No "Old" Men To-day.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 5 June 1914, Page 8

No "Old" Men To-day.

Quite a number of eminent old men are still leading active lives. For example : Lord Wemyss, Mr. James Sant, 'R.A., Sir Charles Tupper, Lord Strathcoma, Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, are over 90 ; while Lord Halsbury, Lord Haddington, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Mr. Benjamin Leader, R.A., Sir Walter Gilbey, and Sir Charles Santley are over 80 ; and Lords Morley and Alverstone are over 70. Sir George Bi'rdwood, who is 80, still starts work at five every morning, and resents the educational tradition which labels a man as old and past work at 60. "A man," he said, "should be at his best between 65 and 80. By that time his vision is broad, his opinions matured and tested by experience, his whole outlook sane and wise. It is true that I cannot walk far or go out much, but my brain was never clearer, and Inever felt more capable of hard mental work. I get up at four every morning, and enjoy a hard day's work a good deal more than when I was younger." Mr. JoHb Classy, 86, of Seymour Plac^-, London, gets up at six every day between May and October, walking to the Serpentine—about a mile and a-halfi^away—and then,'having a swim. He has done this for fifty years, and recently confessed to still enjoying it as much as ever.