"For more than a quarter of a century, I have conscientiously abstained from distilled liquor. In the mean time I have occasionally taken a little wine, when in company, and a tumbler of cider at dinner. At length, thinking this unnecessary, and having before me the example of a beloved father, who abjured the use of intoxicating beverage after he was eighty years old, and lived with both bodily and mental faculties almost wholly unimpaired, till past the age of ninety-one : and continually hearing that the habitual drunkards of ardent spirits exclaim, 'give us your wine, and we will drink no more rum,' I resolved to abstain from the use of everything which can intoxicate. This practice I have continued for more than two years; and the experiment has more than answered my most sanguine expectations. My health has been fine and uninterrupted. I have not had even a common cold. As to corporeal exertions, though in my sixty-third year, I walk ten miles in an afternoon, at the rate of four miles an hour, without fatigue; and what is better, without thirst. As to the mental efforts, I never feel so well prepared for close application, as immediately after I have walked ten miles without drink. Uniform health of body is almost necessarily attended with cheerfulness of mind. The saddest interruption that I find to the latter is, that, in the use of drinks, I cannot induce more to be as I am."-Rev, John Pierce, D. D. "I have practised total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks since the 18th of November, 1837, and have great reason to be grateful for the excellent health which I have had during that period. I have sustained great exertions, both mental and bodily, and I have been exposed to all weather, without ever having felt any inconvenience from the want of the stimulants, so frequently, and as I believe, so injuriously, resorted to under such circumstances. It is fair to say, I have not made much sacrifice. I was never addicted to intemperance, and I have now lost all desire for what many regard as the enjoyment of intoxicating drinks.”— John Rundle, Esq., M. P. for Tavistock. 3. TEMPERANCE FAVOURABLE TO LONGEVITY. "By the last grant of Providence to man, his life is 120 years, and where disease, arising from other causes, does not shorten it, the reason why so few attain to that age is to be found in the excessive stimulation to which the mass of the community are continually subject.”—Dr. Farre. Polemon of Athens, in his youth, led a life of debauchery and drunkenness. When about 30 years of age, he entered the school of Zenocrates, in a state of intoxication, while the philosopher was delivering a lecture to his pupils on the effects of intemperance. He was so struck by the eloquence of the academican, and the force of his arguments, that from that moment he renounced his dissipated habits. liquor but water. Class. in loco. Henceforth, as a beverage, he drank no other Francis Secardi Hongo, died, A. D. 1702, aged 114 years, 10 months and 12 days. He left behind him forty-nine children. He was never sick. His sight, hearing, memory, and agility, were the surprise of all. At 110, having lost all his teeth, he cut two large ones in his upper jaw one year before he died. He used for drink only water; never wine, strong waters, coffee, or tobacco. His habits in other respects were temperate.-Long Livers, by Eugenius Philalethes. 1772, p. 91. In the Miscellanea Curiosa, you will find a very remarkable observation of an old man, 120 years of age, without the loss of a tooth, and of a brisk and lively disposition, whose drink, from his infancy, was pure water. The famous Civilian, Andrew Tieraqueaus, who is said, for thirty years together, to have given yearly a book, and by one wife, a son, to the world, never drank any thing but water from his infancy. Vide "The best and easiest method of preserving uninterrupted health to extreme old age," &c. From a manuscript found in the library of an eminent physician, lately deceased, 8vo. published 1748, p. 64. His life is in Bayle's Dictionary.-Sinclair, Code of Health and Longevity. A Scotch newspaper notices an old woman, living at Glasgow, who is 130 years of age, and for the last fifty years, she has taken nothing stronger than tea or coffee. She never had occasion to take a doctor's drug, nor was a lancet ever applied to her frame. She is perfectly free from affections of the chest, and during the last century has been a perfect stranger to pain. Her pulse does not exceed seventy strokes in a minute. Her grandfather died at the age of 129, and her father died in the 120th year of his age. Her grandfather and father were very temperate. Another old woman died recently in the Western part of England. She was 110 years of age, leaving 450 descendants, more than 200 of whom attended her funeral. This woman had never taken any kind of intoxicating liquor until she was 30 years of age -remained a very moderate drinker twenty years-and for the last sixty years of her life never took any thing of an intoxicating nature, unless occasionally ordered by her medical adviser. On Friday, the 3d of February, 1837, died, Anne Parker, aged 109, the oldest inhabitant of Kent. During her whole life, she abstained from spirituous liquors, indulging only in tea.-Public Papers. Died, on the 26th of June, 1838, at Bybrook, Jamaica, Mrs. Letitia Cox. She outlived the oldest inhabitants in this parish for many generations. By her account, she was a grown-up young woman at the time of the destruction of Port Royal, by an earthquake. She declared that she never drank anything but water during the whole of her life. She must have been upward of one hundred and sixty years old. An old black woman, at Holland Estate, died eighteen months ago, at one hundred and forty years old. She also declared she never drank anything but water.-Jamaica Royal Gazette. 4. STATEMENTS RELATIVE TO THE HEALTH OF CERTAIN TRIBES WHO ABSTAIN FROM THE USE OF STRONG DRINK. American Indians. "At the first arrival of the Europeans in America, it was not uncommon to find Indians who were above a hundred years old. They lived frugally, and drank pure water. Brandy, rum, wine, and all the other strong liquors, were utterly unknown to them. But since the Christians have taught them to drink these liquors, and the Indians have found them but too palatable; those who cannot resist their appetites hardly reach half the age of their parents."