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ona point to which as many of you know, I have often drawn 
attention, I allude to what I may call Intemperance in Eating, by 
which, I believe, a greater aggregate amount of injury is done to 
life and health than by Intemperance in Drinking. We have heard 
a great deal from temperance writers (not always quite temperately) 
about the evils of drink, and no sane man, least of all a doctor, 
would deny the fearful amount of sin and suffering caused by its 
abuse; but then the thing speaks for itself, and its palpable and 
immediate ill effects are only too apparent, But with habitual 
gluttony the case is different, no immediate evil results from it, and 
an immense number of persons indulge inordinately in over feeding, 
not only without an idea of wrong-doing, but with a certain self- 
complacency which is very hard to tolerate. The working man, 
who really requires and assimilates a large quantity of food, and 
even beer, is often looked down upon as an inferior animal by those 
who are habitually consuming an amount of food out of all propor- 
~ tion to their needs. Such persons are not only shortening their 
own lives by sowing the seeds of disease of the liver, kidneys, and 
digestive organs in themselves, but bequeathing a fatal heritage of 
gout, rheumatism, and skin diseases to their unfortunate oftspring. 
I was much struck by an idea (for it is little more) which was 
lately mooted in the Nineteenth Century and the practical carrying 
out of which Mr. Balmer pleads most eloquently. . The novelty of 
the idea strikes one at first as almost fantastic, but it carries, I 
believe, the germs of a great future. I allude to the Reading or 
Whispering Machine proposed by Professor Nymanover, a Swede. 
You all know the Phonograph, which is essentially a soft metallic 
cylinder, so contrived as to record permanently, and to 
repeat when rotated, words or sounds uttered in the immediate 
neighbourhood of -its diaphragm. It is proposed that small 
machines constructed on the Phonograph principle, and rotated by 
clockwork, should be, when required, carried about on the head, 
concealed of course by the hat, and having a thin wire connected 
with each ear. -By this means men would be enabled to go about 
all sorts of out-door pursuits or exercises without waste of precious 
time or still more precious health, for they could enjoy all the - 
benefits of reading without injury to the eye-sight or confinement 
to the house. It is quite painful to see busy men in a crowded 
jolting omnibus or dimly lighted train eagerly endeavouring to 
snatch a little literary food, well knowing that once plunged into 
_ the vortex of the day’s work all idea of reading must be given up. 
By the aid of the Reading Machine all this might be altered, they 
might be stored with any kind of reading thought desireable, and a 
man might walk in to his business in the morning with words of 
deepest wisdom, of sparkling wit, or poetry, or even others more 
