Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-12-07

Du4SAdN " N4f -NAtult Wuieu Hdn tH
 abled me to beat the doctor and th
 hangman for seventy years. Some o
 the details may sound untrue, but the,
 are not am not here to deceive; an
 here to teach.
 We have no permanent habits unti
 we are forty. Then they begin to hard
 en, presently they petrify, then busi
 ness begins. Since forty I have beer
 regular about going to bed and getting up, and that is one of the main things 1 Ihave made it rule to go to bed wher , there wasn't anybody left to sit u i with, and have made it a rule to gel | up when l had to. This has resulted ir i an unswerving regularity of irregular
 ity It has saved me sound, but il
 would injure another person.
 "In the matter of diet, which is anoth. CT main thing, I have been persistently | strict in sticking to the things which
 didn't agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it. Until
 lately 1 got the best of 1t myself, but
 last spring I stopped frolicking with
 mince pie after midnight Up to then l had always believed it wasn't load ed. For thirty years have taken cof- fee and bread at in the morning and no bite nor sup till 7:30 in the evening.
 eleven hours. That is all right for me. Headachy people would not reach sew
 enty comfortably by that road. And
 wish to urge upon you this-which I
 think is wisdom-that if you find you
 can't make seventy by any but an un- comfortable road don't you go. When they take of the Pullman and retire you to the rancid smoker put on your things, count your checks and get out at the first way station where there's cemetery.
 T have made it rule never to smoke more than one cigar at time. I have no other restriction as regards smok- ing. do not know just when I began to smoke. only know that it was in my fathers lifetime and that I was dis erect. He passed from this life early in lS47, when was a shade past eleven. Ever since then I have smoked public ly. As an example to others, and not that l care for moderation myself, 1t has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep and never to re- frain when awake It is a good rule. l mean for me. But some of you know quite well that it wouldn't answer for everybody that's trying to get to be seventy.
 T smoke in bed until have to go to sleep. I wake up in the night, some times once, sometimes twice, some times three times, and never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and pre- cious to me that if I should break it I should feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you've got (meaning the chairman) If you've got one. I am making no charges. will grant here that I have stopped smoking now and then for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle; it was only to show of; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was slave to my habits and couldn't break my bonds.
 Today it is all of sixty years since began to smoke the limit have never bought cigars with life belts around them. I early found that those were too expensive for me. I have always bought cheap cigars-reasonably cheap, at any rate. Sixty years ago they cost me $4 barrel, but my taste has im- proved latterly, and I pay ST now. Six or seven-seven. think; yes, it's seven. But that includes the barrel. I often have smoking parties at my house, but the people that come have always just taken the pledge. I wonder why that isf
 "As for drinking have no rule about that. When the others drink like to help; otherwise I remain dry by habit and preference. This dryness does not hurt me, but 1t could easily hurt you, because you are different. You let 1t alone.
 Since l was seven years old have seldom taken a dose of medicine and have still schooner needed one. But up to seven I lived exclusively on allo- pathic medicines. Not that I needed them, for I don't think I did; it was for economy. My father took a drug store for a debt, and it made cod liver 1 oil cheaper than the other breakfast 1 foods. We had nine barrels of it, and l it lasted me seven years. Then I was l weaned. The rest of the family had to i get along with rhubarb and ipecac and l such things because was the pet l I was the first Standard Oil trust. had it all By the time the drug store 1 was exhausted my health was estab- | llshed, and there has never been much f the matter with met since But you know very well it would be foolish for the average child to start for seventy on that basis. It happened to be just the thing for me. but that was merely an accident. It couldn't happen again In a century.
 T have never taken any exercise ex- sept sleeping and' resting, and I never Intend to take any. Exercise is loath- some and it cannot be any benefit when you are tired: was always tired But let another person fry my way and zee where he will come out desire now 10 repeat and emphasize that maxim. We can't reach old age by an- ,ther mans road Ny habits protect ny life. but they would assassinate -ou-
 "Ihave lived a severely moral life, but