PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 3 



shelf, high up in the watch tower and pinnacle of Weiss- 

 nichtwo, from which vantage height, sitting at ease, he 

 could see the life circulation of that considerable city. 

 Carlyle thus proceeds with his story: — " I look down into 

 all that wasp-nest or beehive," we have heard him say, 

 " and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, and 

 poison-brewing and choking by sulphur . . . that living 

 flood, pouring through these streets, of all qualities and 

 ages, knowest thou whence it is coming, whither it is 

 going? Aus der Eivigkeit zu der Ewigkeit hin : — 'From 

 Eternity onwards to Eternity."' But Teufelsdrockh perched 

 up in his high Wahngasse watch tower, fighting his battle 

 with Dullness and Darkness, looking down into the wasp's 

 nest of Vice and Misery is no far-fetched impossible picture, 

 for I see from my chair not only the stinging wasps but 

 the Drones of Society, Traders of the Turf, the Parasites of 

 the People yawning with ennui and reeking with whisky, 

 and the easily deluded simple ones beguiled by the crafty 

 aud cunningly worded advertisement that conceals the 

 baneful poison in the gilded pill. I look down upon our 

 social environment and I behold the happy hunting ground 

 of advertising knavery with all their uric acid, backache and 

 tubercular cures, assorted liniments, " new discoveries " 

 and what not, all trading upon the disordered digestion 

 and imaginary maladies of the poor hypochondriac. What 

 shall we say of this Augean stable ? What shall we say, 

 for instance, of the robber who puts up powdered sugar 

 into artful medicine-like powders and demands a golden 

 guinea for what he says will cure paralysis ? or, of another 

 who sells distilled water as a remedy for consumption ? or, 

 of the poor workman who is assured by his blood-sucker, 

 that his chances of being cured depend on the proffered 

 electric belt for which he must pay forty pounds sterling 

 of the current coin of the realm. From all such noisome 

 nonsense may our world be soon delivered ! From the giddy 



