How to Become an Oldest Inhabitant.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 24, 15 December 1906, Page 32

How to Become an Oldest Inhabitant.

SIMPLE RULES WHICH GENERAL BOOTH SAYS BROUGHT HIM SAFELY TO HIS SEVENTYEIGHTH YEAR.

Precepts for the attaining of old age are as many as t lie men who have attained it. Some drink whisky and some es-

chew all beverages but water. To soma tobacco is an abomination, to others it is the staff of life. Slack Twain declared that lie had come safely and happily to the seventieth milestone of his life because he had done everything calculated to shorten and carefully avoided everything recommended to add to one's vears.

Now comes General Booth, the seven fy-eight-year-old head of the Salvation Army, with seven rules for those who would live long: Eat. as little as possible. The average man eats too much. Instead of nourishing his body, he overtaxes it, compelling his stomach to digest more food than it lias capacity for. Drink plenty of water in preference to adulterated concoctions. Water is wholesome nourishment.

Take exercise. It is just as foolish to develop the mind and not the body as it is to develop the body and not the mind. Perform some manual labour; dig, walk, chop Wood, or, if you can talk with your whole body, why, then, talk; but do it with all your might. Have, a system, but do not lie a slave of the system. If my hour to rise is 8 a.m., and at that time I haven't had sufficient rest. I take longer lime. Do not fill .your life with a lot. of silly and sordid pleasures, so that when you come to die you will find you have not really lived.

Abstain from indulgences which overtax the body and injure not only yourself but the generations that come after you.

Have a purpose in life that predominates above alt else, that is beneficent to those about you, and not to your own greedy self alone. If there is one thing for which I am glad it is that I have found n purpose which involves not me alone, but all humanity.