Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1888 — Comfort from Newspapers. [ARTICLE]

Comfort from Newspapers.

llauy years ago, in one of the severe winters -when there was ranch 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 Oomfort 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, Dut still poorer are the thin layars of air that are confined when two oj 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 9 substitute for blankets and oomforters, but it is one of those make-shifts that it is well to know. In travailing one may, by the aid oi 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 •hew them how to increase the usefulness of their thin coverings by stitching a few layers of newspapers betwee* them. It may be well 10 remind thoee vhe grow window-plants that, by ta moving them away from the window, and arranging a cover of newspapers over them, they may be preserved from harm in severely oold nights. With the plants, as with ourselves, it is not so muoh that cold comes in as that the heat goes off, and often a alight protection will prevent the escape of hast ittwr tean AjriovjUurtH