The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-02-16
Stertorous Entertainment.


fellow or Of one or more sleeping in the
| same or in an adjacent apartment must
be exceedingly annoying. Fortunately,
the writer of this is neither nervous nor
wakeful in hours allotted to humanity
for sleeping and can therefore com
placently endure and even philosophic-
ally enjoy the snores of his fellow-men
| when circumstances require him to be
audience to that peculiar kind of vocal
izatiOn. At all events, he did so enjoy
it not long ago on the occasion of a
railway journey, the passengers being
a party of feast-filled and tired excuT-
sionists.
The scene was the luxurious interior
of a palace sleeping-car, every berth
being occupied. All the passengers in
that coach, some two dozen in number,
had retired early in the evening, and
the writer hereof was in bed and asleep
as early as the earliest of them. About
midnight the sudden stopping of the
train jolted him wide awake, and he
was apparently the only sleeper Of all
that car-full who was awakened. All
of his fellow passengers were not only
asleep but busily engaged in snoring,
and they kept right on snoring without
the least intermission or sign of relax
alton. 1t is safe to assume that they
had been thus sonoriously and comfort
ably engaged all the evening, keeping
the noise all to themselves because of
| the roar and the clatter of the moving
| train. At all events, when the cars
came to full stop and dead calm
settled down upon our train, a chorus
of sounds at once became audible that
was anything but mellihuous or melodi-
GUS 1t was, in fact, n hideous discomfort
of harsh vocal manifestations, such as a
| congregation of small steam-engines
might be supposed to make were each
ambitious to excel the others in noise
power, doing its utmost to OUTFLOW,
| out-hiss and Out-snort them all.
1t was a confusion Of sounds that
| fully equalled the confusion OF tongues
at the Tower of 'Babel-a medley of
ludicrous variety. The utterances is
suing from score ofmouths were both
loud and deep, some being pitched in
the highest tenor key, others in thun-
dering basso, and occasionally a
wheeling explosion, like that of a leaky
bellows, followed hard at the end of
prolonged and robust roar. There
were shores vigorous, as if the good
fellows meant to do the very best they
could shores timorous as if their
makers were lacking in self-confidence;
growing, half-suppressed snores, very
much like the warning noise with
which a vicious dog greets the approach
of stranger; half-Whistling, half,
screeching shores, evidently the work
of asthmatics; delicate, titful, modest
| little SHORES, unquestiOnably issuing
from the unconscious lips of lovely
woman; cracking snores, like straw on
fire; sharp abrupt snores, like the
snorts a porker gives when suddenly
surprised by his canine enemy; bub-
bling, gurgling snores, having thes sound
of a boiling tea-kettle; kissing snores,
like the salutation a mother goose
gives you when you disturb the peace
of her goslings; stentorian SHORES, that
came like peals of thunder, with re-
verberations, from the berth occupied
by the great fat gentleman with big
stomach and deep lungs; and lastly,
though by no means leastly, the shrill,
cracked, broken snore, which reminds
one of the unfortunate singer in opera
whose voice collapsed in an effort to
reach high c..
Imagine all these divers and several
noises, in steady and energetic pro-
gress, at one and the same time, in one
and the same room, and you the only
listener! Verify the vocal capabilities
of human nature in sleep are marvel
Gus, not to say diabOlical. Hear the
turmoil The great fat mans thunder
and the snorter's shrill reports appear
at one moment to be fighting for the
| noise mastery, and an instant after
wards the wheeze of the asthmatic and
the gutteral growl of his neighbor
across the aisle seem to have agreed
upon amatch game for the champion
ship; but all of sudden q sharp eXplo-
sion in berth at the other end of the
car for moment browns these and all
other noises, very much as a clap of
thunder sometimes, for an instant,
dulls the ear to all ordinary sounds.
This causes a temporary lull. as if all
the other snorers had been struck
dumb by the unseemly suddenness and
loudness of that last rifle shot.
But presently the concert IS resumed
in all its sonorous variagation. The
wheeler again wheezes, and the shorter
again snorts; the big fat man ''males
Rome how'll as before; the sleeping
lady, in the sweet innocency of uncon-
seriousness, again plays mild accom-
paniment of unpretentous gasps and
gurgles to the shrill tenor of her neigh
Dor, the commercial traveller, and to
the deep bass of the burly doctor, who
is dreaming dreadful dreams across
the way. There are sounds of explo-
sions, groans and catterwauling of
men seemingly choking to death from
a lack of sufficient wind-power to OPP
crate the breathing machinery; Of
Kisses, grunts, neighing horses, roaring
bulls, whining dogs, splitting cats,
blowing bellows, sSam-expelling en-
gines, miniature thunder, small earth
quakes and squealing pigs. And this
stertorous pandemonium was in full
and chaotic progress when the locomo-
tive whistled and pulled, and the noise
of the resuming train, moving over the
sleepers beneath, drowned the noises of
the snoring sleepers within.
The outlandish concert was ended,
and he who had been thus entertained
by it, deliberately analyzing the ele-
ments of the tumult, turned over in his
berth and joined the slumberers, but
| was very careful not to snOre No one