Daily Los Angeles herald., 1878-12-18
The Man Under tho Bod

1t has always been an unsolvel
problem why lovely woman resorts
to so many ingenious ways for self
torture. Her nervous organization
is cultivated to condition OF
chrouic sensitiveness. She lives
and moves in constant dread of i'm
aginary dangers. To the observant
man these charming idiosyncracies
are inexplicable. But the most
unfeeling monster of the masculine
sex cannot help admitting that
they are lovely and bewitching to
the last degree. 1t would of course
be useless task to under
take to analyZe the emotions
of which these traits are born.
They may be trifles, but little mat
ters make up the sum of existence.
Atoms constitute the world. Nor
is it at all necessary i'm tracing the
threads of these peculiarities to ac-
count for the lack of harmony in
woman's nature. Her incoEsis.
tencies are her charms. Her will
may be strong-her affections en-.
during, her capacity to support trials
and misfortunes marvellous, but be.
fore her vision forever hovers one
CHASTITY phantom-the skeleton of
her waking fancy, the nightmare
OF her dreams, is the man under
the bed. No woman has ever risen
superior to that awful delusiop.
They grow from infancy to woman
hood-they sink into the grave be-
set by the chronic spectre of the
man under the bed. Scientists
have discovered in their search
through vital statistics that, though
the amount of man found under
the bed is out of all proportion to
the number of women looking for
him, the search nevertheless |
continues with unabated eager
ness. The scarcity OF the OBJ
ject sought for is neither due to the
scarcity of men, nor the fewness of
beds. 1t cannot result from a mas.
culine antipathy to hiding in these
uncomfortable places. But the
feminine mind assumes that he
does hide there, and so the search
goes on from one years end to the
other. Neither does repeated disap.
pointments disgust the seeker.
Regular as the curtains are drawn
at night, the search is renewed. 1t
has been said that the difficulty of
finding him in that peculiar locali-
ty stimulates the eager.
ness with which he is hunted.
II he lay around promis-
cuous-like under every bed. no
woman would ever take the ]
trouble to hunt for him. The only
recent instance in which success
crowned the laudable exertions of {
our female friends happened away
up In Rhode Island, or some other
out-of-the-way place, and
is mentioned by the Providence
That paper, which is re.
for its rigid adherence to
ruth, says that o few nights since
Dne John Burke was hauled most ip-
from his hiding place u
beneath the bed of Miss Susan and /
Miss Rachel Reichenbach; was
carried before Providence city L
and was duly ar
aligned for "breaking and enter $
ng." Common as is the practice
u looking for man under the bed,
his actual finding of man Just
where he was looked for-and
phere, as 1t is reasonable to sup Il
ose, Miss Rachel and Miss Susan g
had been looking for fel
i'm every night for long term of al
to have excited con- =
and CAUSED a good deal
trouble. especially to the 4
ian. 1t might have been
<pected that the Misses Reichen- a
sch would have manifested joy al a
nding that for which they had /
ught so long and so carefully, but {