THE CENTURY AND NEAR IT

Evening Post, Issue 11, 13 July 1936, Page 8

THE CENTURY AND NEAR IT

Mr. John D. Rockefeller, whose name is known all over the, world, attained his ninety-seventh birthday last Wednesday, arid declares that he fully expects to live to be a hundred. This is something like the cricketer who is nearing his century and would like the score to register "100 not out," but he never knows when a ball may come along and beat him and leave the record one or two short of the magic 100. So it is with great age. Whatever befall, however, there is something of a record in Mr. Rockefeller's life, to

have risen from poverty, lo be ihe richest man in the world and then lo retire from business with the object of living as long as lie can. It is rather a coincidence that in the same week as Mr. Rockefeller's 97th birthday falls the hundredth anniversary of the birthday of a worthy Wellington citizen, Mr. John Kilmisler, who is thus older than the city he has seen grow from its first beginnings to its present magnitude. The lives of the two' men have been as different as the two centenarians whom Claudian compared in llio. days of ancient Rome, one of whom he said had travelled further while the other had had more pf life. Where the American and the New Zealamler agree is in their recipe for longevity. In its essence it is the simple life, with simple food and laske and simple exercise. Mr. Rockefeller plays his daily round of golf and Mr. Kilmistcr retains his fondness for walking. Probably we might all live the longer if we were prepared to adopt the prescription; the trouble is that few arc willing to make the sacrifice.