shaped block of wood under the head to serve as a pillow.

Somewhere among the races dwelling near the eastern end of the Mediterranean the chair and bed were apparently earliest developed. Whether there is something in the line of particular descent of these races entailing obscure anatomical peculiarities which caused them to prefer to sit on an elevated chair in preference to lying on the floor as some other races do,when apparently in an equally advanced state, may be left to the anthropologist and the ethnologist, and it now appears that the enquiry may not be totally without fruit.

The evolution of the bed as something more than a rude heap akin to the soft matted grass nest of the field mouse, or the coarser underground accumulation of the woodchuck, the bed in simple form as a horizontal rectangular frame on four corner supports, is inextricably entwined with the development of the chair or possibly we should say it is an outgrowth of the chair, which by a broadening of the bottom grew to a size to accomodate a reclining position and was then a couch. The structure thus formed was used by the Greeks and Romans at their banquets where they reclined about the board and at other times they indisputably used the same structures as a bed. Beds and chairs go hand in hand; nations making great use of one make equal use of the other, and as it has been hinted above there may be an underlying physical reason for this.

Just when this type of couch bed began to assume a more massive structure with the graceful outward curvature of the arm rests straightened and erected into high head and foot boards is uncertain. Truly it was early in the middle ages for we find the type fully developed in the miniatures of early illuminated manuscripts, in tapestries, in enamels and various monumental carved ornamentations. In the later middle ages and the renaissance, down to late Tudor and Jacobian times, the structure grew to an ornate massiveness which testifies to the importance attached in those times to so necessary

an article. The high rank of the lordly owner found expression in the splendid dimensions of his state and personal bedsteads.

All the resources of the menuisier were expended upon its construction; the dexterity of the wood-carver, of the painter in gesso, the gilder, the chiseler in gold and silver, the bronze founder ran riot over it in an exuberance of decorative detail; it was hung about with the most elaborate of fine worked tapestries where in glowing colors were represented the episodes of the tournament, or the chase, episodes from the Scriptures or the romance of chivalry and upon it were displayed embroidered coverings in which the gayest of silks were intermingled with seed pearls, threads of cool gleaming silver and of bright ruddy gold. Near about this in the great state bed-chamber were grouped lower and simpler beds for some necessary personal servants or for some higher personage to whom the lord of the castle so delighted to show honor.

Thus treated the bedstead became an important article in the inventory and was carefully disposed of in the will. In a minor case will be recalled the invidious testamentary disposition which Shakespeare made to his wife of his "second-best bedstead".

At what period these ornate structures disappeared from general use among the nobles or ceased to be created cannot with certainty be stated as they recur sporadically to late Jacobean time; but by degrees they became "beautifully less." Probably with the increase of wealth of in what was later known as "the middle classes" bedsteads became so usual an article that the possession of one was no longer thought worthy of elaborate emphasis.

From Fynes Morrison we learn that continental travelers, particularly in Germany, stopping at inns, must take with them their beds or go without; "bed" in this case meaning some sort of portable mattress and blankets,such as he had who in the Scriptures was enjoined, "Take up thy bed and walk.”

It is worthy of mention here that coming apparently from Norse origin and filtering in the natural course of events down through Scotland to upper England was a type known as the "shut bed", a bed placed in the wall of the dwelling, or rather built in as an integral part of it, to which ingress might be excluded by drawing across the opening in front of it a sliding door or panel, greatly convenient in case of sudden attack or treacherous onset.

Famous in proverb, in song and ballad, in novel and romance, literature could ill dispense with the bed in its various forms. No other article of furniture can compete with it in this. The corpse discovered concealed under the mattress warns the belated traveler to escape hastily from the waiting cut-throats in the inn; the bedstead pushed against the door holds the villians at bay while the hero lowers himself from the window on an improvised cord made by tearing the bed-linen into strips; a creak in the ceiling warns the wayfarer to creep softly from under the tester of the bed, which by an ingeniously contrived and well-oiled screw in the ceiling is made to descend upon and relentlessly suffocate the sleeping victim. These and many more uses of the bed form part of the stock in trade of fiction and to conclude this portion of our discussion it may be suggested that some part of the romantic interest in the bed as an accessory to fiction inheres from its being not free from danger, for the veracious statistician assures us that more people die in it than in any other situation whatever.

