Hannah Leigh

“ Some postage-stamp collectors, especially in private life, devote their energies to storing up vast numbers of stamps of a particular issue, trusting to the good offices of time to render them exceedingly scarce, and consequently valuable. ”

“ Even so early as the sixteenth century, this disease had so much diminished in the country, that the emptied hospitals were applied to other purposes.
During the tenth century, the plague made its appearance several times, and was confidently looked for every ten years. That form of it which prevailed there and all over Europe in 1349-50, was known to the Danes by the name of Sorte Daed (the Black Death) . Gebhardi and other historians affirm that two-thirds of the inhabitants of Denmark perished by this fearful pest. ”

“ Temporary issues are always rare and valuable. Some time ago, the supply of postage-stamps failed in the British colony at the Cape of Good Hope. There was a delay in procuring “the needful” from the mother-country; and pending its arrival native artists produced some poor imitations of the requisite stamps. These spurious stamps are now almost impossible to be procured, especially the threepenny and fourpenny ones. Local stamps employed within narrow limits invariably fetch high prices. Those of the Confederate States are much in demand. ”

“ Such is the incomprehensible jargon that frequently puzzles grave fathers of families at their own breakfast-tables, or startles the propriety of decorous matrons and maiden aunts in their after-dinner retirement with a circle of precocious youngsters. ”

“ From fifty to a hundred individuals, old men, youths, and mere boys, middle-aged persons of unimpeachable respectability, ladies of modest and decorous presence, even more than one personage of exalted rank, bargaining and contending in this singular traffic with the utmost eagerness and vivacity,—such was the tableau vivant which stayed the steps of the least interested passer-by. The value of stamps in this exchange, being wholly supposititious, was subject to considerable fluctuations ”

“ About a century and a half ago, it was regarded as a work of true friendship among the nobility and higher citizens to deprive a dying friend of the support for his head. This act of friendly sympathy could not fail to hasten the death of many persons who otherwise might have lived several hours or even days longer. ”

“ The ancient meetings called gildrskraar, and at which fines were levied from offenders against cleanliness and propriety, are further evidence of the sanitary observances of the early Danes.
Doctors were as yet in small repute. During one of the wars prosecuted by the Danish King Suend Tveskieg against England, dysentery appeared in his army. No physician was present to arrest the ravages of the disease; it rapidly spread among the ranks of warriors, and several thousand men perished. ”

“ We cannot accord our entire approbation to a few individuals among these far-seeing speculators, who are engaged in collecting and hoarding common English penny stamps: acting with a greedy eye to future profit in what every truly loyal subject of our beloved Queen trusts is still a remote period,—that when the present feminine portraiture on our current stamps will necessitate a new issue, bearing the likeness of our then Gracious Sovereign and Defender of the Faith, King Edward the Seventh. ”

“ Kings themselves were experienced surgeons; and every warrior learned the art of healing wounds. Nor were the women deficient in this respect; they often thronged in crowds to the field of battle to tend the wounded heroes. ”

“ It is said that gashes made by arrows and other ancient arms, were much more difficult to heal than those inflicted by modern weapons. Female surgeons made great use of a kind of soup cooked in stone jars, and seasoned with onions and other herbs, which they administered to their patients before dressing their wounds. ”

“ These still linger among the Danish peasantry, and are now denominated sœbemad.
Torfæus speaks of the gruels and milk soups; and it appears, according to Saxo, that oatmeal gruel, well-thickened, was used by the poorer class of people as a substitute for bread. A little later, cabbages were much cultivated. Salt was made by throwing water on the ashes of seaweed. The inhabitants of the small isle of Lessoe were celebrated among the Danes for their expertness in fabricating this species of salt. ”