SECRET OF LIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9912, 29 July 1910, Page 2

SECRET OF LIFE.

Nob many now, perhaps, remember Geonre Franc::-: Train, who went over to London in the fifties to hiaugurai.a the tramu'ay system. Mr Robert Barr telN. in the -'ldler" of the last time he saw him. "I have discovered the gj-eat secret at last," Train said, ,: after wasting all my previous- years.

. . I have discovered the secret of til'.-: the mystery that the ancients tried in vain, to penetrate, and were ready, like Faust, to sell their souls for. ' 'Human magnetism," he continued, "is ibe cause of our existence. When 'the share given to each of us is spent-, we die. Wo recklessly squander this magnetism lv shaking hands. I. have ceased to shako bauds, except with children. Children _so overflow with a surplus or magnetism that they augment the stock in a man of my age. Since I ceased to shake hands with grown-up people, I become younger and younger. I never walk down a crowded street, for the more con tact of chilling absorbs magnetism."

To the question bv Mr Barr how he came to make tho discovery. Train replied: " Oh,- anyone could have made it if they bad eyes to read and brains to comprehend. The fact has been before tho world for centuries, You will iind it recorded in the eighth chapter of St. Lake, forty-six verse: 'And Jesus said, somebody hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.' " For sonic vears after this George Francis Train spent his days, when the weather was good, in a NewYork park, nearly always surrounded by chikh-eii. Children and dogs were verv fond of him. " lie himself was absolutely happy, for iie had discovered the secret of perneluai youth, and when Death touched him on the shoulder ho was (piite iinnorturbed, because he did not recognise who accosted him."