The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-04-20
VOL. XI---NO. 40.
About Beds,

As we snuggle between the sheets, and
lay our heads on a soft pillow some cold
winters night, it sometimes seems as if
nothing but a luxurious couch of this
sort could be worth calling bed Yeta
large part of the world enjoy no such ar
rangements FOR sleeping and could not
enjoy it if they had it. Our own ances-
tors reposed in much less luxurious fash
ion. In Eastern countries people COM
monty spread a net on the fiat roof of
their house, and make that their bed
In Russia the top of the stove is the bed
stead. In both cases the sleepers do not
undress themselves.
In ancient Egypt-as still in China
and Japan-wooden pillows were in
vogue, followed out to fit the shape of
the head. But the ancient Egyptians,
while, on account of the heat and ver-
min, they preferred hard pillows, and are
said to have considered their comfort at
night in the invention of spring mat
tresses. They were made Of slips of
bamboo crossed over each other, and
must have been as cool, if not quite as
soft and yielding, as the webbing of twine
stretched over frame, On which the ma
tivcs of India rest.
The Israelites used sheep and goat
skins stuffed for pillows, and in early
times the same for bedding, but their
bedsteads at later period, at least, must
have been very costly. The prophet
Amos speaks of couches ofivory.
Among the Assyrians, and afterwards
among the Romans, couches of gold and
silver were possessed by the rich. The
reason for this splendor was partly that
the beds were not kept in separate rooms,
but in the same room occupied by day,
and were used for sitting on, and reclining
on at meals. At Roman feasts the guests
all recined, and sometimes each person
occupied a separate couch.
The Anglo Saxon ancestors were not
at all refined in their sleeping arrange
merts. Their beds consisted of wooden
boxes, filled with bag Of straw. In an
old illustrated manuscript there is pic
ture of a king going to bed. He has a
crown on his head "a very uncomfortable
night cap,) but has no night dress.
King Henry VIII, Of England, is said
to have slept upon straw-bed, while his
servants lay upon rushes strewn on the
floor of the royal kitchen. The kings
bed was not what we should call luxu.
rious; but so much ceremony was used
in going to it that seven chamberlains
we're employed in undressing the royal
parsonage, turning down the bed clothes,
etc., etc. One indispensable practice was
to thrust sword into the straw to see
that no person was concealed in it.
When feather beds came into use in
England they were regarded as articles of
great value, and it seems comical to US
to find them so often mentioned in wills.
The person to whom feather-bed was
bequcathed did not usually receive any
thing else; his comfort by night was
provided for. if not his welfare by day.
1t may be mentioned in conclusion
with beds, that a strange superstition
was once common in the South of Eng
land, in a belief that person cannot die
while lying on pigeons feathers. A dy-
ing person has often been removed from
q feather-bed to the bare floor, under the
notion that the deatll-struggle was pro.
longed owing to the presence in the bed
of few pigeon feathers. In England
it is still customary to surround the bed
with curtains. Americans have adopted
the more sensible French fashion of al
lowing free circulation of air about the
sleeper.-BaHimore Sunday Telegraph.