The names are bogus. The whole remedy is a humbug. There are names in it as _species_ which sound something like some medical term; and the druggist may be deceived thereby. The reverend quack, foreseeing "the difficulty in obtaining the articles in their purity at any druggist's," advises you to send to him for them. Do you begin to see the _dodge_? He "will furnish it at _cost_." Only think! How benevolent! "My means make me independent." Think again. An invalid from boyhood, his time and means exhausted in travelling "in Europe two years," and was only "sent a missionary (?) through the kindness of friends," he assures us in his circular. Here he _discovered through an old physician_--surely a new mode of discovery--this wonderful compound, which cured him in "six weeks," and forthwith, in gratitude, he proceeded to New York, and began putting up this marvellous remedy "_at cost_." Let us examine the article sold for three dollars and a half a small package. Dr. Hall, of the "Journal of Health," examined the article which "Old Sands of Life" sold as _Canabis Indica_, and found the cost "_but sixteen cents, bottle and all_." Nevertheless, "The Retired Physician" sold it to his dupes for two dollars. I do not hesitate to say that the above compound cost even _less than sixteen cents a package_. "But," said a gentleman to me, "he is connected with the Bible House. Here is his address: 'Station D, Bible House, New York.'" "There is a post-station by that name. Suppose I should give an address, '34 Museum Building.' Would that imply that I was a play-actor, or owner of the Museum?" I replied. "Then it is only another 'Reverend' dodge--is it?" he asked. "Precisely; it is to give character to his characterless address." "Don't the newspaper publishers know it is a swindle?" he suggested. "There's not the least doubt that they know it." "Then hereafter I shall have little faith in the religion or honesty of the newspaper that publishes such swindling advertisements." "Admitting that they know the dishonesty of the thing,--and how can any man endowed with common sense but see that there is _swindle_ on the face of it?--the publisher of that advertisement is a _particeps criminis_ in the transaction." "Why don't some of the thousand victims who have been swindled into buying this worthless stuff expose him?" "In exposing the _reverend wolf_, don't you see they would expose their own weakness? This is the reason of the fellow's selecting the peculiar class of diseases as curable by his great discovery. The poor sufferer does not wish the community to know that he is afflicted by such a disease." "It is truly a great dodge; and no doubt the knave has found fools enough to make him '_independent_.'" * * * * * RULES. 1. Take no patent or advertised medicines at all. They are of no earthly use! You never require them, as they are not conducive to your health, happiness, or longevity.