Year: 1878

new 1Ork WOrlQ.l


Just at present the people of New York are
fortunate in the visitation of comparatively
cool nights in which it is possible to sleep
with comfort, and from which they awake
refreshed, but the time is coming when sleep
shall not visit our eyes, neither slumber our
eyelids, through the long watches of the
night, unless we shall be very careful to take
advantage of every little hypnotic device
within reach. Then we shall wish that the
blessing should be ours which fell TO the lot
of that ancient William Foxley, pot maker
for the mint In the tower of London, who
slept steadily for fourteen days and fifteen
nights, nor could be aroused from his dreams
even by the application of the thumbscrews
and other pleasant devices with which the
tower used to abound. From the days of
Galen down to those of DR.. Carpenter and
DIR. Hammond the subject of sleep has been
most attractive to physicians, and all sorts
of means have been recommended by which,
when coy, it may successfully be woed. We
baye been advised to RIB the feet together
with alacrlty; to fix our mind on something
vast, such as the sky, the ocean, the grocer's
bill; to count uatil numbers lose all their
significance; to read books which may be
opened and dropped at any page, like Pepys'
DIARY" or Burton's Anatomy" to take
dumb-bell exercise and hot and cold baths
before going to bed; 10 eat light or heavy
suppers; TO drink glass of ice water or
nutmeg and toast aud cup OF ale or posset
of the same just before the head touches the
pillow; in short, we have been instructed to
take ali sorts of contradictory COURSES of con-
duct If we would sleep we..ii, ASsat as yet no
sovereign remedy for summer insomnia
has been found. We do not think that one
will ever be found, any more than it will
ever be possible to keep people awake when
they are inclined to nod, as they sometimes
are, even in church.


And this reminds us that century and a
half ago John Rudge, dying saint, who
knew how much good time he kad wasted in
slumber, bequeathed the sum of 20 shillings
a year to some poor man who would take il
upon him in Trysull, Staffordshire, to 60
about the church and keep the people awake
during divine service, and that many SINH
lar bequests have been made from time i'm
memorial. No such device is needed by us,
for during the summer months, when wor-
shippers by day are likely to drop off into
the land of Nod. our clergymen wisely take
their vacations by forest, field and stream
and gather strength with which in winter
they keep their parishioners wide awake
while they discourse of politics and the
wrath to come. The sight of a person
asleep in church is now one of the rarest of
things, although, if there be any truth in
tradition, it was once one of the common
est To what this fact is owing, whether to
the excellent discourses OF our clergymen,
or to the fact, as ii is said to be, that Ameri-
cans do not, under any circumstances, sleep
as much as their forefathers did, is of
course, a question open TO discussion. But
whatever the truth may be, certain it is that
il we are restless and wakeful, we can not
like our ancestors betake ourselves to the
sanctuary, hoping reasonably for ease from
our insomnia The churches are closed and
can give us no deliverance.


In the deg days we perhaps seem to suffer
from sleeplessness more than in reality We
do suffer Then we do not work as we do
when the weather is cool, and are half asleep
much of the time. If it were not perver
sion of language, it might almost be said that
man hibernates in summer, doing and
drea ming at inopportune moments, and
awaking fully only at the demand of some
thing or immediate importance The conse-
uuencs is that at night he slumbers rather
ihan sleeps The cry of the milkman easily
starts him at morn; the tickle of fly dis
turbs him. and there is a general sense of
byperes sthesia at night which is the natural
result of listlessness during the day. The
main trouble seems TO be that in warm
weather we do not use our force sufficiently
during the day to be really sleepy at night,
and when one is not sleepy no poppy nor
mendragora can do more than to WOO him to
slumber, which is not sleep. The time to
accomplish good work now is in the early
morning, when three or four hours may be
spent at it, and when light lunch at noon,
followed by siesta, will do more good than
any attempt TO combat nature during the
hours which in winter would be devoted ex-
cluslvely to labor. A man who is wide
awake when he is awake at all, and who
then works after the fashion of men who
have 10 work in order to live, is not likely,
even in the warmest weather, to be troubled
with sleeplessness when the time comes for
him to sleep. But above all we should keep
our consciences clean and clear in summer
and defer all rascaliiy to the winter, even
when pirates can sleep the sleep of the just