Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-06-19
The Ventilation Fiend.

He dresses always in manner Pc
culiar to his tribe, does the fresh air
idiot. He wears two pair of woolen
stockings and heavy cork soled boots !;
two suits of flannel underwear, a
chamois chest protector, a double knit
Jacket, a woolen vest, lined pantaloons
that weigh about eighteen pounds and
are as impervious to air as a rubber
blanket; a doubie-breasted coat, fur
gloves and seal-skin cap pulled down
over his ears. Thus attired, it is the
delight of his one ideal soul to meet you
some bracing September morning, and
regard with a fixed stare and wild howl
of derision, you in your Fall suit and
light overcoat. "Off with it, man," he
wells, shifting his chest with his buried
hands. "Off with il! Why, bless my
soul, / haven't worn an oyercoat for
more than ten years. What do you
want with an overcoat! Brace up, in
hale the fresh air; fill your lungs with
it. till it makes your nerves tingle
with natural, health-giving, glowing
warmth And he tries TO drag you OF
for bleak walk down by the edge OF
the river, and it is all you can do to get
away from him, and when you do, he
goes off sneering at men who can't
stand a little bracing November air
and have to muffle up in overcoats, and
as he goes perspiring down the street,
YOU know that if you muffied up IN
half the amount of raiment he carries,
YOU would smother in minute. He
bangs in upon you in your office. You
are costly fixed at your work. lou
have on a light Office coat and your
slippers, and your office is warm and
comfortable. In comes the man with
the ventilation hobby, fresh from out
doors, muffled 10 the ears, as usual,
"Whoofi'' he snorts, looking wildly
around him, "what an oven! Don't
YOU know you are killing yourself in
here? whew. This air comes from
lime kiln. 1t dries up my lungs like
parchment." And he leaves the door
wide open and torrent of Icy wind
rushes in and bathes your slippered
feet in chill that doesn't leave them
for a week; he goes across the office
and opens a window on your back that
makes you shudder hours after you are
asleep that night; he closes the drafts
and opens the stove door, and then sits
close behind it, out of the draft he has
opened on you, and tells you how warm
and how comfortable he is, and how he
never permits his room to get SO hot as
YOURS when he came into it. He
deluges you with his twaddle about
fresh air and ventilation, and doesn't
go away and let you make yourself
comfortable until he has caught you a
cold that will stick to you all Winter.
cost YOU $295 for medical services, and
then kill you in the Spring. He sits
down beside you in the railway car as
he sees you take off your overcoat,
makes you set next to the window, and
then opens it on you. If he hears you
cough, he tries to pull off your muffler.
He runs his fingers down your back to
see if you wear hannels, and howls bis
discovery in derisive accents TO the by
ISLANDERS, and makes you feel uncom-
Portable and effeminate. He pursues
you with chilling drafts and icy deluges
of east wind. He is a nuisance of
nuisances. Wicked men swear at him,
Christians hate him, and humanity
fears him and would like to kill him.