Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1896-03-18
THE ART OF GOING TO BED.

Mr.. Ernest Hart, D. G. L., is lectur-
ing in London on the cart of Living"
He thinks at the end of 5000 years very
few of US understand the elementary
principles of comfort and health, and
then treats what seems the not too
complicated subject of going to bed.
The management of the bedroom and
the art of going to bed would seem to
be very simple matters, as to which
some rational principles and comfort
able and healthy customs might be ex-
pected to prevail. Let US see. Take
the case of the ordinary well-to-do man.
When ready to retire he puts on
something which is called a "night
gown," sort of linen or cotton sack
with sleeves, which leaves the lower
limbs and feet more or less uncovered,
and at once makes man an uncomfort-
able and ridiculous object. 1t is the
clothing of the primeval savage. If
ridiculous situation is needed for farce
it is commonly created by night
alarm at which the sleepers appear in
this ridiculous guise at the becroom
door.
The bed is ridiculous contrivance,
having the worst of all coverings, linen
sheets, the foster mothers OF rheuma-
tsm, and the worst of all material for
contact with the skin. To counterbal.
ance its defects and increase the mis-
cries heavy supersbundant mass of
blankets and quilts is imposed, and to
prevent any comfortable or free move,
ment of the limbs these are tucked in
around the edges, constituting huge
set CT swaddling clothes, such as only
savages now employ even for children.
The fire now is generally allowed to
become extinct, if ever lighted, and
those who have passed their day in
warm rooms often spend the night in
chamber in which the temperature is
not much above the freezing point, and
to mitigate which complete reclothing
of the body is required. The reasonable
practice would require first that for the
present hideous and ridiculous night
gown psjamas OF various degrees of
warmth or thinness should be provided
The present bedstead and bed clothing
should be altogether discarded, and two light
| eiderdowns like the Indian resai or the Jap
anese futon should be substituted Night
socks should be worn Of texture suired to
the season. Near tho couch should be pro-
v:ded book shelf with the fsvorte books
For myself, select old and well known
fsvortes, Montaigue's Essays, Pepys' Diary,
Browns Religio medici, Pickwick, Burton's
Anatomy of Melancholy, handy po ket
Shakespeare, and Milton, with Virgil Homer
and Horace. Everybody will make his own
SELECTION Of well known and well-worn, and
therefore not too exciting authors. The couch
should be supplied with a convenient head
rest, which falls forward at a touch. BY tho
bed should he one lever which controls the
gas, fire and temperature, and one which con-
tro.s the light, either Byepass bed light or
an electric light, as may be most convenient.
The room should be kept at temperature
which never falls below so degrees, and in
another part of it should be placed long
'deck chair" with cushions to which, if the
sleeper grows restless, he can easily transfer
himself and repose at any angle. That is how
to go to bed nationally, healthiiy, prepared
for the emergencies of the night, whether of
sleeplessness or household accident.