press the rest? Should I make some
horrible noise between a hoarse cough and a crow, and say, if any
one complained, that it was my way of snoring? But I thought that the
object to be attained, and the possibility of being voted insane and
consigned, in spite of protestation, to the baggage-car, would not
compensate me for the exertion required; so I determined to submit to
it like a Stoic. (_Query:_ Would a Stoic have submitted?)

The more one meditates upon the reason of wakefulness, the more his
chances of sleep diminish; and from this cause, conjoined with the
peculiarity of the situation and the mood in which I found myself,
I had surely "affrighted sleep" for that night. As I lay awake I
indulged in the following mental calculation of my misery to coax
a slumber: The average number of inspirations in a minute is
fifteen--remember, snoring is an act of the inspiration--the number of
hours I lay awake was six. Fifteen snores a minute make nine hundred
an hour. Multiply 900 by 6--the number of hours I lay awake--and you
have 5400, the number of notes struck by each snorer. There were at
least twelve distinct and regular snorers in the car. Multiply 5400
by 12, and you have 64,800 snores, not including the snuffling neighs,
perpetrated in that car from about eleven P. M. until five the next
morning!

The question follows: "Can snoring be prevented?" It is plainly a
nuisance, and ought to be indictable. I have heard of the use of local
stimulants, such as camphire and ammonia--how I longed for the
sweet revenge of holding a bottle of aqua ammonia under that Roman
nose!--and also of clipping the uvula, which may cause snoring by
resting on the base of the tongue. The question demands the grave
consideration of our railroad managers; for while the traveling public
do not object to a man snoring the roof off if he chooses to do it
under his own vine and fig tree, tired men and women have a right to
expect a sleep when they contract for it. Is there no lover of sleep
and litigation who will prosecute for damages?

There is a prospect, however, of a balm in Gilead. An ingenious
Yankee--a commercial traveler--has invented and patented an instrument
made of gutta percha, to be fitted to the nose, and pass from that
protuberance to the tympanum of the ear. As soon as the snorer begins
the sound is carried so perfectly to his own ear, and all other sounds
so well excluded, that he awakens in terror. The sanguine inventor
be