THE EVERGREEN BARNUM.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 56, 28 June 1884, Page 5

THE EVERGREEN BARNUM.

"WuKTiiKH Mr Barnum will sec fit to rovoko that famous will, executed to celebrate the purchase of that sad impostor Toung Taloung, the white elephant, whose purchase was the crowning mercy of a pious life, remains to be seen. His crowning mercies have been so many, and his life has been so long. However this may be, some sympathetic spirit called upon the grand old man a few days ago to hear all about him, and found him "in his luxuriously furnished parlour, plump, ruddy, lively, and active," in spite of his seventy-three years. Indeed, he declared that he could turn a somersault with the be&t of them, and promise? to live as long as Old Parr. What, lie was asked, have been and are the personal habits that have conduced to such good results ? Primarily, regularity ; secondarily, abstinence from things that tend to shorten life. "Sometimes, when my neighbours do not come to me, I go to them in the evenings and play a game of whist, and occasionally I go to the theatre, but as a rule 1 am in bed by ten o'clock every night. lam always up by seven in the morning. All my work, directing my personal business, conducting my correspondence, and communicating with my partners, I do in the forenoons, getting through it in time for a drive before my dinner, which I take in the middle of the day. After dinner lam accustomed to do/.e for three or five minutes. If I just lose consciousness that long I am as much refreshed as if I nad slept for hours. After that I take another drive. In the evening an hour's reading, a few games of cribbage or whist, or a little music fills up the time until my hour for retiring." THE WILL. When Mr Barnum made his will he summoned a conclave of physicians to attest his sanity. "I do not suppose," he says, " there is anything in my will that anybody will contest, but I do not propose to leave any ground for legal trouble over it. I provide that any legatee who makes a contest shall, as the penalty for so doing, forfeit whatever is bequeathed to him in the will, and I have left a fund of 100,000dols. in reserve in the hands of the executors until the will is probated, expressly to fight any contestant who may arise. As a matter of precaution I called in my personal physician, who is an allopath, a prominent homceopathic physician, and the treasurer of the Bridgeport Hospital, who is a leading doctor, and had them not only witness my will, but make oath that they believed me to be of sound mind." MR BARNUM .BREAKS UP HIS WINE CELLAR. Mr Barnum was a "considerable " drinker up to 1847, although he would not have allowed anybody to tell him so. "When I built my magnificent Oriental country seat Iranistan, I was proud of the house, button times prouder of my wine cellar than of anything else I had. I was not in the habit of drinking distilled liquors, but every day at dinner took my bottle of champagne or its equivalent in othor wines or malt liquors. I did no business afternoon, and my mother-in-law used to say sometimes that I was ' heady ' after dinner. I felt quite offended by the suggestion, and threatened to go back to whteky if it was repeated, for I really considered myself quite a temperance man, since I drank only wine, and thought my after-dinner feelings were due to overeating rather than drinking. I got the Rev. Dr. Chapin to come up to Bridgeport and deliver a temperance lecture, for the subject of which ho took ' the moderate drinker,' and I saw myself in quite a new light. I realised for the first time the bad example 1 was setting, and when I went home that night I was so worried I could scarcely sleep. The next morning I had my coachman knock the necks off all tho cham-

j pagnc bottles I had in my collar, somo fivo or six dozon ; tho port and other modicinal wines I gave away in oases of sickness, and tho liquors 1 returned to the dealers. That was the end of my drinking." MB MRNUM PREI'ARKS TO 1)1 JS— TOO SOON. Mr Barnum was a great smoker. In the days of his poverty ho chewed camomile flowers instead of smoking. When in luck he used to smoke ten cigars per diem. On one occasion I felt a strange choking sonsation away down in my throat, and then a throbbing or palpitation of my heart. 1 asked my manager, Greenwood, what it was, and he said it was heart disoaso, and tho symptoms I described as mino meant death. That scared me pretty badly. I ! determined to give up business at once, retire to the country, and prepare to dio ; but beloro doing so consulted JJr. Willard Parker. Ho examined me, and said: " You may have a vory hard heart, for all I know ; but you have as strong a one as there is in New York. Nicotino is all that is the matter with you. Stop smoking." I did so at onoe, I was so scared, and nover smoked again.