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730 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
hours, it is said, will effect a radical cure, even in most severe 
cases, provided that there is no malformation, or distortion of 
the joints ; and even in such instances the treatment gives great 
relief. One man, who was put up to his neck into the carcase | 
of a small humpback, stood it for sixteen hours, being taken out 
at intervals of two hours; he went off declaring himself to be 
cured ; a year later he had a return of the complaint, and under- 
went the treatment a second time. All the shore men thoroughly 
believe in the efficacy of this remedial. practice, and by way of 
proof positive, assert that no men who work at “ cutting in,” or 
“trying out” a whale, ever suffer from rheumatism. And 
furthermore, some of them maintain that the “ deader” the 
whale is, the better the remedy, “‘ more gas in him,” they say; 
and everyone who has been within a mile of a week-dead whale 
will believe the remark. Anyway, if there bea person, rheumatic 
or otherwise, who wants to emulate Jonah’s adventure in a safe 
way, with a dead whale, let him write to the Davidson Brothers, 
Ben Boyd Point, Twofold Bay, N.S.W., or to the Messrs. Christian, 
Norfolk Island, and these valorous whalesmen will help him to 
achieve his desire. Sir George Grey (Travels in Australia) has 
written, “It was a sorry sight to see a pretty young woman 
enter the belly of the whale, then gorge herself therein with 
blubber, and issue forth anointed from head to foot, whilst 
bearing in each hand a trophy of the same delicacy.” 
When Oliver Goldsmith was relating to Dr. Johnson the fable 
of the small fishes who petitioned Jupiter for a King,—on seeing 
that the supercilious doctor was laughing at him, he turned 
smartly round, and said promptly, “ Why, Dr. Johnson! this 
is not such an easy matter as you seem to think, for, if you were 
to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.” In Martin 
Chuzclewit, says Sairey Gamp, when at the London docks, to 
Tom Pinch. . . . “ And which of all them smoking monsters 
is the Ankworks package, I wonder.” ‘‘ Goodness me! that is 
the Antwerp boat in the middle,” said Ruth. “ And I wish it 
were in Jonadge’s belly, I do,” cried Mrs. Gamp, appearing to con- 
found the prophet with the whale in this miraculous aspiration. 
From one kind of whale spermaceti is obtained, this being 
lodged as an oily liquid in a cavity within the upper jaw; it 
congeals after removal from the slaughtered animal into a yellow 
_mass, then the oil is expressed out, and the residual cake of 
Spermaceti is purified in water. When mixed with white wax, 
