for January 1772, which states that “on December the 30th, 1771, Mr Tunnestrik experimented in the presence of the Prince Stadholder and sundry professors, by driving an iron spike into a horse’s head, and afterwards pulling it out with a pair of pincers. Hereupon he poured certain oils by him invented into the wound, by means of which the horse within six minutes was whole again, and not even a scar remained to be seen.” This horse, like the celebrated leg which was cured of its fracture with tar-water and oakum, must have been made of wood. With regard to the Riga Balsam, we might swallow that statement with the assistance, say, of another wonderful American potion, the Plantation Bitters, which, if we are to judge by the following, could help anything down:—
S. T.—1860.—X.
The formula “S. T.—1860.—X.” appears at the top of every advertisement of the bitters, and the first two portions doubtless refer to the name of the inventor and the date of the invention, while x may be the unknown quantity which has to be taken before the promises held forth in the advertisement are fulfilled. A good instance of the difference between precept and practice is shown by the annexed, which comes well from a firm in no way disdainful of the uses of advertising:—
S. T.—1860.—X.
SOME of our contemporaries seem to think that the triumph of their cause depended, like the fate of Jericho, upon the amount of noise made. In these days of refinement and luxury, an article of real intrinsic merit is soon appreciated, hence the unbounded and unparalleled success of
Plantation Bitters.
Like the two preceding, this is from Harper’s Weekly, the price for advertisements in the inner pages of which is said to be 1 dollar 50 cents per line, about five