Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1883 — Comfort from Newspapers. [ARTICLE]

Comfort from Newspapers.

Many years ago, in one of the severe winters when there was much hardship among the poor, a city paper suggested that old newspapers, spread over the bed, would form an excellent substitute for blankets and coverlets. This brought upon the journal a great deal of harmless ridicule from other papers, but it brought comfort to many a poor family. In the matter of bed-clothing, especially, we are apt to associate warmth with weight, and do not consider that there is no warmth in the coverings themselves, but that they merely prevent the heat of the body from passing off. Whatever is a poor conductor of heat will make a warm covering. Paper itself is a poor conductor, but still poorer are the thin layers of air that are confined when two or three newspapers are laid upon one another. A few newspapers laid over the bed will keep one much warmer than some of the heavy, close-woven blankets. We do not propose newspapers as a substitute for blankets and comforters, but it, is one of those make-shifts that it is well to know. In traveling one may, by the aid of a few papers, secure a comfortable rest in a thinly-clad bed, and if we cannot afford to give a destitute family a blanket |or a comforter, we may show them how to increase the usefulness of their thin coverings by stitching a few layers of newspapers between them. It may be well to remind those whs grow window-plants that, by removing them away from the window, and arranging a cover of newspapers over them, they may be preserved from harm in severely cold nights. With the plants, as with ourselves, it is not so much that cold comes in as that the heat goes off, and often a slight protection will prevent the escape of heat—American ApricvlturUt.

A DisTiNGtnsHßjo minister, lately dead, having engaged to publish a sermon, was waited upon by the printer with the first proof, which, of course contained the text, in which a most singular mistake was made. The text was from the second chapter of Job, “Skin for Asa • yea, all that man hath wifi he give for his life.” The printer's blunder consisted in substituting a t* for the l in the last word, which presented a very different meaning from the original text The minister smiled at the miateke, end simply wrote on the margin, “ N. B.— This depends upon circumstances.”

The Jasper County Teachers* Institute will be held in the Court House, commencing August 20th. A full attendance is expected.