THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 585 



If you would preserve your children from wasting diseases, do not 

 stint them in their sleep ; chlorotic girls, especially, and weakly babies 

 need all the rest they can get. If they are drowsy in the morning, 

 let them sleep ; it will do them more good than stimulants and tonic 

 sirups. For school-children in their teens, eight hours of quiet sleep 

 is generally enough, but do not restrict them to fixed hours ; in mid- 

 summer there should be a siesta-covx\eT in every house, a lounge or an 

 old mattress in the coolest nook of the hall, or a hammock in the shade 

 of the porch, where the little ones can pass the sleep-inviting after- 

 noons. Nor is it necessary to send them to bed at the very time when 

 all nature awakens from the torpid influence of the day-star ; sleep in 

 the atmosphere of a stifling bedroom would bring no rest and no 

 pleasant dreams. But an hour after sunset there will be a change ; 

 the night-wind rises and the fainting land revives ; cool air is a febri- 

 fuge and Nature's remedy for the dyspeptic influences of a sultry day. 

 Open every window, and let your children share the luxury of the last 

 evening hour ; after breathing the fresh night-air for a while, they will 

 sleep in peace. 



THE PEOBLEM OF MUNICIPAL NUISANCES. 



By EOGEE S. TRACY, M. D. 



THE general democratic tendency of the past three hundred years 

 has had some curious results. Free thought and free speech have 

 brought about a universal freedom in criticism, so that, at the present 

 time, singularly enough, it has come to be looked upon as a sign of 

 high civilization and progress for every man to have an opinion about 

 everything, whether he knows anything about it or not. One of the 

 most complicated political problems that men have ever had to treat, 

 viz., the Eastern question, is discussed in this city, by individuals and 

 newspapers, with more readiness and assurance than in the council- 

 chambers of Berlin or London, and every man above the condition of 

 a rag-picker will give you his opinion on the philosophy of evolution. 

 This exaggerated sense of self-importance brings with it not only the 

 tendency to criticise everything not in accordance with each person's 

 notion of what is right or expedient, but, inasmuch as conflicting cur- 

 rents of thought and action are unavoidable, a profound feeling of 

 dissatisfaction Avith one's own environment. This feeling of dissatis- 

 faction shows itself in curious ways. In place of the intense patriotism 

 and personal loyalty of past ages, we find a widespread belief in almost 

 all highly civilized nations that things are better managed elsewhere 

 than at home, and the newspapers, here and abroad, are crowded with 

 this not-always-well-based self-criticism. New York newspapers are 



