HOW TO LIVE LONG.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2590, 16 February 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW TO LIVE LONG.

The true secret of good health and immunity Irani disease lies in finding out and practising the golden mean of every creed. The vegetarian, for instance, goes too far; but he is perfectly correct in his assumption that most men eat too frequently and too plentifully of moat, and not nearly enough of vegetables and fruit. The average Englishman believes in <rood tdices from the joint, usually underdone, and often eaten in haste, with the day's work but half done. Vegetables are with him a very secondary consideration, partly because they are often badly cooked and n«t temptingly served. Were he to eat loss meat and more vegetable and fruit he would be less of a martyr to rheumatism in his old age than he is at present. Nor is he sufficiently appreciative of fish as an article of diet. Here, again, unsatisfactory cooking Jcomes. in as a factor in deterring 1 the general public from what is good for them. The ordinary English cook is as wasteful in her methods of cooking it as she is careless in her manner of serving it. The man who does the most justice to his own constitution is he who compasses an attractive variety in his diet, ranging through all the flavours of fish, flesh, fowl, and the wares of the greengrocer iu a way that not only satisfies appetite, but stimulates it. The teetotaller's theory of life is good for those who cannot restrain themselves so as to leave off drinking when they have had enough. Water is not what it was when the world was younger, or as it is even now in places where human life is not thickly congregated about it as it is in England. Various forms of pollution destroy tho purity of our rivers, and the stuaeut of sanitary science Eees a thousand horrors in a. glass of cold water. But the golden grain of truth in the teetotaller's theory is not far to seek. It lies in the use of wines, spirits, and beer without abusing them. Till now man has invented no bettor, no more absolutely suitable accompaniment to a good dinner than well-oreived. ale or sound claret. These aid the system to assimilate the food it absorbs. Lemonade is lowering, and its sweetness spoils the savour of most dishes. Milk is always admirable as a dinner drink, especially when rish plays a part in the menu. IVa or coffee taken with meat is simply suicidal. These hot beverages turn the meat, into something resembling leather, and the result interferes sadly with digestion. The man who desires long life must uot give a place to "high tea" iu his daily programme. Of tea itself it can only bo said that it is harmless if not taken too often or made too strong. The American lady who after several calls and a cup of tea at each remarked that she could " always worry down another cup," was probably unaware of the mischief she was doing herself. No one need totally abstain from tea if they will only take the precaution to buy it good, not to make it strong, not to let it infuse long, never to take it more than twice a day, and abjure it after five in tho afternoon. As to the man for whose bath the ice has to bo broKen on tho Serpentine on winter mornings, who can deny that ho is intemperate iu the matter of cold water ? And yet the morning tub is indispensible to all who wish to live long and healthy life. It is true that there have been centenarians who have known nothing of this luxury, hut their longevity has been in spite of that fact, not because of it. The bath is good, but not too much bath. Walking is good, hut it must not bo overdone. Dickens overdid it. Most of us, however, underdo it, and scarcely walk enough. Flesh accumulates upon us in middleage because we do not take sulrk'iont exercise, and then we give up long walks because wo are stout, and consequently lazy, thus reversing tho process of cause and eIF-'sr.. The health suffers seriously, and the way is open to many maladies. People who assert that they have not time to take long walks should remember that they are probably cutting short their own time by refraining from the needful exercise. Many people tako too much medicino. Morbid persons witli hypochondriacal tendencies are always dosing themselves. They apparently regard their own interior arrangements as a soit of puzzle that has been badly put together, and their efforts to sort things out with the aids of pills and powders are but a series of experiments, Highly destructive to cheerfulness is this frame of mind, and cheerfulness is ono of the best ends to length, of days. It is to cultivate this quality, and in the interests of ttioso about us, no less than in our own, it ought to be cultivated. It is a sign of a healthy mind and enables its possessor in

a certain degree to shake off worry, which is a terrible shortener of human life. No one ever died of work, but worry has killed its thousands There are many ways of avoiding it. The chiof is to live within one's income, and thus escape the wearying cares that come of debt and improvidence, avoiding anxiety for the future of those independent upon us. A little voluntary solf-denial saves a mountain of it ouforced and inevitable, just as the proverbial stitch in time saves nine.—Daily News.