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EAT BEFORE SLEEP.
It is the True Way to Obtain
Refreshing Slumber.
To Sleep on an Empty Stomach
is to Awake Exhausted.
Going to bed with a well-filled
stomach is the essential prerequisite of
refreshing slumber, The cautious so
often reiterated in old medical journals
against late suppers were directed chief¬
ly to the bibulous habits of those early
times. When at every late feast the
guests not unseldom drank themselves
under the table, or needed strong as¬
sistance to reach their couch, the canon
against such indulgence was net un¬
timely. Nature and common seuse
teach us that a full stomach is essential
to quiet repose. Every man who has
found it difficult to keep awake after a
hearty dinner has answered the problem
for himself. There are few animals
that can be trained to rc3t until after
they are fed.
Man, as he comes into the world, pre -
sents a condition it would be well for
him to follow in all his after-life. The
sweetest minstrel ever sent out of para¬
dise cannot sing an infant to sleep on
an empty stomach. We have known
reckless nurses to give the little ones a
dose of paregoric or soothing syrup in
place of its cup of milk, when it was
too much trouble to get the latter, but
this is the one alternative. The little
stomach of the sleeping child, as it be¬
comes gradually empty, folds on itself
in plaits; two of these make it restless;
three will open its eyes, but by careful
soothing these may be closed again;
four plaits and the charm is broken;
there is no more sleep in that house¬
hold until that child has been fed. It
seems to us so strange that with this
example before their eyes full-grown
men are so slow to learn the lesson.
The farmer docs it for his pig, who
would squeal all night if it were not
fed at the last moment, and the groom
knows that his horse will paw in his
stall until he has had his meal. But
when lie wishes to sleep himself he
never seeim to think of it. To sleep,
the fulness of the blood must leave the
head: to digest the eaten food the
Wood must come to the stomach. Thus,
sleep and digestion aro natural allies;
one helps the other.
Man, by long practice, will train
himself to sleep on an empty stomach,
but it is more the sleep of exhaustion
than the sleep of refreshment. He wakes
up after such a troubled sleep feeling
utterly miserable until he has had a cup
of coffee or some other stimulant, and
he has so injured the tone of his stom¬
ach that he ha3 little appetite for break¬
fast. Whereas, one who allows himself
to sleep after a comfortable meal awakes
strengthened, and his appetite has been
quickened by that preceding indul¬
gence.*
The difficulty in recovery comes
from the fact that we arc such creatures
of our habits it is impossible to break
away from them without persistent
effort. In this case the man who has
eaten nothing after 6 o’clock and re¬
tires at 10 or 11 takes to bed an empty
stomach upon which the action of the
gastric juices makes him uncomforta¬
ble all the night. If he proposes to
try our experiment he will sit down
and eat a tolerably hearty meal. He is
unaccustomed to this at that hour aud
has a sense of discomfort with it. U e
may try it once or twice, or even long¬
er, and then he gives it up, satisfied
that for him it is a failure.
The true course is to begin with just
one or two mouthfuls the last thing be-
fore going to bed. And this should bo
light food, easily digested. No cake
or pastry should bo tolerated, One
mouthful of cold roast beef, cold lamb,
cold chicken, aud a little crust of bread
tvill do to begin with, or, what is bet¬
ter yet, a spoonful or two of condensed
milk (not the sweetened that comes in
cans) in three times as much warm
water. Into this cut half a pared peach
and two or three Itttlc squares of bread,
*he whole to be one-fourth or one-sixth
of what would be a light lunch.
Ircrcase this very gradually, until at
-Uicnd of a month or six weeks the
patient may indulge in a bowl of milk,
‘wo peaches, with a half hard roll or a
crust of home-made bread, When
peaches are gone take baked apples
the milk till strawberries come,
and eat the latter till peaches return
again. This is the secret of our health
"ad vita ity. We often work until
after midnight, but eating the comfort¬
able meal is the last thing we do every
night of the year. This is not an un¬
tried experiment or one depending on
the testimony of i single witness.—
American Analyst.
They Split the Difference.
Adjutant-General Mullen was in a
reminiscent mood. ‘T will tell you a
little experience I hal down in Louis¬
iana in 1SG2,” he said. “I was a mem¬
ber of the Connecticut Volunteers. The
opposing armies ha l esme into pretty
close quarters, and Confederate out-
pickets, stragglers and skirmishers
were around us and doing considerable
mischief. Three companies of our reg¬
iment were ordered out on skirmish
duty. We marched down, five paces
apart, according to regulations, into a
perfect morass. The water was waist
S
deep everywhere.
