, 1884-02-21
P. T. BARNUM
why tho Venerable Snowman ia sttll
Ruddy and Lively.
He Talks to n Reporter OF His Past
Life. Considered from a Phys
teaI standpoint Teeto-
taiism and Tobacco
New York Sun.l

in his luIuriously furnished parlor at Wal
demere, his country seat near Bridgeport. tho
reporter found the venerable Snowman, P. T.
Barnum. Plump, rudy, lively and active,
the veteran looked as II he had juggled away
q score, at least. OF his seventy-four years
@But I'm getting pretty well along in yeas"
be said, "for I was born on July 8, 1910"
"What is your actual present physical con-
ditionr, the reporter asked, having In mind
Mr.. Barnum's recent making OF that STU
pendous 700-psge will.
al don't positively know, without trying
whether / could turn a somersault or not, but
the chances arc that I could, at least as well
as ever. At all events, / never was better in
my life. I eat well, sleep well, and enjoy the
most perfect health. Perhaps to maintain
this condition 1 should walk more than / do,
but I walk some, and go out riding every
day twice. All the disease 1 have is old age,
and my ~neighbors say l should not plead
that, for I'm as young ns most men Of 60.
The sickness l had In New York three years
ago. when the doctors gave me up, was tho
only one / had In many years, and seems to
have renovated me-giyen me a new lease of
life.n
Personal HABITS.
what have been and are the personal
habits that hays conduced to such a good re-
sultfr
primarily, regularity; secondhrily, absti-
nence from things that tend to shorten life.
Sometimes, when my neighbors do not come
to me, l go out to them in the evenings and
play u game of whist, and occasionally l go
TO the theatre, but as a rule l am in bed by
10 o'clock every night. All my work, di-
recting my personal business, conducting my
correspondence, and communicating with
my partners, I do in the forenoons,
getting through it in time for a
rive before my dinner, which 1 take in the
middle OF the day. After dinner l am accus-
toned TO dozs for three or five minutes. III
just lose consciousness that long 1 am as
much refreshed as II l had slept for hours
After that I take another drive. In the
evening an hours reading, a few games Of
cribbage or whist, or a little music fills up
the time until my hour OF retiring. l am
always up by Z o'clock In the morning"
allow long have you maintained such reg
ular habitsf'
AS far as practicable since 1S4T, when 1
became a teetotallsr, although when l was
a travelling Snowman my hours were neces-
sarily not so good"
HIS wNE-cELLAR.
aDid you drink much prior to 1s47F
swell, / wouldn't nave allowed anybody TO
tell me so, but when l look back over that
time l know now that I did. When 1 built
my magnificent Oriental country seat Iranis-
tan, I was proud Of the house, but ten times
prouder of my wine-cellar than of anything
else / had. l was not in the habit of drink.
ing distilled liquors, but every day at dinner
took my bottle OF champagne, or its equiva-
lent In other wines or malt liquors. l did no
business after noon, and my mother-in-law
used to say sometimes that 1 was 'heady
after dinner. I felt quite offended by the
suggestion, and threatened to go back to
whisky II it was repeated, for / really consid-
cred myself quite a temperance man, SINCE l
drank only wine, and thought my after
dinner feelings were due to overeat-
ing rather than drinking. But l got
the Rev. DR.. Chaplin to como up to Bridge.
port and deliver a temperance lecture, for
the subject of which he took 1.-THE Moderate
Drinker," and l saw myself in quite a new
light / realized for the first time the bad
example 1 was setting, and when l went
home that night was SO worried that / could
scarcely sleep. The next morning I had my
coachman knock the necks of all the cham
payne bottles I had In my cellar, some five or
six dozen; the port and other medicinal wines
l gave away in cases of sickness, and the
liquors I returned to the dealers That was
the end of my drinking. AS young humble
bees are biggest when they aro first Matched,
30 I was, In the first heat of my conversion,
an enthusiast on the subject OF teetotalism-
l went all over Connecticut and New York
delivering FREQ lectures ou.tho subject, and
even vent out to Wisconsin, stumpsd the
state at my own expense, and at least holped
to carry it on a temperance platform"
TOBACCO.
GYou swore off on tobacco alsoP'
1Yes-or at least I stopped It's use. 1 never
chewed, but l was a great smoker. When I
went over to England lecturing, in 1856, after
the jerome Clock company disaster over
whelmed me, / was in such a situation that
every pound was of Importance to me, aud as
I was then using every week a sovereign's
worth OF cigars l thought / would practice
economy and stop it One Sunday l chewed
chamomile flowers all day instead of smoking,
by q druggists advice, and they almost killed
me. The next day I went to smoking again,
and continued it up to 1870. l could give up
liquor easily enough, but not tobacco, and /
averaged ten cigars a day. One day in 1850, on
my way down to the museum, l felt a strange
choking sensation away down In my throat,
and then n throbbing or palpitation of my
heart I had noticed 1t a little for a year be-
fore, but paid no particular attention to 1t
until then. l asked my manager, Green
wood, shat 1t was, and he said it was heart
disease, and the symptoms / described as
mine meant death. That scared me pretty
badly. / determined to give up business at
once, retire to the country, and prepare to
die, but before doing SO consulted DR.. Willard
Parker. He examined me, and said: You
may have a very hard heart, for all l know,
but you have as strong a one az there Is in
Now York. Nicotine is all that Is the matter
with you Stop smoking / did 50 at once,
[ was so scared, and never smoked again.
For a year, however, / used to carry bits of
calamus in my pocket to chew on whom I
wanted to smoke"
IN BAD LUCK.
$50 in your unregsnerate state you used to
drink and smoke. Did you gamblef"
"No, never. l never even speculated in
stocks but once in my life. That was In the
dime Of the great panic, ten years or more
ago. / had some money lying idle in bank,
and. seeing everything tumble down to the
lowest point apparently, I thought it would
be q good time to buy and hold on for a raise.
So / took down SlO0, 900 to Hatch g. Foote
and told them TO put it in whatever they
thought best They invested it, and / thought
i was sure of making SIS, 900 nyway but
on the whole l lost Some Of my stocks
went up eventually, bat others went down,
have owned no railroad stocks or other specu-
lative securities / have my legitimate busL
ness as a Snowman, and want no other. In
It / never made a mistake, but whenever I
stepped outside IL was pretty suie tor
A. nv a~4sc1a TO- tAa t.gyot uu-,8