WHEREAS divers Persons have lately exposed to sale a counterfeit drink called ELIXIR SALUTIS, the true drink so called being first published by Mr Anthony Daffy, who is the only person that rightly and truly prepares it, he having experienced its virtues for above 20 years past, by God’s blessing curing multitudes of people afflicted with various distempers therewith, the receit whereof he never communicated to any person living; and that these persons the better to colour their deceit, have reported Mr Anthony Daffy to be dead, these are to certify That the said Mr Anthony Daffy is still living and in good health, at his house in Prujean court in the old Bailey, and that only there and at such places as he has appointed in his printed sheets of his Elixir’s virtues (which printed sheets are sealed with his seal) the true ELIXIR SALUTIS or choice CORDIAL DRINK OF HEALTH is to be sold. It is noticeable that about this time people were never sure what year they were in until March, and often during that month; and this is not only so in the dates on newspapers, but is found in Pepys and other writers of the period. Some journals do not give the double date as above, for we have before us as we write two copies of the _Domestick Intelligence; or, News both from City and Country_, “Published to prevent false Reports,” No. 49 being dated “Tuesday, Decemb. 23, 1679;” and No. 52, “Friday, January 2, 1679.” This has not, as many people have imagined, anything to do with the difference between the New Calendar and the Old, as our alteration of style did not take place till the middle of the next century. It must have been a relic of the old Ecclesiastical year which still affects the financial budget. That the “agony column” of the present day is the result of slow and laborious growth is shown by an advertisement, cut from a _Domestick Intelligence_ of March 1681, which contains an urgent appeal to one who has in umbrage departed from home:-- ☞ WHEREAS a Person in London on some discontent did early on Monday morning last retire from his dwelling-house and not yet return’d, it is the earnest request of several of his particular friends, that the said person would speedily repair to some or one of them, that he thinks most fit; it being of absolute necessity, for reasons he does not yet know off. An advertisement of this kind, without name or initials, might now, like the celebrated appeal to John Smith, apply itself to the minds of so many who had left their families “on some discontent,” that there would be quite a stampede for home among the married men making a temporary sojourn away from the domestic hearth and its attendant difficulties. Many of them would perhaps find themselves as unwelcome as unexpected.