The development of the patented art in beds in the United States was, for several reasons, exceedingly slow; to the end of the year 1825 there are but five patents of record in this art. The bedstead was not then built in factories, but was of such a nature that the ordinary carpenter or any settler provided with sufficient tools to build a barn and with sufficient skill to use them to that end could and did construct it. Fine bedsteads were, like all other finer pieces of furniture, obtained on order from the cabinet maker or by ship from oversea, from England, and for Louisiana often from France.

The earlier inhabitants seem to have been amply provided for many generations with beds brought over in that vast ark and furniture repository-the Mayflower.

The absence of factories adequate to make anything new in quantity coupled with the lack of facilities for local distribution will account in measure for a lack of incentive for any ingenious person to think up anything original in this line; the prospect of profit in the sale of a few articles locally being insufficient to properly stimulate the pocket nerve that is so closely associated with the urge to invent, at least in those lower grades of invention which are scarcely if at all removed from mechanical skill. Further on it will again be noted that it seems to have been the impression in the early state of the patent system that a patentable article should be something that would "go", a moving machine, or a contrivance for actually performing some operation.

As to the other parts of beds they too were of a simplicity of structure to which the home equipment was amply adequate. The bottom on which the "tick" rested consisted of ropes or thongs of rawhide or buckskin wove back and forth across between the rails and required nothing more than an unfortunate deer, a knife, and an augur or a hot poker to burn a hole; or indeed the thongs might be simply tied around the rough barked poles constituting the side rails. Many a bed was made from such a foundation as this and heaped with boughs of hemlock or spruce or other evergreen until the first harvest might produce sufficient straw to fill a tick.

Other bottoms were of coarse canvas or stout homewoven fabric laced tightly from rail to rail or of poles trimmed off with the axe or adze, or when in the vicinity of a mill, of sawed and planed slats.

For the mattress a coarse cloth sack filled with feathers was preferred. The ubiquitous hen furnished the Sunday dinner and the materials for most of these so well, but for pillows the goose was the chosen sacrifice. In many districts the plangent expostulation of this peev ish, excitable, timorsome, and yet irascible fowl would be

heard throughout the year from every yard, but she, more fortunate than the hen, might preserve her life at the sacrifice of her feathers. At the proper season, when all the winds were hushed, they were herded into some sheltered outbuilding and after the deft manipulation of some adept hand were turned loose plus a good deal of sulky indignation and minus the greater share of their downy undergarments. Naturally in those provident days the supply of bedding was an important feature of the preparations for a wedding, and in many a metaphorical hope-chest there was stored ample provision of feather beds and pillows along with lengths of lavendered homespun linen, elaborately designed patchwork quilts, and curtains for the four-poster.

Those on a lower degree of the financial ladder were fain to stuff their ticks with straw of which the oat was favored over the wheat as softer, or wool was sometimes used, or chaff, and at times a filling of the finer, softer, interior husks from the ear of corn. This in sufficient quantity and of the right quality was laborious to collect and in the time when there was constant work for every hand this militated against the selection of corn shucks as a filling material.

In the South cotton must have been used, but in the North that and wool were mostly reserved for the padding in comforters and the like. The hop and the balsam pillow were used for their supposed medicinal properties and a filler of fine pine shavings alone or mixed has been credibly reported.

Bedsteads were commonly of wood, the iron bed being of late date, though beds of silver are still preserved which antedated them; the joint by which the side rails were connected to the head and foot-posts seems to have occasioned considerable trouble and the art in this direc tion was soon very active, an activity that persists undiminished to the present time.

Another branch of the art attaining an early development was directed against an unpleasant habit that the slats had of dropping out consequent upon a spreading