The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-08-10
OLD FOLKS HABITS.
8TEADY WORK, AN EVEN PULSE AND
REGULAR LIVES


Are the Potent Factors That Make Old
Age Possible in New England--People
Who Have Survived in Spite of Doctors
Rules.
Poor Richards early to bed and early to
rise" etc, never had better illustration
than The Globes old people have given it.
Not only have the farmers and their wives
been early risers, but nearly all who have fol-
lowed other occupations have been also. Ii
observance of Franklin's maxim has had any
predominant effect conducive to longevity,
the fact we have just stated strikes q hard
blow at the theory of some physicians, who
claim that man should not go abroad in the
morning until the sun has been up long
enough to dissipate the noxious vapors which
have risen from and overhang the earth's
surface during the night.
So marked were the instances of early ris-
ing and retiring that The Globe made list
of persons who may be said to represent the
extremists of at least the first lines of the
maxim, and found that out of about 2,OOe
persons whose habits Of life were intelligent
ly set forth in the blanks $50 men have been
through life in the habit of lying abed not
later than $50 o'clock in the morning, while
328 women always have risen before 6 a. m,
most of whom stlIl continue to do so. These
are the people Who were trained from youth
to get grip on the days work that did not
loosen until it was done; who cleared our
forests, built our roads, founded our towns,
established our school system, and from the
native richness of their country homes sent
into the world the sturdy young men. the
rosy checked young women, with whose in.
fux the town became the city, the city a
metropolis, and a profitable market was Gre
ated for the products of the farms they had
left, and the money made in mercantile life
went back to the tillers Of the soil and our
inland commerce came into being.
One correspondent, writing from New
market, n. II, gives good idea of the cir
cumstances Of some of the old people he has
seen, and advances one or two ideas not I'M
supported by medical opinion. He says: 81
could extend names almost indefinitely of
men all around here living on an abundance
of plain food, hard workers, no liquors. regu-
lar in their habits, who never die from dis
ease, but only as Old age takes them off. 1
include regular church attendance, because
l believe that to be an important matter as
giving peace of mind, contentment and hope
all favorable to longevity. On the other
hand, l could furnish q large list Of persons
who, other things being favorable, have
killed themselves with liquor, cider, irregu-
larity in eating, working and sleeping; some
living to good age but always sickly. Men
and women living in the neighborhood, who
have been temperate in all things never die,
If they escape consumption, except from
pneumonia or other acute disease Almost
every farmhouse that has remained in the
same family for century will be a home for
three or four generations, all living together,
extremes neutrality-suspicious. company for
each other and the happiest families that can
be found. No danger Of filial love and rev.
erenee dying out in such families as these. >
''There is one point which I have tried to
bring out in this canvass among the old
people, writes another correspondent, "and
that is the effect of tobacco on the health.
If this point has been as carefully considered
by other correspondents and with the same
results, it alleviates the fears which many
may entertain about nicotine and the cur
tailment Of life by the use of tobacco
Among the very oldest of the people inter
viewed, between 80 and 100, the men have
been addicted to the use Of tobacco, in the
majority of cases, since an early age"
But our returns fail to show that any con
siderable number Of the old people ever made
nabitual use of liquor through life; and il
must be borne in mind that the Medford rum
of our grandfathers and other liquors in use
half century ago were without doubt pure1
and better than NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. of the
liquor sold today. One hundred and fifty OF
the old gentlemen say positively that they
never used liquor or tobacco in any form, 81
confess to the use of liquor only, II to the
Nc foIoo oax
made habitual use Of both liquor and to.
bacco, though instances Of immoderate use
of liquor are very rare. We cannot think
these figures accurate, as it is doubtful if this
subject was thoroughly canvassed, but it is
safe to say that a very small proportion OF
the men and but trivial number Of the
women made habitual use of liquor and to
bacco.
It is curious to note, by the way, that
many Of the men who used liquor only in
early life ceased using it entirely, while OF
the men who used liquor and tobacco nearly
all who discarded liquor chung to the tobacco
habit Cider, forty -four men say, they have
drank for years, but the effect of hard cider
upon the constitution cannot be learned from
The Globes figures until some of the farmers
that had nothing to say on the subject are
heard from.
The statistics Of women who made habitual
use of liquor or tobacco are more incomplete
than of the men. Only three were willing to
say that they had used snuff-which must be
very small proportion of the correct num-
ber-and eleven admit having smoked, which
proportion, too, must be small.
With exceptions so few as to be not worth
recording numerically, the old people upon
the list have had three meals day, at regu-
lar hours, of substantial food through their
lives; and what is more interesting, nine
tenths of them still continue to eat heartily,
and of whatever they like. It is hygienic
law that three light meals day are better
for elderly people in health than one heavy
one, and our old people, of course, are simply
following the dictates Of nature, while at the
same time they prove the truth of her teach
ings. Tea aud coffee, too, they use, one or
about dozen exceptions. Some have taken
to drinking these beverages late in life, but
not enough, we may infer, to affect the &C.
curacy of the statement that nearly all Of
them have been tea and coffee drinkers.
OF vegetarians but nine are mentioned, five
men and four women Two women eat no
vegetables, one eats none that grow above
ground, one eats no fish and one eats no meat
To sum up their table habits, our octogena-
rians as a whole have eaten and drunk lust
what the rest of the family have, in youth
and in old age.
Several instances of the ''milk curen are re-
corded Human milk contains very little fatty
matter, and skinned milk closely resembles