Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1891 — THE HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

THE HOUSEHOLD.

Look After Your. Sleep. Insomnia is rightfully regarded as one of the marks of an overwrought or worried nervous system, and, conversely we may take it that sound sleep, lasting for a reasonable period—say from six to nine hours in the case of adults—is a fair test pf nervous competence. Various accidental causes may temporarily interfere with sleep in the healthy; but still the rule holds good, and a normal brain reveals its condition by obedience to this dally rythmic variation. Custom can do much to contract one’s natural term of slpep, a fact of which w e are constantly reminded in these days of high pressure; but the process is too artificial to be employed. Laborious days, with scanty intervals of rest, go far to secure all the needful conditions of insomnia. In alloting hours of sleep, it is Impossible to adopt any maxim or uniform custom. The due allowance varies with the individual. Age, constitution, sex, fatigue, exercise, each uas Us share of influence. Young persons and hard workers naturally need and should have more sleep than those who neither grow nor labor. Women have by common consent been assigned a longer period of rest than men, and this arrangement, in the event of their doing hard work, is in strict accordance with their general physical construction and recurrent infirmities. Absoluse rtile there ts none, and it is of little moment to fix an exact average allowance, provided the recurrence of sleep be regular and its amount sufficient for the needs of a given person. So that fatigue does not result In such nerve prostration and irritability as render healthy rest impossible.—London Lancet. Bints for the Housewife. Pieces of licorice laid around where ants run is recommended. Mebingues should be put on puddings after they are slightly coo), as, if the pudding be hot, the egg will liquefy. In cooking vegetables, always remember that boiling water evaporates rapidly on the approach of a storm or when it tab raining. I