BEDROOM VENTILATION.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1232, 27 November 1874, Page 4

BEDROOM VENTILATION.

" Simon," in the Melbourne Weekly Times, tells the following story :—" A friend of mine, who reads nothing; but medical journals, and is consequently very lull on everything in the sanitary line, was recently induced to go in for a very elaborate system of bedroom ventilation, which'cost himabout £l3O, solely for the chamber which he occupied. The first night he tried it the wind blew pretty lustily, and he had been scarcely five minutes asleep when he started up with a hastily formed conviction that at least six basoons, as many ophicleides, and a trombone or two were being vigorously blown all around him. Suddenly he remembered that it was the new ventilator, and he rubbed his hands, saying, ' Ha! I'm delighted to find that it works so well. What a healthy ro;ir it has !' The wind subsided a little, and he soon fell off in a doze. In a few minutes more a smart breeze (sou'west and by south) insinuated into the mnchinery, and the sleeper was again disturbed. ' The noise is a litLle unpleasant at first,' he observed, ' but no doubt I'll soon get accustomed

to it,' and after a little while he slumbered off again About a quarter of an hour later the wind, which had by this time veered round to due south and had assumed the dignity of a full pale, caught the well-shaped mouth of the big tube full in the .face, and the result was a crashing roar that brought my poor friend very speedily to his feet in the middle of the room. This, will never do,' he cried, as his light drapery fluttered in the breeze that had so pleasantly found its way into his room. Fearing he should catch cold, he hastily seized the day. shirt which he had taken otf about threequarters of an hour previously, and stuffed it into the aperture through which ' God's glorious oxygen' was to have reached him in something like moderate volume, but to his great astonishment it was instantly drawn up by the return current, and, as he subsequently discovered, was found in Kyneton next day. He looked up the tube to see what had become of the garment referred to, and away went his nightcap after it. ' It's lucky,' he said, 1 1 don't sleep in my wig, or that would have gone too,' and without waiting for any more he bolted clean out of the room, locked the door, and slept as best he could elsewhere. Next day the aperture was bricked up, and the pipes were carted away to the nearest marine store dealer's yard for immediate sale. Some of our colonial organ-builders might do worse than look them up."