The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-08-03
MARK TWAIN HAS
 A TOBACCO HEART
"Pm Reduced to Four Smokes a Day. He Says, "and l Can't Dispute
 Dr.. Tracy"
JESTS AT OXFORD CRIME

In a semi -jocose interview at his home near Bedding. Conn.,, yesterday Mark Twain let it become known that
 he is combating heart disease, brought
 about by his many years of excessive smoking.
 A reporter went to see if the veteran
 humorist had anything to say in reply
 to Dr. James L. Tracy's assertion in American Medicine that Twain was
 belRT par morally because he smok- ed cigar at Oxford, England, while
 waiting the conferment of a degree
 over there. The white-flannel-clad
 Mark was sitting in an easy chair
 puffing at a pipe when the interviewer hailed him.
 ''This is the third of the four smok- CTS that I'm allowed each twenty four hours nowadays" he explained,
 without ever removing his pipe. And
 months and perhaps for ever, by the
 orders of my doctor. He allows me
 only four smokes day. where I have
 beer. all my life in the habit of talk , ing at least forty.
 "I cannot walk three hundred yards or take an extra smoke or two, but I pay the penalty with a severe pain in my heart. When I consider that
 I lived almost seventy-four years in
 as good health as any man and smok-
 ed forty times a, day without injury
 as thought, only to be cut down
 now to four smokes a day, I am in
 no position to dispute anything which Dr. Tracy, my critic, may say regard
 ing smoking.'
 The humorist said he had not seen
 the article in question, nor even heard
 of it until the reporter told him some of the things which pr. Tracy had
 amused by some of Dr. Tracy's caus- | tic comments upon the moral degen-
 eracy of the smoker.
 "But I don't mind what they say |
 and through it all I've kept my moral character fairly clean.
 Regarding the Oxford incident, the Doctor seems to have had @ mistaken
 notion. I was not the chief criminal, and I was not even responsible for the occurrence. While we were await | ing our turn in the ceremonies, those i of us who came up for letters and a few who were there for science de- grees had to wait perhaps an hour. ''I inquired if smoking was allowed. MT. Kipling said that it was forbidden by the rules. Then some one of our group of four said that we could go down in an out-of-the-way corridor Sir Edward Ramsey who said that. but I would not accuse any one will fully. We went down there and had our smoke and no one said anything to us-
 ''No one came near us except a
 small army of photographers who got
 some pictures, so you see the crime
 was divided up among four of us, one
 American and three Englishmen. If I can divide up all my crimes in the same proportion shall be fortunate.a' MT. Clemens wore his accustomed
 white flannel suit and looked imma- culate. His back was to the reporter
 as he entered the loggia, but he turn
 ed and greeted him cordially. extend
 ing his hand and motioning him to a chair. Occasionally as he talked he brushed back from his forehead his | snow-white locks. He was rather pale, probably because of his illness. While he was talking the humorist relighted the pipe which he had been
 smoking and which had burned out, thinking to get few more puffs. It
 was an old pipe, evidently a favorite for the bowl was burned off one side
 and the stem was loose so that he had to push it in occasionally. 'fDr. Tracy is worried about my mor-
 al character, is he?" said the humor- ist, as he arose to indicate that the conference was at an end. And he | thinks the excessive use of tobacco is responsible for it? We'll, tobacco is responsible for a good deal physi- cally, but I don't think that it can quite ruin a moral character