Birmingham state herald., 1896-07-29
THE DREAM PRBvENTER.
Remarkable Invention of Jonas Smith
 Long Island.

 Remarkable Invention of Jonas Smith of
 Long Island.
 New York Mail and Express.
 Down on the north shore of Long Isl- and, below Port Jefferson, there is a set clement of a dozen or fifteen houses, each of which is turned into boarding house. in the summer, with the usual promises of shade, fresh eggs, fishing and sailing. Of course there is none of the first, pre- cious little of the second.
 Jonas Smith was born in this settle ment some forty-ffve years ago. At the age of 30, feeling that he had reached the years of discretion, he migrated to New York and engaged in the fish bus mess. He spends two to four weeks of the summer months at home and aston ishes his old father by relating his inti-' mate relations with everything in New York that savers of gayety and wicked ness. He is regarded with a feeling of awe and admiration, and the neighbors come to see him regularly each summer and listen open-mOuthed to his tales of thrilling adventure with bunco-steerers, green goods men and the sharpers of all description, who, according to Jonas account, are thicker in the streets of the metropolis than the leaves that strew the brooks of Vallambrosa, and that is an old and venerable simile.
 Jonas, since his graduation as a blase city man, had taken to eating late sup pers and had become victim to horrible dreams and nightmares. These horrible nocturnal agonies tortured Jonas only when he slept on his back, and of that habit he set about to cure himself. First he tried harnessing his right arm with a rope to door knob on the left side of the room, but gave 1t up when one night he awakened and found the rope around his neck and his eyes threatening to pop out of his head. He next attempted to make spread eagle of himself, lying on his stomach with his arms extended and his wrists fastened to each side of the bedstead. This necessitated the employ ment of boy to tie him at night and un- tie him in the morning. The boy went off fishing one Sunday and Jonas, who lived in the highest hall bed room in his boarding house, yelled himself black in the face before one of the boarders came up and turned him loose-somewhere about noon time. Still he did not give up trying, and after particularly terrify- ing vision he sat about devising some effective means of relief.
 Jonas set his wits to work and thought steadily for an entire day, and he thought so hard and so steadfastly that he imag- ined he heard his brain buZzing like a bee hive in swarming time. But his per- severance was rewarded. The mental effort was begun at sunrise and ended al sundown, and Jonas had then devised a plan which he proceeded to put into im- mediate execution. He bought a hand saw, hammer, a jack knife and pound of small nails from hardware store, and a soap box from grocer. The box he took apart, and cut the wood into certain lengths. He made two inverted V's, 6 inches long from base to apex, and braced them in the middle with a straight strip. Then he placed them on their bases so that they resembled the entrance to a triangular tunnel and con- nected their apexes with wooden brace inches in length. To each base of the inverted V he attached leather strap, two straps containing perforations, and two with buckles. It took Jonas until midnight to complete his device, and when it was finished he put it on his back, fastening one strap around his chest and the other around his waist. Then he went to bed. and had the satis- faction of awakening several times in a vain endeavor to turn over on his back, a proceeding that was effectually pre- vented by the double triangle.
 Therefore it is, that when Jonas now goes travelling, he carries two satchels; one of them sacred to his ingenious dream-preventer.