Joseph A. Willard, for nearly half a century Clerk of the Court in Suffolk
County, and a well-known figure on the streets of Boston, died in his
eighty-eighth year. He was active and alert in the performance of his
daily duties up to their discontinuance shortly before his death. He
kept, meantime, records of the temperature, weather, and condition of the
streets, at all hours of the night, and every night, for many years before
the establishment of the weather bureau. So reliable were these records
regarded by the courts that they were often appealed to in the trial of
cases, and their accuracy never questioned by either party in the suit. I
publish these facts by the permission of his son.

George T. Angell, the well-known humanitarian, than whom few, if any, have
led a more busy life, when in his sixty-ninth year wrote as follows:

"For the benefit of those who do not [take narcotics, opiates, anaesthetics]
I will say that I suppose there are very few in this country _who have
slept less_ than I have; but I have never taken anything to stupefy, while
thousands of good sleepers I have known have long since gone to the last
sleep that knows no waking here. It was undoubtedly wise to change my
professional life from court to office practice: but in other matters I
was compelled to choose between living the life of a vegetable, or losing
sleep; and I chose the latter."

Mr. Angell is now eighty-four, still actively engaged in affairs, and
allows me to add that during the past six years he has gone for a week at
a time with no sleep; for three months at a time he has not averaged more
than two hours in twenty-four; he does not remember having ever had a good
night's sleep. Mrs. Angell states that, with one exception, she has never
known him to sleep through the night.