Making cocain fiends is another profitable enterprise. Catarrh powders are the medium. A decent druggist will not sell cocain as such, steadily, to any customer, except on prescription, but most druggists find salve for their consciences in the fact that the subtle and terrible drug is in the form of somebody's sure cure. There is need to say nothing of the effects of cocain other than that it is destructive to mind and body alike, and appalling in its breaking down of all moral restraint. Yet in New York City it is distributed in "samples" at ferries and railway stations. You may see the empty boxes and the instructive labels littering the gutters of Broadway any Saturday night, when the drug-store trade is briskest. Simey's Catarrhal Powder, Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, Dr. Gray's Catarrh Powder and Crown Catarrh Powder are the ones most in demand. All of them are cocain; the other ingredients are unimportant--perhaps even superfluous. Whether or not the bottles are labeled with the amount of cocain makes little difference. The habitués know. In one respect, however, the labels help them by giving information as to which nostrum is the most heavily drugged. "People come in here," a New York City druggist tells me, "ask what catarrh powders we've got, read the labels and pick out the one that's got the most cocain. When I see a customer comparing labels I know she's a fiend." {043} Naturally these owners and exploiters of these mixtures claim that the small amount of cocain contained is harmless. For instance, the "Crown Cure," admitting 2% per cent., says: "Of course, this is a very small and harmless amount. Cocain is now considered to be the most valuable addition to modern medicine... it is the most perfect relief known." Birney's Catarrh Cure runs as high as 4 per cent, and can produce testimonials vouching for its harmlessness. Here is a Birney "testimonial" to the opposite effect, obtained "without solicitation or payment" (I have ventured to put it in the approved form), which no sufferer from catarrh can afford to miss. [IMAGE ==>] {043} READ what William Thompson, of Chicago, says of BIRNEY'S CATARRH CURE. "Three years ago Thompson was a strong man. Now he is without money, health, home or friends." (Chicago Tribune.) "I began taking Birney's Catarrh Cure (says Thompson) three years ago, and the longing for the drug has grown so potent that I suffer without it. "I followed the directions at first, then I increased the quantity until I bought the stuff by the dozen bottles." A famous drink and drug cure in Illinois had, as a patient, not long ago, a 14-year-old boy, who was a slave to the Birney brand of cocain. He had run his father $300 in debt, so heavy were his purchases of the poison.