THE SECRET OF LONG LIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1124, 22 July 1913, Page 4

THE SECRET OF LONG LIFE.

“Now, more than ever, it is the day of the old man with vitality.” That is the belief of Sir George Birdwood, the eminent Asiatic authority, initiator of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and founder of Primrose Day. He believes, with Plato, that attention to personal health is one of the greatest hindrances to a useful life. He attributes his long life, as he declared recently, “to a certain playful devilry of spirit, a ceaseless militancy, quite suffragettic, so that when I left the India office on a bilked pension I swore by all the gods I would make up for it by living on ten years instead of one, which was all an insurance society told me I was worth.” He does not believe there is such a thing as overwork —“even in the city.” And, as for the prescription of lying in bed till noonday, he “would rather be some monstrous flatfish at the bottom of the Atlantic than accept human life on such terms,” Lord Wemyss at 94 is another of the old gard, and Sir Charles Tupper at 91 is the sole survivor of the framers of the Constitution of Canada. The activity of Lord Strathcoua at the age of ninetytwo is another example of what the old man can do. Born of poor parents, he is now said to be the largest landowner in the world, having acquired millions of acres. Unlike Sir George Birdwood, he pays great attention to bis health, believing in two fairly light meals a day. “I breakfast at 9 and dine at 9, so that I have 11 hours lor work,” he once remarked. He smokes a little, drinks a little, and his gospel is moderation in all things. His motto has always been, “Who rests rusts.” A number of years ago he consulted Sir Andrew Clark, the famous physician, who told i/jrd Strathcoua“that there was no apparent reason why he should not live to be 100—“ if only you will keep on working.” Lord Roberts, after all his battles and 80 years of life, can still go “campaigning,” He is as active to-day as when, a young lieuteuant, he wrenched a standard from a Sepoy’s hands in ’SB. He is an early riser, like most of the Old Guard, and he also goes early to bed. Sir Hiram Maxim, at 73, will give the advice that most old men will give. He has forced his way from the humblest level until his name has added a word to all the languages of the world. Yet, “I am not a clever man,” he once remarked, “but I am a worker, and have been a worker all my life.” He says he has succeeded because he has “stuck to it,” He has “worked harder, studied harder, and wasted less time than many of my fellows. If young men take more interest in cricket and football matches and in horseracing than they do in their business, they must, of course, be content to remain nobodies in that business.” However the old men of vitality may differ in their views as to how to live long, they are at one in their advice, “Work!” and they believe that men are often at their best between 63 and 80, certainly between 65 and 75.