The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-03-13 00:00:00

pa k eve. As the hour of retiring al
xpercts sympathy and votal praye
.peetant nephew who fails to hope-t
cilia may have a better night. A
holds up her hands with a rer
ao„pf her poor head. So-

~00n, ifi
,er one sleepless hotout ol
hr

nuie snouur grow . our and a half, s. will con-
sult a doctof, grow lea. ed on the subject of sleeping
draughts, and thenceforth augment, by a modest but
steady expenditure the revenuts,of the faknily?pothe.
- -T-
-eary, 7
Of course, besides the 'shariti invalids there are
some real sufferers. A nervOrti organisation will be
so utterly upset by any over excitement ',ate at night
that sound...rest is out of the question. So slight a
matter as a game of chess, or the study of a tough
problem in mathematics, will suffice sometimes to
banish sleep • and the only resource for those whose
.i.re_td;us-affeeteti Is to Ices of the danger.
,us ocoupatiCn. No one accuses the soliloquy of
Henry IV. of being untrue to Nature, or disbelieves
in the dangerous nature of the sleeplessness from
which the German Chancellor is now suffering. But
tie mina) --Of bond fide sufferers from this cause is
small-in'-cOMparison of the host of make-believe in-
valids. And of those who really suffer, nine tenths
at least may attribute their troubles to their own
absurdity. Nine-tenths of the idle classes go to bed
nai a rule with the intention of achieving a feat be-.
yond their natural powers—namely, that of sleeping
such a number of hours as Nature never intended
them to sleep. Probably about seven hours
is above the average amount of sleep upon which an
4dle person can reasonably count. Active men, en-
aged in urgent business, in bodily or mental work,
might possibly expect an hour or half-an-hour more.
But these are not the persons who complain. The most
persistent victims are usually the very persons who have
the least to do, who, after doing nothing at all all day,
propose to themselves to do still less than nothing—to
abandon consciousness itself—for some eight or nine
hours every night. It is surely time these good folks
should find out that the human capacity for sleep,
like the appetite for food or drink, is a finite quan-.
tity. The people who complain of bad appetites usually"
become wonderfully convalescent if shut up in a be-
sieged town, and, in a similar way, if the victims
of wakefulness were to starve themselves a little in the
matter of sleep, their night's rest would undergo a very
striking transformation. If, instead of "counting the
hours,' the invalid were to get up and read awhile, he
would at the same time be utilising his time and ob-
taining a healthy appetite—that is the proper term—
for a better sleep to-morrow night. The natural con-
nection between the need of sleep and the supply pro-
vided by Nature is as conformable to common sense
arguments as it is to physiological science, and could
it be once recognised, a host of impostors would be
deprived of their title to pity, and society would be
saved from a perfect plague in the shape of matutinal
murmurings.

sound...iest .1;
ler mitter as a game o

9 clear