The times., 1899-06-16
A CHANGE for Reform.

leetOtaiers sometimes point with pride
to nonagenarian who has never used to-
bacco or liquor in any form, and beseech
their fellow-men to follow the example of
this good old man and abstain from such
sinful indulgences. II is true that the
veteran who has outlived the allotted age
of mankind by twenty or thirty years is
more often than not victim to both
soul destroying and constitution weakening
habits, but that does not hurt the argument
with the people who make it. Sometimes
they ignore the smoking and drinking CEN
tenarian, and sometimes they wait till he
dies and then say that he might have lived
great deal longer had he obeyed what
they believe to be the proper law of life.
These pious people also ignore the fact
that extraordinarily life, especially
in these rapid days. is rather a doubtful
blessing. Few men of active lives and
strong affections have any especial desire
to linger on, ten, twenty, thirty years,
after all their contemporaries and many
of their juniors have passed off the stage
OF earthly existence; to become, perhaps,
pensioners on the bounty of their grand
children, and watch their great-grandchil-
dren grow to manhood and womanhood.
Added to this loneliness of old age is the
chance of becoming deaf, blind, or para
lytic, and living In partial helplessness for
the last decade or two of ones life. while,
perhaps, the distant relations on whom de-
wolves the care of the invalid are wish
ing, deep down in their hearts, that he had
died at what they think the proper time.
OF course. in many cases these unfortunate
conditions do not exist, but in others they
do, and the knowledge of them removes
most peoples. desire for unusual length of
life The average man prefers his after
dinner smoke to the chance of living to be
hundred years old.
But here is an example Of long life on
which a new reform may be based. and it
is every whit as good as any of those
quoted by the teetotaler. A writer in the
Medical Record says that the healthiest
man he ever saw is alive and well today
at the age of ninety-four. and that this
man has taken but two baths so far as
he can remember, and both of these were
accidental. Sixty-one years ago he fell
into the River Mersey, and in 1873. being
very drunk at the age of seventy three. he
again fell into the water, this time the
North River at New York The ordinary
man of seventy-three might have been
seriously injured by the fall into the
river, or the state OF intoxication, or both,
and the fact that this man was hurt by
neither seems to prove that continual alb
stinence from water gave him strength to
resist the shock of sudden introduction to
it. 1t is his ambition to reach the century
mark without ever having Intentionally
taken bath.
Now, if there is anyone within reach
of this information who is earnestly de-
sirous of living to be ninety-four years
old and at the same time indulging in an
occasional glass of whisky, here is an ex-
ample. Refrain from the contact of water
without, and, presumably, within. Thus
shall length of life be gained. 1t will be
slightly unpleasant for the neghbors, but
when a society for the prolongation of life
is to be formed, neighbors do not count ex-
cept as possible proselytes.