaling himself with coffee and biscuit, told me the latest news of the reservation. Smallpox had broken out among them, he said. I asked what treatment they employed in cases of this kind, and he gave me a graphic description of it.

"A tepee is erected close to the bank of some stream, and made as snug as possible. Then a hot stone is rolled into the center of the tent, and water poured over it. The patient is shut up in the tepee, and subjected to this primitive steambath. When he is almost suffocated, the tepee is thrown open, and the patient makes a dash for the stream, and plunges in. I asked Jim if the same heroic treatment was resorted to in winter; he said it was.

"Don't many of them die? I inquired.

" 'Mos' die,' was the laconic reply."