over it as a convenient substitute for a blanket.
Curtains to beds are rarely or never met with in
Germany or in Russia. In the latter country,
they are, however, found across the room, as a
screen only; and in England and Prance, the
single tester, or a light curtain round the head
of the bed, over a pole, through a ring, or
depending from a short canopy, are gradually and
indeed rapidly superseding the old four-post
bedsteads of our early days, which are still to
be found in old country-houses and in ancient
inns, with thick worsted curtains, useless, if
kept open, and close, suffocating, and unwholesome,
if drawn.

The great bed of Ware, which has become
historical, has quite recently been advertised to
be sold by auction. Whilst the bedsteads
dwindle down to the smallest possible size in
the northern parts of Europe, we find in the
parts of North Italy near Como and Milan
enormously large ones, nearly approaching to the
great bed at Ware: we measured one at an inn
at Lugano, and it was ten feet across.

Beds have been stuffed with feathers, wool,
horsehair, what is called flock, which is an
omnium gatherum of all sorts of productions,
shavings, hay, straw, and in the south of Europe
with the soft and elastic dried leaves of maize;
dried seaweed has also been used, and was once
in fashion in this country, under the name of
algo marina; but, pleasant as it was when
perfectly dry, the sea-salt abiding amongst it
attracted the moisture in every direction, from
the atmosphere, from the perspiration, &c., and
it became damp and unpleasant. In one of the
seasons when hops were so abundant that they
hardly paid for the gathering, a farmer sold the
feathers from all the beds in his house, and
replaced them with the hops. In another year or
two, when the hops failed, and the price
became very high, these same hops were
disinterred from their beds, and fetched a considerable
sum, far more than sufficient to replace the
former feathers. History does not say whether
the farmer's family slept more soundly for the
hop beds, or whether the hops thus preserved
were found to have any peculiarly fine flavour
when made into beer.

There is no doubt that a vast number of
people in health— we say nothing of invalids —
lie too long in bed. It may also be said that
they sleep too hot, as well as too long, to be
likely to preserve health and live to a good old
age. It has been long known that those who
have far exceeded the ordinary length of human
life, whatever their other habits may have been,
have always been early risers; and we have
remarked, also, that very old people who keep
their health usually have slept with very little
bed-covering. Young children and people with
feeble circulations require more clothing than
others, but only at first; and when once warmed,
they would become too hot, their sleep would be
broken or unrefreshing, unless some of the
extra clothing were removed. Careful mothers
and nurses are in the habit, after their children
have been in bed an hour, to visit them and relieve
them of the extra coverings; otherwise the
result is, that the poor child kicks off all the
bed-clothes, becomes chilled, and gets an
illness.

The exact character of beds, and the fitness
of them for the comfortable repose of their
occupiers, will much depend on the habits of
nations, and what may be held to constitute
comfort, which will vary with individuals. When
a former Persian ambassador was shown into
his bedroom at Mivart's Hotel, where a grand
canopied state bed had been prepared for him,
he supposed it was a throne in his audience-
chamber, received his visitors seated on it, and
retired to sleep on the carpet in the corner of
the room.

But the public are gradually opening their
eyes to the sanitary improvements which
thoughtful encouragers of social science are
pointing out, and amongst these may be
considered the regard to healthy sleep, as promoted
by the avoidance of confined and insufficient
air in bedrooms, the confinement of curtains,
and the too great warmth and softness of beds
and bedding. Opinion is more and more
prevalent that bed-curtains are to be either avoided
entirely or merely used as screens, and not as
closing up every access of air. The free
ventilation of bedrooms is now generally advocated,
and Miss Nightingale's doctrines are making way.
Open windows through the night are by many
considered dangerous, and that is a prejudice to
some degree founded on truth, that night air is
unwholesome. Whilst Miss Nightingale does
not deny that night air is less safe than the air
of daylight, she observes, with her usual sound
sense, that surely bad night air is worse than
good night air, and describes more graphically
than pleasantly the noisome effluvia of a
bedroom which has been closed all night, as
perceived by one coming into it in the morning
from another atmosphere. But much will
depend on habit, and it is unsafe for one only
accustomed to closed windows all the year to
make sudden changes in cold weather. Still,
let any one try cautiously; let him begin in
warm summer weather to open his windows at
night, and then continue the habit through the
rest of the year, and he will find his sleep far
more refreshing, and he will awake with a much
more invigorated feeling. Even with invalids the
plan may be safely pursued, and in many sorts of
illness it will be far more necessary than for
those in health. In affections of the respiratory
organs, fresh air is as desirable as for
others; but undoubtedly in such cases a cold
current of air is unsafe. But it may be warmed
and be equally fresh. A very simple plan for
this purpose was explained in some letters from
Clifton a few months ago: a tube, communicating
with the open air through an opening in a
pane of the window, being carried through the
room along the ceiling, with a fly-wheel turning
only inwards to promote a current, the other open
end of the tube, being carried over the bed or
elsewhere, causes a constant supply of fresh air
from the outside; but before it escapes into the