536 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



There is now pending before the United States legislature a bill 

 which the nostrum dealers cry out is a terrible crime against personal 

 liberty and a ruination of a great business. And what is the terrible 

 proviso which so frightens those engaged in patent medicine business? 

 Simply that all proprietary remedies containing opium, cocaine or 

 other poisonous ingredient shall state upon the label the exact amour t 

 of the poisonous ingredient present; as feeble and conservative a 

 measure for this great evil as one could well imagine. 



With any other measure of similar importance before congress the 

 newspapers, which are the great voice of the people, would cry in such 

 a tremendous chorus for relief that no legislator would dare to hesitate 

 to pass the bill. But the silence of the newspapers and magazines, 

 with a few notable exceptions, has been bought through the advertising 

 columns. In this morning's paper I find an advertisement for Hood's 

 Sarsaparilla which occupies space value, according to the published 

 rates of the paper, of seventy-five dollars ; Doctor Pierce occupies sixty- 

 five dollars' worth; Cuticura is satisfied with thirty dollars' worth, and 

 other advertisements in similar quantities bring up the day's total to 

 $240. This does not include the smaller notices of drugs among the 

 personal columns and small classifications. In the evening paper 

 Duffy's Malt Whiskey has a prominent place with the picture of a 

 ' grand old patriarch ' who was enabled to reach the age of one hundred 

 and four years through the constant use of this liquor, while one tenth 

 of the entire issue is advertisements of secret remedies. Eeceiving as 

 they do $900,000 a year apiece from this business, is it any wonder that 

 the newspapers are disposed to keep silent concerning the evil of it? 

 The mouthpiece of the nation is stopped with gold; let the people, 

 therefore, speak directly and bid their legislators save the ignorant and 

 the innocent from the voracity of the conscienceless degenerates who 

 are robbing them of health and money at the same time. 



