Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1881 — Sleep. [ARTICLE]

Sleep.

There is no fact more clearly established in the physiology of man than this, that the brain expends its energies and itself during the hours of wakefulness, and that these are recuperated during sleep; if the recuperation does not equal the expenditure the brain withers; this is insanity. Thus It is that in early English history persons who were condemned to death by being prevented from sleeping, always died raving maniacs; thus tt is a?so that those who are starved to death become insane; the brain is not nourished and they cannot sleep. The practical inferences are three: Those who think most, who do most brain work, require most sleep: That time “saved” from necessary sleep is infalliably destructive to mind, body and estate. Give youraelf, your children, your servMits, rive all who are under you the fullest amount of sleep they will take by compelling them to go to bed at some regular, earty hour, and to rise in the morning the moment they awake of themselves, and within a fortnight nature, with almost the regularity of the rising sun, will un-

loose the tends of sleep the moment enough repose has been secured for the wants of the system. This is the only sufficient rule, and aa the question how much sleep any one requires, each must be a rule for himselr; great nature will never foil to write It out to the observer, under the regulations Just given.

Eighteen hundred and eljftity was an exceptionally good year for comets, gome two hundred of these erratic nebulse have been seen hi this century; so that thos_» seen in 1880 were more than a fair allowance .for several ordinary years. Early in FebruaryProfessors Gould, of Cordova, and Gill, of Cape Town, announced a comet which has been authoritatively spoken of as “oue of the greatest astronomical wonders of this century, if not of modern times.’* It was ISO,000.000 miles long, for jpore than the distance from the earth to "Hie sun. Unfortunately’ this rare visitor escaped our nothem telescopes, for it was only visible in the southern hetnisBhere.8 here. Early in April, however, J. I. Schoberleon, of Ann Arbor, found a little one near the north star. On August 11th Dr. Swift, of Rochester, saw one, and at. the end of September Professor Harrington, of Ann Arbor, saw another. On Oetober 10th, Dr. Swift, of Rochester, bagged a second, making the fifteenth which has been discovered in this country. Of these six go to the doctor’s individual score, and for the last four years his average has been oue per annum. That, vuln speaking, “gave him the cake.” as shortly after this that another eminent scientific persons, who apparently had some difficulty in aiming his telesope, took occasion' to print a letter in which be referred to the “usual bungling way” in which Dr. Swift prepares the occasional menues, incomprehensible by the vulgar, which tells his colleagues when comets and other astronomical delicacies are in season. Finally, at the end of the year, came Coopers comet, which, however, has had its fires pretty much extinguished by the cold water which has been thrown upon it by our own astronomers—if we may be allowed that figure of speech. Parnell has been expelled and twen-ty-seven other Irish members suspended from the house of commons for the course they have pursued in connection with tne coercion bill.- A meeting of home rulers was afterwards held at which they decided to issne a manifesto to the Irish people, denouncing the conduct of the house, but advising the people to keep within the lines of constitutional action. •A profane Philadelphia newspaper suggests that now that the army is fitted out with cork helmets it will be necessary to furnish the Indians with rcokscrews instead of guns.