NEWSPAPERS AND QUACK REMEDIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THZ " SFECTATOR..]
SIR, —Well may you dwell upon the incongruous position of philanthropists and their families who own shares in the Daily News, which excludes betting news, and at one and the same time hold other shares in the Star and Morning Leader, which thrive and grow fat on " tips " and reports of racing and other turf mabters. To reject money as accursed with the right hand only to take it later with the left is to do a thing bard to reconcile with any plain, straightforward system of morality. To do one thing or the other is understandable, but to do both is to invite the scorn of all men, no matter what their views may be upon gambling or horse-racing. But there is another thing that these same philanthropists receive with both hands,—namely, money for the advertisement of quack remedies. How can a newspaper proprietor who cuts out betting news because it damages the morals or the pockets of his readers consistently accept money for the purpose of soliciting the self-same readers to waste their money upon worthless drugs P As an educated man, he must know that these nostrums are incapable of effecting the "cures" they claim to perform. The composition of most of them is to be found in certain recently published books, while a few have been roundly condemned in scathing terms by his Majesty's Judges in the Law Courts as lying and fraudulent shams. What use is there in saving a man's pocket from the wiles of the bookmaker only to hand him over to the tender mercies of a vampire nostrum-vendor P It is true that the philanthropist newspaper owner stands side by side in this matter with Peers, plutocrats, and those people who are share- holders in the newspapers, journals, and magazines which draw a princely income from this infamous traffic. They are one and all accessories in a mean fraud practised upon the credulous public. Those who know anything of out-patient hospital practice can testify to the magnitude of the evil. It is a common experience that many maladies are made worse, and some actually caused, by quack medicines. Poor patients have often spent comparatively large sums on so-called " cures " for indigestion, rheumatism, neuralgia, and so on, whereas they have been suffering from the early, and possibly curable, stages of cancer, consumption, or of some grave internal disease. I am aware that there are honourable exceptions to the rule, and that some journals, as the Spectator, keep their advertisement columns free from pestilent quack advertisements.—I am, Sir, &c., 48 Welbeck Street, W.
DAVID WALSH, M.D.
[It is interesting to note what Miss Loane, with her un- rivalled experience of the poor, has to say of quack remedies in her latest book, " Neighbours and Friends " :—"If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would gradually tax these mixtures off the face of the earth be would deserve the heartfelt gratitude of all but the proprietors and makers."— En. Spectator.]
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