Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1890 — About Long Life. [ARTICLE]

About Long Life.

The people of California are said to have the impression that when Senator Leland Stanford dies he will leave his vast fortune of $40,000,000 to the State. The French government is said to ■pay newspapers $400,000 in subsidy. That is not exactly the method in this country. The editors are sent on foreign missions or given lucrative offices at home. A revolution is taking place in the drinking habits of the Japanese. The rice brandy called “saki,” which has been so long their national beverage, is being supplanted by beer brewed after the German method. Davis Dalton, the American who mm across the English channel, says that he found the temperature of the water to change six times on his way across, and this added to the cause of the extreme exhaustion he suffered. Some one has invented an electric mouse-trap. It consists of an electric cage containing cheese. The mice naturally approach it for purposes of investigation, but the instant they touch the wires an electric current strikes them dead. Money lenders in Italy used to display the money they had to lend out on a banco, or bench. When one of these money lenders was unable to continue business his bench or counter was broken up, and Ke himself was spoken of as a bancorotto, i. e., a bankrupt. Only fifteen cases of insanity in any way referable to the effects of the Johnstown flood have been discovered, and of these seven had been insane before the flood and had been restored. Of the eight who had not been previously insane two were quite old and one intemperate. Finally seven of these insane persons recovered under hospital treatment. In some hospitals in Europe it is customary to allow visitors to converse on certain days by means of a telephone in a waiting-room with patients in the wards, and this arrangement has been found to work admirably, as it not infrequently happens that the nervous state of the patient or the possibility of infection of the visitor renders closer communication inadvisable. John Bbown, son of John Brown of Harper’s Ferry fame, lives quietly at Put-in Bay, 0.. where he cultivates a small vineyard and fruit farm. He is an old man now, having been one of the prominent persons in the stirring period in which his father figured. He is much annoyed by tourists, who insist upon hunting him up and discussing the exciting events around Harper’s Ferry just prior to the war.

The sudden, unexpected death of three persons has saved the life of one man. Azero Polley, a West Virginian, was to be tried for an assault on Julia Hester, the penalty of which, in that State, is death. The only witness was the girl herself, her sister and her mother, and all three of these were killed a few days ago in a railroad disaster on the Chesapeake and Ohio. The case against Polley has, therefore, necessarily been dismissed. The maternal instinct of a bird was touchingly exhibited, in defense of her young, a few days ago, in Neuendorf, Prussia. The lightning had fired a barn wherein, for years, a pair of storks had had their nest. The dames soon reached the nest, in which the brood was screaming. The mother stork, with the fire every moment threatening to destry her, refused to desert her little ones, and heroically spread her wings over them. Thus they and she perished. . An army officer who had been traveling in the far Northwest says that the largest trees in the world are to be found in the vicinity of Mount Tacoma. Many of them are 650 feet high, and placed alongside the big trees of California they would rear their lofty tops more than 100 feet above the tallest of them. There are trees at the base of the mountain, he says, whose foliage is so far above the ground that it is impossible to tell to what family they belong except by the bark. “I wish,” he adds, “that some of these prodigious trees could be exhibited at the world’s fair.” Undoubtedly they would be a wonderful sight for every visitor. The record of this year has been such that people wait with a certainty, •mounting almost to stolidity, the report of some serious disaster for every day in the week; but there is an element in the matter that sets one thinking, aside from the recurrences of accidents. How does it happen that there is so apt to be a coincidence in the character of the crimes and the accidents of a given day of a given week ? Why. because a car, upon a switchback railroad in Pennsylvania, breaks loose, runs down a mountain and kills a number of passengers and employes, should another car, nearly 3,000 miles away, in California, do the same thing? One can readily understand how the influence of example may lead persons whose minds are not well adjusted to imitate the crimes of others, but it is not easy to account for the coincidences which do not involve volition. Ax undertaker's establishment is always ready to attend the burial of an

ordinary corpse at very short notice, but when a man requires funeral preparations of an unusual kind his prudent and sensible course is to get everything ready in advance. So thought Mr. Ritter, of Fayetteville, Ark., who measures sixtv inches around the waist and weighs 500 pounds. Knowing that the coffin which a man of his great size would require might, if called for suddenly, tax the lumber yards and undertaker shops of Fayetteville beyond their capacity, he has had his coffin built. It is an imposing structure, with handles for twelve pall-bearers. Mr. Ritter now feels that he is ready to go whenever the Lord may call, and is confident that while great soldiers and prominent statesmen have had larger funerals than his will be, none of them have ever had a larger coffin. A lady of Warsaw advertised in the papers that she was willing to accept proposals for marriage, and, giving a description of herself, she also enumerated the qualifications she required in her suitor. Among those qualifications she mentioned that he must be the owner of real estate. She received many letters in reply, but one of them was strictly original. The writer said that he possessed all that the lady desired in her future husband. He was good-looking, he held a responsible position. had many friends and was received in good society, and could support a family comfortably. As to real estate, he had that, too; he was owner of a plot of ground in a cemetery which was large enough to accommodate him, a wife and six children. The lady selected the writer of this letter from the whole number of suitors. She opined that a young man of his position who had thought of acquiring graves for himself and a large family before he was married was surely worthy of the endowment of her hand and heart.

Away over in the extreme northeast corner of the State of Virginia is the most curious city ever seen. The entire corner of the State has for timeout of mind been owned by the Franklin family. The land was absolutely of no use, but the part of the estate under water was good for oysters, the flavor of which made them famous. For nearly fifty years everyone and any one helped themselves to the bivalves. It was not, in fact, until the death of the owner that any effort was made to make any money out of the only product of the property. From that time on the boom in Franklin City was on, until to-day there are a hundred houses. Every house stands on piles, and is from three to four feet above the surface of the ground. The best and most pretentious structure of the city is a huge frame hotel, in which the rates are seven cents a day, with a liberal reduction for permanent boarders and families. One of the most curious things are the wells. Most of these are covered with water at all times. It seems quite strange to be drawing pure, fresh spring water from the bottom of the salt water bay.

It is no simple matter to state in terms at all precise what forces are directly connected with the production of hale and happy old age. More certainly is involved in the progress than mere strength of constitution. Healthy surroundings, contentment and active, temperate and regular habits are most valuable aids. Hard work, so long, at least, as it is not carried beyond the limit necessary to permit the timely repair of worn tissues, is not only a harmless but a conducive circumstance. It is, in fact, by living, as far as possible, a life in accordance with natural law that we may expect to reap the appropriate results in its prolongation. Civilization is at ofice helpful and injurious. Under its protecting influence normal development at all ages is allowed and fostered, while the facilities it affords for self-indul-gence are constantly acting in an opposite direction. The case of Hugh Macleod, aged almost 107, which has lately been published, illustrates in a remarkable manner the truth of these. This man, a Ross-shire Highlander, in what must be the somber twilight of a blameless and fairly active life spent in his native country, still shows, it is said, a notable degree of vigor. He takes a lively interest in the affairs of Jife, has a good appetite, is generally healthy, cuts and carries his peat for household use, and goes about among his neighbors aS of old. His food is of the plainest, though nutritious—porridge, fish, a little meat; and his habit in this and other matters is not unworthy the attention of many who are daily hastening, by opposite courses, the end of a merrier, shorter, but perhaps no happier life.