‘■I am not very tall, and found it
necessary to hold up my cartridge belt
to keep it from getting saturated. The
Confederates were scattered through
this swamp, and we took a number of
prisoners without opening fire. I met
with a misfortune. My foot caught be¬
neath a couple of parallel branches be¬
neath the water, aad I was securely
pinioned. My companions continued
on their way while I struggled hard to
extricate myself from my unpleasant
predicament. I finally pulled my foot
out with a desperate effort, but my shoe
was left behind. I could only secure
it by plunging my head beneath the
surface of slimy, noxious, muddy
water, but it had to be done, I ha l
no sooner got the shoe tied on again
than a Confederate came in sight from
behind some bushes. Intuitively our
muskets were simultaneously raised.
“Surrender!’ thundered the Coufcd-
crate.
‘•Surrender yourself?’ I returned at
the top of my lungs.
“Then wc stood and eyed each other.
Each had his gun cocked aud levelled
at the other, but neither pulled a trig¬
ger. Why wo hesitated is more than I
can explain. By delaying, you see,
each was practically placing himself at
the mercy of the other, or so it would
seem. Suddenly the Confederate’s gun
dropped aud I brought mine down
also.
4 4 » See here, Yank,’ he began, in a
much milder tone, *if I should shoot
you my side wouldn’t gain much; and,
again, if you should shoot me your side
wouldn’t gaiu much. Now, I’ve got a
wife and two babies over yonder, and
if you dropped me they wouldu’t have
nobody to take care of them. Now,
it’s a blamed mean man what won’t
split the difference. I’ll let you go il
you’ll let me go, and we’ll call the thing
square. What do you say?’
“Well, what should I say ? I walked
over half way, aud we met and shook
hands and parted, About a year after
a letter came to our camp addressed to
‘Little Yankee that split the differ¬
ence.’ 1 had told him my regiment,
you see, but not my name, The letter
was a cordial invitation to visit the man
at bis home in Louisiana, IIc wanted
me too see the wife and bal>ie3 whose
members had prompted him to propose
to split the difference, and. I have al¬
ways regretted that I wa3 unable to ac¬
cept the invitation.”— St. Paul Pioneer
Press.
The Child of the Future.
It is a dreadful point about these
microbes that the only way to avoid
having them in a virulent form is to
have them in an artificial or attenuated
form. The children of the future will
not run through the present gamut of
infantile disease, but they w ill probab-
ly be subjected to inoculation with
various microbes every few months,
First, they will be vaccinated for small¬
pox; when they have recovered from
that they will be taken to a Pasteur in¬
stitute to have a mild form of rabies.
Next, they will be given a dose of the
comma baccilli to prevent cholera, and
so on through all the ever-growing series
of disease microbes. Oh! luckless child
of the future! you will never be ill and
never be well; your health will never
be awfully monotonous; you will never
know the weariness of the first night of
measles, when it was so nice to lie in
mother’s lap and feel her cool hand on
your forehead; you will never know the
joys of convalescence, when oranges
wa?e numerous and every one was kind
to you because you were not well; and
your end will be to die of debility.
IIow glad we are that we live in the
present, with all its up? and downs of
health to lend variety to life and death.
WILD GEESE.
Exciting Onslaught Upon the
Waterfowl in Iowa.
Great Ingenuity Required to
Overcome Their Caution.
Writing from Hampton, la., a corre¬
spondent of the Chicago lit raid says:
All true sportsmen know that the wild
goose is the most wary of all water- •
fowl, and to make a successful bag a
man needs to use all his ingeuuity to
overcome their caution. This fact
makes the sport highly interesting to
all lovers of a guu. 1 will relate you
incidents of a day’s sport had by two
friends ol mine, Osborn and Kratoch-
vil, two of the most successful goose-
hunters in northern Iowa. Leaving
Hampton on a drizzly day, they drove
about 15 miles northwest, and made
headquarters at a hospitable farmer’s,
who himself was quite a sport. The fol¬
lowing morning before daylight they
were up and out in an adjacent corn¬
field. Geese were plenty, flying in all
directions, but always out of reach.
During the day Osborn met a party of
hunters from Chapin, who were on
their way home, They told him there
was a field of corn about four miles
north, of about ten acres in extent, in
which the corn had not been picked;
said no geese were there as they came
by, but the ground was tracked up as
though a thousand sheep had been feed¬
ing there. When night came Osborn
told Kratochvil of this place, and they
concluded to go there the following
morning. Arising at three o’clock,
and after a liasty lunch
they set out for four-mile
tramp through the frosty air. In cross¬
ing a Anall creek Kratochvil had the
good luck to break through the ice
and get wet up to the waist. This,
however, was small matter with pros¬
pect of geese ahead, so ou they went.
