o Italy to obtain clear information as to the manner in
which beds are generally arranged. We do not know whether there are in
the Italian bed numerous curtain rods, screws and castors, or whether
the construction of beds is in this country more faulty than everywhere
else, or whether the dryness of timber in Italy, due to the influence of
the sun, does not _ab ovo_ produce the harmony, the sense of which is to
so large an extent innate in Italians. For these reasons I move that we
adjourn."

"What!" cried a gentleman from the West, impatiently rising to his feet,
"are we here to dilate upon the advancement of music? What we have to
consider first of all is manners, and the moral question is paramount in
this discussion."

"Nevertheless," remarked one of the most influential members of the
council, "the suggestion of the former speaker is not in my opinion to
be passed by. In the last century, gentlemen, Sterne, one of the writers
most philosophically delightful and most delightfully philosophic,
complained of the carelessness with which human beings were procreated;
'Shame!' he cried 'that he who copies the divine physiognomy of man
receives crowns and applause, but he who achieves the masterpiece,
the prototype of mimic art, feels that like virtue he must be his own
reward.'

"Ought we not to feel more interest in the improvement of the human race
than in that of horses? Gentlemen, I passed through a little town of
Orleanais where the whole population consisted of hunchbacks, of glum
and gloomy people, veritable children of sorrow, and the remark of the
former speaker caused me to recollect that all the beds were in a very
bad condition and the bedchambers presented nothing to the eyes of the
married couple but what was hideous and revolting. Ah! gentlemen, how is
it possible that our minds should be in an ideal state, when instead of
the music of angels flying here and there in the bosom of that heaven
to which we have attained, our ears are assailed by the most detestable,
the most angry, the most piercing of human cries and lamentations? We
are perhaps indebted for the fine geniuses who have honored humanity to
beds which are solidly constructed; and the turbulent population which
caused the French Revolution were conceived perhaps upon a multitude of
tottering couches, with twisted and unstable legs; while the Orientals,
who are such a beautiful race, have a unique method of making their
beds. I vote for the ad