The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-04-22
Sleep

EMMY that he was wide awake. he may
be in ordinary affairs the most truthful
of beings; he may regard white lie as
deadly sin; and yet II you can catch
him suddenly enough in fragrant deliei
taking his st-prsndial forty winks it is
ten 10 ore he viii protest with vehe-
mence quite disproportioned to the oc-
casion that he has never closed his eyes.
As fsyor-quite as q concession, mark
you-he will admit that he was getting
rather sleepy; that he would have been
off N little time. But 10 have actually
yielded, TO have been quite subdued by
the ihsidious god, is weakness which,
on the spur of the moment, he is alme..
certain Indignantly to disavp| In a
calmer moment he might, it is true, per
haps own the impeachment. which is,
after all, not hard one. But in the
fiutter of establishment, with mental
powers still half enchanted, instructive
impulse has her own way, and q natural
feeling of selfsexculpation and false
shame commits the surprised one to a
vehement and untenable plea of not
guilty. An excuse is reasonably claimed
and generously admitted for this rep
rehensible mode Of pleading on the
general issue; and the homely penalty
which an orthodox custom prescribes is
not always Gisagreeable to the sleeper.
No such pardon can be accorded to that
other pretense of wakefulness which
forms the sole title of certain class to
their cherished character OF invalids. The
peevish complaint of having passed a
sleepless night or even, as The phrase is,
having slept badly, is supposed to ac-
count for and justify any amount of ILL.,
humor displayed at breakfast and
throughout the day. A thousand times
less harmless than the other plea, it is as
much more insidious, since, unlike the
other, it admits of no disproval. Any
morning some cantankerous spinster, or
fussy, fidgety Old bachelor, may come
late and grumbling down stairs, whining
over her terribly bad night, or his con,
founded difficulties in getting any sleep
in such house. The real proportion
between the numbers of sleepless mo-
ments passed by these individuals and
the amount of the grievance established
thereupon is of the vaguest possible de.
scriptlon. In the darkness and silence a
minute no longer represents the sixty
short seconds of bustling day 1t counts
Tor double, treble, or more often ten
times, its daylight value. Distribute an
hour OF total wakefulness into a plumber
of short periods interrupted by irregular
doses of sound sleep, and the poor vic
tim will infallibly represent himself a:
having been awake all night with only 8
few short snatches Of repose. Let there
be a clock in the neighborhood loud
enough to occasionally half-wake the
slumberer and he will adduce actual
proofs of his dreadful miseries by mar
rating tragically how he counted the
hours and watched feverishly for day
light to appear. The spinster who sleeps
badly assumes a martyrs charac
ter not only at morn, but a
dewy eve. As the hour of retiring
approaches, she expects sympathy and
vOtai prayers. Woe TO the expectant
nephew who fails to hope that dear Aunt
Priscilla may have a better night. Al
the offer of tea che holds up her hand:
with a regretful and solemn shake of he1
poor head. Soon, if the malady increases
and her one sleepleSs hour out of the nine
should grow to an hour and a half, she
will consult doctor, grow learned on the
subject OF sleeping-draughts. and thence
forth augment by a modest but steady
expenditure the revenues of the family
aFotbecary. OF course, besides the shan
invalids there are some real sufferers 4
nervous organization will be so utterly
upset by an over.excitement late at nigh
/ that sound rest is out of the question
/ So slight a matter as q game of chess Of
tie study of tough problem in mathe
MATES will suffice to Danish sleep; anC
| the only resource for those whose nerve:
are thus affected is to keep clear of the
dangerou. occupation. No one accuse.
the soliloquy of Henry ". of being IN
true to nature, or disbelieves in the dan
gerous nature of the sleeplessiess from
which the German Chancellor is now suf
I fering. But the number of bona f9e sui
ferers from this cause is small in com
1 parison of the host of ke-believe in
| Talids. And Of those who really suffer
nine-tenths at least may attribute theil
troubles to their own absurdity. Nine
! tenths of the idle classes go TO bed as
| rule with the intention of achievin!
a feat beyond the natural pow
ers-namely, that of sleeping sucl
| a number of hours as nature nevel
intended them to sleep. Probably abou
| seven hours Is above the average amour
of sleep upon which an idle person car
reasonably count. Active men, engaged
/ in urgent business, in bodily or menta
work, might possibly expect an hour Of
half an hour more. But these are mo-
| the persons who complain. The mos
/ persistent victims are usually the very
| persons who have the least to do, who
alter doing nothing all day, propose tc
| themselves TO do less than nothing-tc
| abandon consciousness itself-for some
eight or nine hours every night. 1t i:
surely time these good folks should fine
out that the human capacity for sleep
like the appetite for food or drink, is {
finite quantity. The people who com
plain Of bad appetites usually become
wonderfully convalescent If shut up in
| besieged town, and, in a similar way, il
I the victims of wakefGlness were t
/ starve themselves little in the matter
! of sleep their nights rest would undergo
a very striking transformation. If, in
stead Of counting the hours, the invalid
were 10 get up and read awhile he would
at the same time be utilizing his tint
and Obtaining healthy appetite-that i:
the proper term-for a better sleep to
morrow night. The natural connection
between the need of sleep and the sup
ply provided by nature is as conformable
to common-sense arguments as il is tc
physiological science. and could it BE-
once recognized host of impostor:
would be deprived of their title to pity
and society would be saved from per
feet plague in the shape of matutina,
murmuriugs. -EreIanos
School Regulations.
The Detroit Post gives the following
as rsr6atina copy of The rules and reg.
uiations drawn up by he School Board
OF certain district in Sanilac County:
1sQ School to Commenc at nine
O'Clock 4 VI and clnse Of four p N