The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-01-04
from the Louisville CONFESSIONAL.

IN ONT go to bed with cold feet"
"p advised an old physician.
l. But" queries a querulous
sufferer. shall I sit up with them?"
Do as you like In this matter, but
whatever you do beware of. or be care
full in the use of the foot-warmer. Don't
go to bed with the germ of potential con-
fiagration under the covers. II you do
somebody may rudely heave you through
a window at the witching time of night,
to repent your indiscretion in your night
clothes, as chilly as the frizen-frozen
Lorelei who figured in a song once made
popular by Frank Daniels.
An estimable Connecticut spinster went
to bed with a hot fiat-iron tucked close
to her pedal extremities, hoping to avoid
both the disregard of the physicians adj
vice and the alternative suggested by the
querulous sufferer. Note the result. and
be advised The fiatiron had a narcotic
effect upon Miss O'Connor. She slept
She dreamed beautiful dreams. She
snored. no doubt, although it is not chiv-
alrous to suggest the possibility. 1t was
not until the sole of one foot was nicely
fried that she awakened from her slum-
bers. The bed was ablaze. Flames light
ed the scene. Somebody in the street had
turned In fire alarm. So quickly was
1t responded to that Miss OConnor was
still sitting up in bed, rubbing her fried
foot upon a cold place between the sheets
and collecting her wits, when the firemen
burst into her Observation-Disclosures I'M
profaned by the presence of man. They
hurriedly heaved the bed out Of the win
dow into two degrees of frosty atmos-
phere, ignorant of the fact that its occu-
pant had dived beneath the bedclothes,
preferring incineration to improperly
We quote the veracious correspondent
at South Norwalk
Fortunately for the woman, she landed
on the piazza roof. At this point Miss
O'Connor recovered from her swoon, and
her cries from the center of the tick re-
suited in her being drawn back into the
house. while the blazing bed was pushed
off into the snow and the fire extin-
gushed'
Formerly the bed-warmer was a Ia
miliar household articles. 1t consisted of
an iron firebox with a long handle, and
was passed between the sheets to height
en- the arctic temperature in houses where
steam heat and furnaces were unknown.
This was before the birth Of the propagan-
da OF the health culturists, who keep
warm by taking cold baths and wearing
summer underclothing in winter, and
dodge catching cold' by sleeping out OF
doors when the weather is behaving as it
does in melodrama when the heroine,
misunderstood but blameless. Is turned
out into the core of the blizzard to wan
der dolorously until the fourth act. Now
adays. we're told by science that we are
steamed and baked until thoroughly ten
der, like dollhouse plants, and get pneu-
monia as q result of going out into the
storm with our pores unlidded. To grow
healthy and hardy we must cease to
make ovens of our living rooms and DOR
mitories, and let In q little frost as a
tonic for the system. Mention of the
foot-w warmer or bed-warmer is reminis-
cent of a past which knew neither the
perilous luxury of an overabundance of
heat nor the fierce Joy Of sloshing about
| In Ice water, Of sleeping out of doors. and
of scoring at the storm in our last sum-
mer's underwear, our low-cut shoes and
our lightweight socks.
] Now and then there is found, of course.
an old-fashioned person with an old-fash-
Toned aversion to old-fashioned cold feet.
| To such persons-individuals unable to
keep abreast of the times, Temperament
tally opposed to innovations. and not pos
sessed Of steam-heated homes In which
! to bake themselves into . watkins asy-