Baltimore Evening Sun (18 October 1911): 6.

only-1311-days-more-lay-on-macduff-and-d———d-be-him-that-first-cries-hold-enough

Only 1,311 days more! Lay on, MacDuff! And d———d be him that first cries, Hold! Enough!

The Red Cross Committee will devote a week to meditation before announcing its plan of salvation. This reverses the usual process of hitting the drug first–and then looking at the musk.{?}

If you yearn to be a mechano-therapist, and to heal, without drugs or saws, the chilblains and liver complaints of New Thoughters, now is the time to subscribe. The-American College of Mechano-Therapy, in Chicago, is cutting its rates to get you. Last July, when I first got upon the mailing list of that eminent seminary, it was asking $100 cash for its full course, or $37 cash and $23 a month for three months, or $24 cash and $14.50 a month for eight months. Now it has come down to $47 cash, or $4 cash and $6 a month for eight months. Here is a table which shows how the price has declined, in tune with my reluctance:

July 17–$100 cash, or $37 cash and $23 month for three months, or $24 cash and $14.50 a month for six months. September 9–$50 cash, or $13.50 cash and $11.50 a month for three months, or $12 cash and $7.25 a month for six months. October 9–$47 cash, or $4 cash and $6 a month for eight months.

Mechano-Therapy, it appears, is getting more and more difficult every day. At the moment it is still possible to teach it by correspondence and in the short space of one year. But after January 1, 1913, according to a little red slip sent with every letter, it will take two full years, you will have to go to Chicago to study in the laboratories of the school, you will have to be prepared with a high-school education and it will cost you $150 cash a year—or $280 for the two years, if you pay in advance. Such is the rapid progress of the new science. A year or so ago it was comprehensible to blacksmiths. The college prospectus, indeed, tells of a blacksmith graduate who is now making $15 a day. But by 1913 the doors will be shut upon all save opulent aspirants of high-school education.

Hypnotism, hydrotherapy and “suggestive therapeutics, or mental healing” are thrown in with every course, apparently as lagniappe. In addition, Prof. S. J. Tinthoff, treasurer of the college, gives invaluable instruction in “the business side of mechano-therapy.” Here is how the prospectus describes his course:

How to approach a Patient; How to Gain his Confidence Quickly; how to get the Fees at once; how to greet the Patient; how the patient should be seated; * * * how to find out rapidly what is ailing the Patient; the Business talk which should make the Patient willing to pay the fee; how to handle the Question of the size of a Fee; Real Money Talk; Always get Cash down; Centre Mental Power on Patient; get good pay for Service in order to be appreciated. * * *

This instruction is plainly very vauable, for the graduates of the college all certify that they are making a lot of money. Says the letter of September 9:

“Dr. N. B. Baldwin, who graduated from our college several years ago, wrote us that he frequently works until 9 or 10 o’clock in the evening to take care of his patients. You can judge for yourself what this graduate is making, being kept busy all day, taking a half hour for a treatment and charging $2 per treatment.”

The ex-blacksmith who now makes $15 a day has been mentioned. Dr. Anetta Biddson is “averaging over $250 per month.” Dr. ——- ——— (her portrait is given, but not her name) has “received as much as $10 for one treatment.” Dr. E. L. Stout often makes “as high as $25 and $30 per day.” Dr. Elizabeth S. Rosensteel reports: “I am doing very well. My diploma is beautiful, and I thank you for the same.” Dr. K. A. Broth, after but six weeks of practice, is “paying expenses and more.” And so it goes.

But about patients? Who are they? And where do they come from? Are they all New Thoughters? Apparently not. Many of them, it appears, are sent in by physicians of the old school, who are slowly falling under the magic of mechano-therapy. Others come from —the great public of chronic cases, neurasthenics, dyspeptics, paralytics, anemics, rheumatics, etc., etc., etc., of which every city, town and hamlet is full. This class of sufferers is seemingly forever on the hunt for some different form of treatment. Apparently their main happiness consists in searching out new methods and spending money on them. * * *

Why not become a mechano-therapist and cure these folk? Cure them and get their money!

The lexicon of American synonyms for “married”:

Indicted, Extinct,
Anesthetized, Sentenced,
Hypothecated, Washed overboard.

Some bilious fellow sends in the following sentence, with the suggestion that it be printed as an affecting specimen of the American language:

The man I have been discussing is him who spends all of the greater part of his time in actual instruction.

I print it dutifully, but without noticeable joy, for I composed it myself—composed it, signed my name to it and printed it. That was in 1909. It appeared upon page 220 of a book of some 350 pages–deeply buried, in brief, beneath a Matterhorn of other and impeccable verbiage. And yet it bursts incessantly from its tomb. Forty times, since 1908, some kind friend or other has unearthed it, chortled over it, rushed it to me by special delivery. It has reached me on postcards, on scented note paper, engrossed upon the backs of visiting cards. I have acquaintances who recite it in Gregorian sing-song whenever they meet me. Sinking liquorishly to slumber, I see it emblazoned upon the wall of my cheerless cell.

Once I got a copy of it from Edinburgh—some 3,000 miles. The Edinburgh Scotsman, reviewing the English edition of the book somewhat acidly, had called attention to it. A touring Samaritan, far away from home, read the review, chopped it out and sent it to me. When we meet in Paradise I shall thank him. Another time it wandered in from San Francisco. Yet another time from Boston, that den of grammarians.

If you ever write a book, my advice is that you contract with the clipping bureau for favorable reviews only. The unfavorable ones will come in quickly enough, without money and without price. You will get every one of them five or six times. If, among them, there is one of extraordinary violonce, an attack with hatpins and sandpaper, a capital operation without anesthetics—that one will come in every day for a month. Such is the frenzy of every human being to make some other human being happy! As for me, I take my revenge in kind. I know a lot of literary gents. Some of them are very sensitive to adverse criticism. It is a pleasure to oblige.