The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1906-01-31
MARK TWAIN's BIRTHDAY SPEECH
Tells How to Live to Seventy and Not Mind It, Genla
Hunorist Has Completed the Biblical Span of Life.

can tell the world how you got there
1t is what they all do I have been
anxious to explain my own system this
long time, and now at last / have the
right.
Il have achieved my seventy years in
the usual way-by sticking strictly to a
scheme Of life which would kill any
body else. It sounds like an exaggera-
ton, but that is really the common rule
for attaining old age. When we ex-
anime the programme Of any Of these
! garrulous old people we always find
! that the habits which have preserved
I them would have decayed us. l will
offer here, as Il sound maxim, this That
we can't reach old age by another mans
road.
II will now teach, offering my way of
life to whomsoever desires to commit
suicide by the scheme which has en-
abled me to beat the doctor and the
! hangman for seventy years. Some Of
the details may sound untrue, but they
! are not l am not here to deceive; am
| here to teach.
I'VE have no permanent habits until
! we are forty. Then they begin to hard
en-, presently they petrify, then bust
ness begins. Since forty l have been
regular about going to bed and getting
! up. and that is one Of the main things.
I have made it rule to go to bed when
there wasn't anybody left to sit up
/ with, and l have made it u rule to get
up when | had to. This has resulted in
an answering regularity Of irregular
/ ity 1t has saved me sound, but it
would injure another person.
I'm the matter Of diet, which is anOth-
er main thing, 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 l got the best of it myself, but
last spring l stopped frolicking with
mince pie after midnight Up to then
! l had always believed it wasn't load
ed. For thirty years have taken cot
fee and bread at s 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 l
wish to urge upon you this-which l
think is wisdom-that if you find you
can't make seventy by any but an I'M
comfortable road don't you go. When
they take off 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
a cemetery.
81 have made it a rule never to smoke
more than one cigar at time. l have
no other restriction as regards smok-
ing. l do not know just when l began
to smoke l only know that it was in
my fathers lifetime and that l was dis
Greet He passed from this life early in
1S47, when l was a shade past eleven.
Ever since then | have smoked public
ly. AS an example to others, and not
that l care for moderation myself, it
has always been my rule never to
smoke when asleep and never to re-
frain when awake 1t is a good rule,
l mean for me. But some of you know
quite we'll that it wouldn't answer for
everybody that's trying to get to be
seventy.
81 smoke in bed until have to go to
sleep. 1 wake up in the night, some
times once, sometimes twice, some
times three times, and l never waste
any of these opportunities to smoke.
This habit is so old and dear and pre-
cious to me that if l should break 1t
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. l an making no charges.
will grant here that l have stopped
smoking now and then for few
months at a time, but it was not on
principle; 1t was only to show off; ii
was to pulveriZe those critics who said
1 was a slave to my habits and couldn't
break my bonds.
To-day 1t is all Of sixty years since
began to smoke the limit. 1 have never
bought cigars with life belts around
them. l early found that those were
too expensive for me. l have always
bought cheap cigars reasonably cheap,
st any rate. Sixty years ago they cost
me 81 q barrel, but my taste has i'm
proved latterly, and pay 81 now. Six
or seven-seven, 1 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
is?
AS for drinking, have no rule abou