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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 15. 



Now, is it the rich people who are making 

 these doctors so wealthy? Is it the million- 

 aires who contribute to help pay for advertise- 

 ments costing hundreds of dollars that read, 

 " Let us send you three large-sized bottles of 

 our medicine absolutely free of charge ? ' ' No, 

 it is not the rich people. It is the poor hard- 

 working people of our land — men who toil 

 day by day out on farms, and whose families 

 are often in want — women who spend their 

 lives, or a great part of them, over the wash- 

 tub. 



The mania for medicines to make people 

 feel better is positively alarming. Not a wetk 

 ago one of our customers, in a confidential 

 letter, said his wife was employing_/o«r differ- 

 ent doctors, and taking medicines nine times 

 a day ; and the consequence was, it took about 

 all the money he could rake and scrape to pay 

 the bills. Now, this is not an isolated case. 

 Our periodicals — agricultural, scientific, and 

 religious — would not be filled with glaring 

 and preposterous advertisements unless there 

 were money in it. One of the best periodicals 

 that comes into my home, and a paper well 

 up with the times, keeps an advertisement 

 running, of glass casters to put under the legs 

 of your bedstead, to prevent the electricity 

 from running away while you are asleep. 

 These glass casters are, of course, sent free of 

 charge, on thirty days' trial. If you do not 

 " feel better " after using them you may send 

 them back, paying postage both ways. If 

 you do feel better, the price is $2.00. Very 

 likely so mebody will put in right here, "Mr. 

 Root, we have been using those glass casters 

 several months, and we would sooner part 

 with the clock or the cook- stove than with 

 them." Then somebody will say, "Why, 

 Bro. Root, how do you knoiv that they do not 

 do good ? How does it come that you arc so 

 much wiser than the rest of us?" My dear 

 friend, I do not claim to be wiser in all mat- 

 ters ; but I have kept up with the inventions 

 and improvements in electricity for about 

 fifty years. Glass casters would not keep the 

 electricity in the human body any more than 

 they would keep the rain from falling on the 

 roof of your house. Of course, it might be 

 managed by an electrician so as to insulate 

 your bed, and then the bed might be charged 

 with electricity. But even if you went to all 

 that trouble and expense it would do no more 

 good than it would to keep the water from 

 falling on your roof. Any student of natural 

 philosophy, even if he is not more than ten 

 years old, should be able to tell you this 



Years ago a man came to me and commenc- 

 ed something in this way: "Mr. Root, you 

 claim that there is a queen bee in every hive " 

 I told him 1 did not claim it, but that I knew 

 it just as well as I knew my own horse was in 

 my own barn. But he went on : " But if you 

 will just listen to me a minute I think I can 

 show you the thing is impossible." 



I did not listen at all. I simply went to a 

 hive and showed him the queen ; and then he 

 went away thinking, p°rhaps, I knew what I 

 was talking about, after all. 



The greater part of my readers, I am sure, 

 are satisfied the pieces of tissue paper the doc- 



tor sent had neither sense nor science about 

 them. It is all quackery and shameful hypoc- 

 risy ; the same with Electropoise, the same 

 with T. J. Shelton, who cures you of your 

 troubles as soon as he has read your letter 

 describing your symptoms. And yet all of 

 these people have hosts of followers. I won- 

 der that this whole business of " holding peo- 

 ple up" on the street and demanding their 

 money is not at an end. The highwayman's 

 occupation should be wound up, for he can 

 get more money, and do it far easier, by pro- 

 claiming himself a " Mental Science " healer, 

 or something of that sort. 



There is a great fact staring us in the face ; 

 in fact, it ought to stare everybody in the face 

 who will read the advertising pages of the 

 periodicals that fill our home papers. The 

 fact is this : People imagine they are cured by 

 Electropoise, tissue paper, or even by writing 

 a letter to a low-lived swindler who does not 

 furnish any thing whatever. They are sure 

 they have been cured. They have such faith 

 in the oily-tongued venders they give him 

 money out of " gratitude " — at least I have 

 heard they do sometimes. Now, if these peo- 

 ple get well without taking any medicine at 

 all, is it not probably true that thousands of 

 people are buying medicines, investing their 

 money and their faith, when, if the truth 

 were known, the medicine has nothing what- 

 ever to do with the recovery ? I am reading 

 the advertisements in every paper I get hold 

 of, and we have a great pile of exchanges, I 

 assure you. I am reading, because I am feel- 

 ing anxious about our American people. We 

 have all sorts of organizations and schools. 

 I do not know but there are a few whose office 

 it is to teach people better, and to correct the 

 superstition that seems so widespread in re- 

 gard to the matter of remedies. Our school- 

 teachers, I am sure, are competent to correct 

 these foolish notions. Our family physicians 

 are, as a rule, well aware of what I say. 

 When I appeal to them they laugh about it, 

 and say people prefer to listen to quacks, and 

 send money in response to advertisements, 

 rather than consult their next-door neighbor, 

 who may be a doctor ; and finally our minis- 

 ters of the gospel — God's appointed servants 

 to lead men from earth to heaven — ought to 

 be able to advise wisely in regard to remedies. 

 Some of them are doing this ; but when I see 

 the Electropoise people flaunting it before the 

 world that they have testimonials from ' ' a 

 hundred ministers of the gospel,'" then I feel 

 like groaning in discouragement. 



In the letter from the friend who did not 

 want to sign his name he tells us he used to 

 be a " Baptist ;" but after he got "healed" 

 he dropped the church and his religion, and 

 (he tells me further) lost his faith in God. 

 Now, this would be to me one test of the gen- 

 uineness of any of these new things. When 

 the tendency is to lead people away from the 

 church and from the Bible, the thing is surely 

 of the Devil. In our opening text it says that 

 great signs and wonders shall be shown. I 

 am beginning to think that Satan is perhaps 

 granted a little liberty in this direction, that 

 he may by this means win people from godli- 



