Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1888 — Comfort from Newspaper. [ARTICLE]

Comfort from Newspaper.

Many years ago, in one of the seven ■winters 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 brunet upon the journal a great deal of harmless ridioule from other pap«H«, but it brought oomfort to many a poor family. In the matter of bed-olothing, 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 neat will make a warm ooveriug. Paper itself is a poor conductor, nut still poorer are the thin layers of air that are oonfined 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 s substitute for blankets and comforters, but it is oue 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 Shew them how to increase the usefulness of their thin coverings by stitching a few layers of newspapers Detweea them. It may be well to remind those whe grow window-plants that, by removing them away from the window, and arranging a cover of newspapers over them, thev 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 esoape of heat imir to oh AjricuUuri* 4