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on a 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 offspring. 

 I was much struck by an idea (for it is little more) which was 

 lately mooted in the ISIineteenth 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 bj Professor Nymanover, a 8wede. 

 Yoa 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 Beading 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 

 deepe&t wisdom, of sparkling wit, or poetry, or even others more 



