A friend in need is n friend indeed, says the old saw. Quite so, Fair weather friends are plentiful enough, goodness knows: the kind that drop in on you, talk to you, and borrow things from you; the kind that! never bring back that fice shillings, but ask for five more just to make it ten," that breed of friends, I say. are as thick as flies over a sugar howl, Bat the sort who stick by you when you are down on your luck, who put their shoulders aguinst your cart wheels at a nasty spot in the road—why, you want to hunt for them with spectacles and lantern, Yet, utter all, such friends do exist, and forty of them turned up, without any hunting, when Mit. Knowles needed them badly. How it happened he tells us in the following statement, I, Jonathan Knowles, of Lotten Fen, near Ramsey, Hunts, do solemnly and sincerely declare us follows:—I was always a stron; man up to April, 1880, when I began to fed ill, At first I felt dull, low-spirited and had no energy. I had a poor appetite and for days and days could eat nothing. What I did eat laid like lead on my chest. I hud a gnawing, sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach, and was constantly sick, vomiting; a green fluid. At times the heaving an straining was so great the blood came up. My hands and feet were always cold, and clammy sweats used to break out all over me. I never felt warm even when I sat before the pains at my chest and lunge, begun to trouble fire. Next a hacking dry cough, with severe
me, and my breathing became short and hue-ried. soon got so weak that I had to give up iny work, for T could only walk a few yards without stopping to take my breath, The cough and shortness of breath got gradually worse and worse, and I began to lose flesh rapidly, At first 1 doctor came to see me, he gave me medicines and cod liver oil, but held out. no hope of my getting better, and after attending me three months he recommended me to go to the hospital. I got a recommendation from my iaster, Mr. David Carney, Wellington House, St.' Mary's, and went to Peterborough In: firm ary. T had to be taken in a trap to the railway station, such was my weak state, The doctors at the Infirmary had me stripped and sounded my lungs, and said one of my lungs was almost gone, and that I was ina consumption. They gave me medicines, also cod liver oil, but nothing did me any good. After being under their care and treatment for three months I was-discharged as incurable. My wife and relations now lost all hope of my ever getting well again, and everyone
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.