Arriving at the field at last, (after some
trouble in finding it, which made them
late), what a sight met their eyes—
geese, gesse every where; the field was
literally alive with them. Nothing
could now be done but to scare them
out and trust to luck for more coming
in. This was done, and our
sportsmen hastily constructed
small bliuds to hide behind of
cornstalks, and awaited the return of
the game. Soon they spy a small flock
fa the distance. Over they go onto
their backs, and raise their heads to
keep the flock in view. On thev
came, steadily, and slowly, directly
for them. You that have been there
know how long it seems to take from
the time first sighted until the flock
reaches you, and as they get closer
how your muscles harden, your eyes
ache, and it seems as though they would
never reach you. Our meu had been
there before, however, and never moved
until the flock was abreast of
them, when up and bang, bang,
four shots in rapid suc-
cession, and three honkers on the
ground, and a fourth, leaving the flock
aad spreading his wings, sails half a
mile to the westward, where he, too,
tumbles dead. “Down! down!” cries
Osborn, and agaiu both aro behind the
blinds, while another flock is seen quite
close coming from the southward.
Over they come, and another broadside
brings down another pair. The flock
rising Hastily and circling back over
the same spot to sec what had become of
their companions, again placed them¬
selves under fire and three more noble
birds were placed to our men’s credit.
3o it continued for a half hoar, sport
fast and furious, until 21 nob’e black
leeks lay on the field around them. By
ibis time the flight was over, so the
aunters hiding their game in a hay-
jtack tramped back to their rendezvous
for breakfast and sent a wagon for¬
ward to bring in the geese. Thinking
they had sport enough they came home
jnd enjoyed that feeling cf bliss a
sportsman feels as he spreads out his
bag to the view of his friends.
Inriiau Signal System.
The Indians of the great Western
plains have now a system hardly ex¬
ceeded in efficiency by the military code
of the civilized world. For many years
their only means of communicating at a
distance was by signal fires upon the
hill tops at night, and by columns of
smoke during the day. They have a
method, not well known to those out¬
side the native tribes, of covering a fire
until a sufficient Quantity of smoko has
been accumulated, when it will sud¬
denly burst forth into a column of thick
heavy smoke that cannot fail to attract
attention, even at a great distance.
These signal fires and smoke signals arc
still in use among them, but they have
besides a code of signals that is tele¬
graphed from point to point by sun
flashes made with a small mirror. Their
code is not known beyond their own
ranks, further than that it is not a sys¬
tem of words, but that certain flashes of
longer or shorter duration, or that vi-
brations intermingled with steady rays,
signify conditions or events that it was
previously arranged they should indi¬
cate. The Indian heliograph is the
small, round mirror in a metal case,
which has always been an article of
trade with savages all over the world.
Every Indian hunter or warrior wcar3
one of these little mirrors suspended
from a string around his neck, and its
use is constant with him. An officer of
the army who recently was acting as
commissary of subsistence on an Apache
reservation told me that on one occasion
the stock cattle for issue to the Indians
arrived unexpectedly, when ho supposed
there were not more than ten Indians
within twenty miles of the post, except
those around headquarters. These at
once put their little heliographs to use,
and response? were immediately flashed
from the neighboring hill-tops, and re¬
peated to those beyond. The result
was that within three hours there were
more than twenty-five hundred Indians
at the point of issue, and others were
still coming in hot haste from every di¬
rection across, the plains. — Cosmopolitan
Magazine.
The Gills of the Treasury Attic.
Some of the queerest work of the
Treasury Depart men t at Washington is
done in the attic and in the basement.
You can Lave no idea of the varieties of
business which are carried on inside
these great walls, I stood for ten rnin-
utes and watched about fifty women
sewing on carpets in the top loft of
the Treasury. The carpet was
stretched on frames like carpenters’
saw-lior es, and the girls were hav¬
ing a kind of quilting-bee in join¬
ing the widths together. All the car¬
pets of the Government, the country
over, are sewed here, and if a custom-
house at Cleveland or New York wants
a carpet, it sends a diagram of its room
to the Secretary of the Treasury and
the carpet is here made aud shipped.
The charwomen of the Treasury take
charge of the building after the clerks
have gone away and for an hour or so
they turn the Department inside out.
They wash the windows,
They scrub the floors.
And they polish up the kno
Of the big front doors.
They arc under the charge of a head
charwoman, who receives a good round
salary for watching them scrub, and
they get their $240 a year for the busi¬
ness. A number of the girls of the
basement sort waste paper and it takes
quite a regiment to attend to this busi¬
ness. AU of the old envelopes, wrap¬
pers and scraps of paper which accumu¬
late during the day are saved and are
shovelled down into the waste-paper
room. This room looks like a great
country cellar. Its walls are white¬
washed and one-half of the room is di¬
vided into three great bias, which are
filled with throe kinds of paper. The
girls arc carefully watched and they
sometimes find important documents,
and instances have been known of
money coming down to this room.
