The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1900-06-19
LIVING A CENTURY.

San Francisco admirers of the pa
triarchs have formed the Hundred Year
Club for the purpose Of studying and
promoting longevity. The name does
not reveal the full ambition of the
members. for they say in their prospec-
tus that the normal limit of human life
should be from 100 to $50 years
From ignorance or neglect of the laws
of nature" this age Is not attained, and
"it may take three or four generations
of right-living to overcome heredity."
So the gentlemen who sell annuities
will have to go out of business at once.
1t is a pretty good sort of world and
even the calamity howlers, with their
gifts of gloom, have no serious objec-
tons to staying here for some time.
For enthusiasts like the members of
the Hundred Year Club the gradual in
crease Of the length of human life is
too slow. The doctrine of averages car
ries very little substantial comfort.
The way to do anything in these days is
to found society for the purpose of
doing it, and we have no doubt that the
foundation of this Club will have a
good influence in adding to the span
of its members, who are to dine togeth
er occasionally, Win IdlHtl Hlplt IMAM
severely patriarchal luxury.
They are going to collect a library
of writings on longevity and records of
it, always interesting works although
not without the doubt which has always
attached to the Methusalaic legend
Probably ii was the apochryphal char
acter of a good many instances of lon
gevity that moved the late VIM. j.
Thomas to emit his paradox that no
body had ever lived to be hundred.
The genuine cases are common If by no
means common enough, but the diff
Guilty Is to form any satisfactory theory
as to the best means of longevity. One
mans meat is another mans poison
and so the researches which the Hun
dred Year Club and the branches 1t
proposes to form are going to make In
regard to hygiene and cooking are LA
BILE to bring out somewhat motley col
lection of material. Some people are
made of tougher fiber than others.
That is about all there Is to 1t. 1t is
easy to dwell on the commonplaces
about moderation, exercise and so on,
but every once in while some dis
graceful old fellow turns up who has
eaten everything that he ought not to
have eaten, who doesn't know hygiene
from hypnotism and who never took
any exercise, but has perversely
rounded out his century to the despair
of the earnest seekers after the secret
Whether a man lives longer by al |
ways thinking about it, living accord !
ing TO rule and thermometer and con-
stantly denying himself to satisfy n !
theory may be doubted. The cheerful |
heart goes all the day, whether 1t be
long or short, and the philosopher can
not be weighing his rations and feeling
his pulse all the time. II the passion
for longevity makes man uncomfort-
able II tends to cut him off rather than
extend him. Doubtless the Hundred
Year Club will seek comfortable lon
gevity and collect no information that
is too hard for dinner table.
One of the objects of the club is to
develop the faculty of conversation and
add thereby to the agreeableness of life
and unconsciously strengthen the re-
solve to cling to II long. "How few"
says the prospectus ARE capable of car
rylng on sustained conversation of
interest" True: but how fewer are
capable of sustained shutting up.