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House Furnishing and Decorating: Ordinary

Ordinary woven picture wire is now inexpensive and can be used again and again. It not only looks better but is safer than cord. Ordinary "silver" wire is suitable for most purposes. It can be touched up with a little bronze paint to hang gilt frames, or when it becomes tarnished.

Picture hooks of brass may be painted white or otherwise, to conform to the color of the picture molding and thus be less conspicuous.

In order to get the most effective arrangement, when in doubt where to hang pictures, do the experimental grouping on the floor. Thus the pictures may be shifted about until the most tasteful way is found. This saves many trips up and down the stepladder. When taking down pic< tures from the molding, make a dot with a pencil point on the wall back of the molding, where it will not show, exactly where the hook was hung, or leave the hook in place so that the picture when cleaned may be returned to its place without the necessity of measuring again. But if the wall coverings are of material that shows the effect of fading, as do most solid colors, especially greens and browns in ingrain papers, burlap, and the like, change the position of the pictures occasionally. Otherwise the wall covering behind the picture will not fade, and when for any reason a change becomes necessary the outlines will be unsightly.

Mats for Pictures. - Use common ingrain or moiré wall papers of various colors in place of mats or picture mounts. It is cheaper and equally effective. Mount the pictures on the mats as photographs are mounted.

Magazine Covers. -The cover designs and full-page illustrations of several of the leading monthly and other periodicals are reproductions of the best works of prominent artists and illustrators. These are freely used in many homes to decorate the walls of libraries, dens, and sometimes living rooms, either framed or bound in passepartout binding or merely neatly trimmed with a straightedge, and attached to the wall by means of brass-headed tacks or thumb tacks. A series of cover designs of one or more periodicals makes a very interesting and attractive frieze for the den or library.

SLEEPING ROOMS The objects and nature of sleep should be understood as a basis for the intelligent furnishing and care of the bed and bedroom. Perhaps no other subject in connection with the household is more important or less understood. Where more than one person occupies a sleeping room each individual should have a separate bed, even if the requirements of space or other conditions make it necessary for two or more beds to stand side by side. It is especially important that children, after a very early age, should have separate cradles or cribs provided for them and be taught to occupy them. The reason for this custom is that individuals vary greatly in the amount of heat required to keep the body in a normal condition during sleep. Children require less covering than grown persons, and aged persons require much more covering than those in middle life. Separate beds admit of each individual adjusting the covering to his own requirements. Again, while the bodily sensations are dormant during sleep, they are not absent, or else a person could not be awakened. The body is still sensitive to outer impressions.

Hence the motions of another sleeper or the changes in temperature produced by the addition or removal of coverings to accommodate a bedfellow may awaken a sleeper who by his restless motions will keep his companion awake, and no sound sleep may be enjoyed by either person.

Fortunately, the invention of cast-iron and other cheap metallic bedsteads that may be obtained in half and three-quarter sizes makes it possible for many families to afford separate beds, a luxury which would formerly have been denied them.

The introduction of iron and brass bedsteads in many homes on sanitary and hygienic grounds, and the consequent discarding of old-fashioned wooden bedsteads that are heavy, difficult to clean, and that by collecting dust and furnishing harboring places for vermin are constantly contributing to the labor of the housekeeper, gives an opportunity to introduce this "The Introduction of Iron and Brass Beds." cleanly, healthful, and agreeable custom. Moreover, single or half beds can be readily moved from one room to another and from place to place, and are easier to care for. 1 Ventilation of Bedrooms. -The effect of entire lack of ventilation is illustrated by the celebrated case of the "Black Hole of Calcutta." About 150 Europeans taken at the capture of Fort Williams in Calcutta in 1756 were confined in a dungeon about twenty feet square, having two small windows. The following morning only twenty-three remained alive. In a similar case, on the steamer Londonderry, 150 passengers were confined in a small cabin for a number of hours. Of these, seventy died from constantly rebreathing the air contaminated in the lungs and by various exhalations of the human body. In breathing (and also in the combustion of fuel, as wood or coal, or of oil or gas for illumination), a part of the oxygen of the air which is necessary for human life is converted into carbonic-acid gas. The atmosphere consists of about 78 per cent of nitrogen,. 20.96 per cent of oxygen, 1 per cent of HOUSE FURNISHING AND DECORATING argon, and .04 per cent of carbonicacid gas mixed together. Each breath converts about one fourth of the available oxygen in the air into carbonic-acid gas; hence in an air-tight space death from suffocation would very quickly ensue.

Ordinary dwellings are, of course, by no means air-tight, and are partially ventilated through the narrow openings about window frames, by the occasional opening of doors, and through various cracks and crevices.

But these sources are not sufficient to supply the volume of pure air required for human breathing. Rooms occupied by a number of persons are almost invariably so close that a great deal of air is necessarily breathed again and again. The results upon bodily health are in their nature the same as those which produce death by suffocation. Only the exhaustion is more gradual and extends over a longer period of time. The effects of insufficient ventilation are perhaps less during our waking hours than during sleep. Most persons move about a good deal during the day and are in and out of doors.

Moreover, the lungs are active, and if the air is impure, they may make up the deficiency by more frequent respiration. When a person is conscious, the discomfort of close air, resulting in headaches and a sense of incipient suffocation, affords warning that it is time to change the air in the room or take a walk outside. But a sleeper is usually unconscious of any warning sensations. The respiration is slower, and there is nothing to check the evil effects of breathing again and again the air that has been robbed of its oxygen. The result is the impairment of all the vital processes that normally make up during sleep for the daily wastes of the body. Hence sleeping in poorly ventilated rooms leads immediately to headaches, a sense of having rested badly, with exhaustion and fatigue, and eventually to such wasting diseases as consumption, catarrh, and other affections of the head, throat, and lungs.

The Fresh-air Cure. - It is now well known that consumption, the most wasting and fatal of all human diseases, can be cured in many cases by simply breathing pure air out of doors, both day and night. Modern sanitariums have sleeping porches of canvas or tents in which patients sleep out of doors, even in cold climates in winter, the body being protected by suitable covering. The contrast between slow suffocation from lack of ventilation and the cure of consumption by breathing pure air both day and night should impress upon everyone the absolute necessity of thorough ventilation, especially in sleeping apartments.