Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/632

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  • low, and with the curse of Joshua, the son

of Nun." In cases of severe prostration and debility, pounded mummy and human bones are administered, but this is considered a very dangerous medicine and great precautions are taken to prevent evil spirits interfering with the patient or hindering his recovery.—Public Opinion.


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REMEDY FOR PESTS

Is not the remedy for many evils to be found by allowing one destructive force to overcome another? God so makes "the wrath of man to praise him."


One day a very small orange-tree was taken out of the ground in Australia and sent with many others across the ocean to California. On this small tree there were a few white insects. The little tree was planted again in California and soon put out many fresh, fragrant leaves. The white insects were astonished and rejoiced that day after day went by without the appearance of any red beetles. The white insects increased in numbers; there were thousands of fragrant-leaved orange-trees in California, and in a few years there were millions of white insects in them. One morning a man stood among the trees and said, "Confound these bugs; they'll ruin me; what shall I do?" and a man who knew said, "Get some red beetles from Australia." So this orange-grower, with some others, paid a man to go to Australia and collect some live red beetles. The collector went across the ocean, three weeks' steady steaming, and sent back a few of the voracious little beetles in a pill-box. They were put into a tree in a California orange-orchard in which there were many cottony-cushion scale insects. The red insects promptly began eating the white ones; and their children and grandchildren and great-*grandchildren have kept up this eating ever since. And so the orange-growers never tire of telling how the red beetles (whose

name is Vedalia) were brought from Australia to save them from ruin by the white insects (whose name is Icerya).—Vernon L. Kellogg, "Insect Stories."

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Remembering—See Forgetting and Remembering. Remembering the Good—See Old Year Memories. REMINDER, SEVERE The Burgundians in France, in a statute now eleven hundred years old, attributed valor to the east of France because it had a law that the children should be taken to the limits of the district, and there soundly whipt, in order that they might forever remember the boundary-line.—Wendell Phillips.

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REMINDERS A little boy had lost both parents by death. There were no relatives to care for him, and a place had therefore been found for him with a family in the country. It was a ride of several miles to the strange home, and the farmer, who had agreed to transport him thither noticed that the little fellow sitting so shyly beside him in the great wagon often thrust his hand into his worn blouse as if to make sure of some treasure. Curiosity at last prompted the man to ask what it was. He had been kind during the journey, and so the child hesitatingly confided his secret. "It's just a piece of mother's dress. When I get kind—kind o' lonesome—I like to feel it. Most seems 's if she—wasn't so far off."

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REMINDERS, UNPLEASANT The man in the following incident underwent a painful operation to remove marks that reminded him of unpleasant things. There is a promise of greater blessing from one who said, "Tho your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow." Dr. Berchon was consulted by a rich man who asked him to remove a tattooed design that had been made in his youth and doubtless reminded him constantly of his humble beginnings. Berchon, a well-read man, used the ancient method of Crito, described by Paul of Ægina. Crito washed the tattooed part with niter and then enveloped it in resin, which was allowed to remain several days to soften the skin. The design was then scraped with a sharp instrument, the wound was washed and rubbed with salt, after which a sort of plaster was applied, consisting of frankincense, nitrate of potash, lye, lime, wax, and honey. Several days later the marks disappeared. (Text.)—La Nature.


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