Suitable Legs and Feet.
Every creature has the kind of legs
and feet best suited to it. Birds living
in marshes have long, slender legs like
stilts and some of them arc called “stilt
birds.” The huge body of the ele¬
phant stands upon four thick pillars,
the stag has supports of a lighter and
nimbler quality. Animals that get
some, or their living in the water, as
bravers, otters, swans, ducks and gee?e,
p.e born with paddles on their feet.
The mole, again, is born with spades
on his forelegs, so that he may dig his
way through the ground, and the
camel has his feet carefully padded and
his legs of sufficient length to lift his
head high above the sand waves so that
his eyes may be protectei from glare
and dust. —Detroit Free Press.
A Medical School Jest.
Firstdoctor—Have you a skeleton?
S e nd doctor—Yes.
First doctor—Let’s nee it.
Second doctor—Ca&’t very well; fact
is. I’m wearing it under my flleda,—
The Voice of the Void.
I warn, like the one drop of r&la
On your face, ere the storm;
Or tremble in whispered refrain
With your blood, beating warm.
I am the presence that ever
Baffles your touch's endeavor,—*
Gone like the glimmer of dust
Dispersed by a gust.
T am the absence that taunts you.
The fancy that haunts you;
The ever unsatisfied guess
That, questioning emptiness,
Wins a sigh for reply.
Nay; nothing am I,
But the flight of a breath—
For I am Death!
•—George Lathrop in the Century .
HUMOROUS.
Flower girls—The miller’s daughters.
Hailstones intended for publication
are usually as big as hens’ eggs.
When a man knows that he cannot
get out of the mud his next impulse is
to go in deeper.
That silonce is golden is proved by"
the fact that it is sometimes a very cost*
ly article to buy.
It was a waggish physician who ad* ;
vised a mau afflicted with kleptomania
to take something for it.
Landlady—Will you pass the butter,
Mr. Johnson? Mr. Johnson—That
butter will not pass, madam?
The quantity of paper that jewelers
wrap around their goods strikes most
people as a great waste of tissue.
A sailor is considered a good skipper
when he understands the ropes, The
same may be said of a little girl.
An American girl in Franco who
wanted to save cable tolls, telegraphed
to her father; i i Marseilles Tuesday.”
Writing poetry is recommended as a
mental exorcise. You can get physical
cxeicisc by attempting to read it to tha
editor.
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the grocer's business
The finest in the land.
Foreman—What’s all that racket over
there; somebody pied a form? Printer
— No, sir. The towel fell on the floor,
that’s all.
Photographers aro the most charita¬
ble of men, for they are always anxious
to take the best view of their fellow-
creatures.
Button manufactories canuot be very
profitable for the button business is «
thiug that sooner or later is bound to
get into a hole.
Miss Gabble—I havo had that parrol
for three months now and it has neve!
spoken a word. Caller—Perhaps yoU
have never given it a chance.
Mrs. Hardhead—That’s our milk¬
man’s wife. Mr. Hardhead—She’s very
becomingly attired. Mr'. Hardhead-
How so? Mr. Hardhead—She wears a
watered silk.
Young Wife—Oh, John, the rats
have eaten all my angel cake! Hus*
band—What! All of it? Young Wife
—Every piece. I feel like crying.
Husband—Ob, pshaw! Don’t cry over
a few rats.
“No,” remarked Semes by, enthusi¬
astically, “there’s nothing like the hot
water cure! It will brace a man up
when all other remedies fail—er—Mrs.
Slimdiet, just let me have a cup of tea,
is you please?”
Student (writing to his father): 1
beg you, my dear father, not for a
minute to think that I need this money
to pay debts with. I give you my
word of honor that I want It only for
myself, and that there is no question of
debts. *
Teacher (promenading with his pupil
in the field)—“Nature’s works are
marvelous,” exclaimed the pupil.
“Yes, indeed,” the teacher replies;
“when you come to think, for an ex¬
ample, that the humblest insect has its
Latin name.”
Homely Women of Portugal.
The Portuguese men are rather be¬
low the medium height, of olive com¬
plexion and have brilliant black eyes.
For the most part they are very hand-*
some. The women, on the contrary,
are excessively homely, but dress in
very good taste. Both gentleman and
ladies copy the Parisian fashions. The
prettiest women are the fisher maids,
who go about the streets barefooted
with their baskets of fish on their heeds,
after the fashion of the Egyptian women
with their pitchers of water. Some of
these girls are remarkably pretty, and.
strange to say, their feet are small and
delicate looking and their forms grace-