‘The Ootacamund paper states that during the stay of
the Commander-in-Chief and party at Arconum several of
them were seized with choleraic symptoms. They had
been advised to use bromide of soda for some day previous
to embarkation for England, to ward off sea-sickness.
The chief and and family commenced the three days’
course of the treatment at Arconum. The two Aides-de-Camp
did not take it, nor did the governess, and they were not ill.’
The journalists of Southern Ind
Must be a most abandoned crew;
For (kindly look above) I find
A tale which, even were it true,
Should ne 'er have met the public eye;
And is a breach of privacy.
The Story of Sir Frederick R—
Is briefly this. The Bounding Sea
Has terrors for the Man of War
(Exactly as it has for Me).
He ... suffers when he is afloat,
And wants some soothing antidote.
Of thousands, He selected one,
Bromide of Soda, for his need;
And, long before His voyage begun,
Was very, very, ill indeed.
(Bromide of Soda, draught or pill,
In overdoses makes you ill.)
Not He alone was smit with pain;
The C.-in-Chief his family
Fell also. Of that noble train
Escaped, in fact, a scanty three—
Two A.D.C. 's, one Governess—
Declined, with thanks, that awful mess.
The papers talked of cholera;
And afterwards of poison. Then
Debated whether Frederick R—
Imbibed the grim medicamen-
t on full or empty stomach. Hence
My strictures on impertinence.
Suffice it that a C.-in-C.
Is, in his fleshly fashioning,
Remarkably like you and me.
And sorrow, such as that I sing,
Is not exactly fitting grist
For the Abandoned Journalist.
P.S. They might have told him that elixir
Invariably makes one sick, Sir.
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