GE11MAN BEDS.

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that, owing to tlie Sharp points of the protruding horse-hair,you enjoy your night's rest,—if you tlo not Lappen to belongto one of the pachydermatous class of animals,—about as muchas you would if you were sleeping on a scrubbing-brush;and, before morning, you become so irritated with the con-tinual chafing, that the bed on which you are lying seemsto your drowsy imagination to be literally stuffed with ladies'hair-pins.

Still the catalogue of miseries is not ended—for a Germanbed is one of the most exquisite instruments of torture—almostas barbarous and trying to the nerves, indeed, as the sewing upof criminals in hides and leaving them to be pressed to deathby the contraction of the skin in the rays of the sun. Tliebed-clothes are no wider than jack-towels, and therefore in-capable of being tucked in under the edges of the mere ribbonof mattrass on which you have to pass the night; so that withevery turn of your body you are left as lightly clad as anAfrican prince—an airiness of costume which, in a countrywhere the thermometer ranges from 90° in the shade to severaldegrees below zero, is not particularly recomraended forrheumatism. The Prussians in winter roll themselves up inthe " bettdecke" as tight as a grub in its cocoon; but Engländerswho have never known the necessity to use their bedclothesas an Indian does Ins blanket, suffer severely in resorting to soprimitive a mode of covering themselves by night.

Nor should it be imasined that even sheets and blanketsare inventions that have yet made their way into everyGerman dwelling. As we said before, the majority of Deut-schers are as ignorant of such things as a Carib is of a tooth-brush, for it is still a national custom to sleep between the bedsthroughout Rhineland—the under-bed being often only asack stuffed with straw, and the upper one always a gigantic