-Kalm's Travels.* Natives of Shetland. "In Shetland, the inhabitants give an account of one Tairville who arrived at the age of 108, and never drank any malt liquor distilled waters, nor wine. They say his son lived longer than he; and that his-grand children lived to a great age, and seldom or never drank any stronger liquors than milk, water, or bland. This last is made of buttermilk mixed with water."-Pinkerton. Natives of Sierra Leone. "The natives of Sierra Leone, whose climate is said to be the worst on earth, are very temperate; they subsist entirely on small quantities of boiled rice, with occasional supplies of fruit, and drink only cold water: in consequence, they are strong and healthy, and live as long as men in the most propitious climates."-Monthly Mag. The Kaffres. "Milk is their ordinary diet, which they always use in a curdled state; berries of various descriptions, and the seeds of plants, which the natives call plantains, are also eaten, and a few of the gramin The temperate habits of the early settlers of New England are well known, and in no part of the world perhaps has the longevity of the inhabitants been greater. From a late number of the Journal of Commerce, we extract the following, from an article on this subject. Centenarians in New Hampshire. Messrs. Editors--I observe in your paper of the 6th, some notice of five persons in New Hampshire who lived to the age of 110 years; and send you the following notes, which may be interesting to those of your numerous readers who are curious in such matters. Few sections of our country, of the same population, have afforded so many instances of longevity as New Hampshire. Several of the early settlers lived to near a hundred years of age. The first who completed a century, of whom any account is preserved, was Henry Langstaff, of Bloody Point, who had been 84 years in New England, and who died 18th July, 1705, "above one hundred years of age." His death was occasioned by a fall. Rev. Mr. Pike, of Dover, says in his journal, that he was "a hale, strong, hearty man, and might have lived many years longer, but for the accident which occasioned his death." From 1706 to 1840, there have died in New Hampshire 163 persons, who had either entered upon their 100th year, or had exceeded a complete century. I have their names, residence, time of death, &c., but the list would occupy too much space. cous roots with which the woods and the banks of the rivers abound. Occasionally, too, the palm bread of the Bosjesmans is found among them. Their total ignorance of the use of ardent spirits and fermented liquors, and their general temperance and activity, preserve them from the ravages of many disorders which abound among the other native tribes, to say nothing of the value of their independence.”—Barrow's Travels. The Circassians. "Owing to their robust frames, and temperate habits, the Circassians generally attain an advanced age, their diseases being neither numerous, nor dangerous. Their favourite beverage is the skou, a species of sour milk peculiar to the East."-Travels in Circassia, by E. Spencer, 1837. The Brahmins. "Their temperance is so great, that they live upon rice or herbs, and upon nothing that has sensitive life. If they fall sick, they count it such a mark of intemperance, that they will frequently die from shame and sullenness; many have lived a hundred, and some two hundred years."-Sir William Temple. 5. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE. Individuals blessed with a vigorous and healthy constitution, more powerfully resist the influence of intoxicating liquors. This circumstance will account for the fact, that hard drinkers are not unfrequently known to live to an advanced period of life. The advocates of strong drink dwell with considerable satisfaction on this apparently contradictory fact. The following anecdote among numerous others, is often quoted by way of illustration-On one occasion, in a court of law, two witnesses appeared before the bench, advanced on life's list, but hale and hearty in their appearance. The judge surprised at the hearty appearance of one so old, made inquiries of the first witness as to his mode of life, and in particular his course of diet. During these interrogations, it ap peared that he had from an early period of his existence, drank nothing stronger than water. Upon hearing this statement, the learned judge commented with considerable eloquence on the advantages of temperance, of the good effects of which so striking an example was then presented for their imitation. Shortly afterward the second witness appeared in evidence. To the surprise of the judge, as well as of the legal gentlemen who sat on the bench, it appeared on the man's own confession, that he had seldom or never gone to bed in a sober state. The tables were now turned, and to a casual observer the evidence on both sides appeared to be equal. On a more careful examination, however, it will be found that long-lived drunkards are exceptions to a rule general in its results. The peculiar habits of the drunkard, engage that degree of observation, which more sober members of society fail to attract. Hence, thousands of temperate individuals, vigorous in mind, and strong in body, arrive almost unnoticed at a green old age, while the aged and seemingly healthy drunkard, if such a phrase be not deemed absurd, is held forth and pointed at, as an example of the harmlessness, if not beneficial influence of inebriating compounds. Bishop Berkeley, in his essay on Tar Water, has a forcible passage on these unenviable members of society. "Albeit," he remarks, "there is in every town or district in England, some tough dram-drinker set up as the devil's decoy, to draw in proselytes.' Dr. Cheyne, (of Dublin,) relates an anecdote, which may serve as an additional illustration. A gentleman, far advanced in years, one of Bishop Berkeley's "devil's decoys," on one occasion boasted that he had drank two, three, or four bottles of wine every day for fifty years, and that he was as hale and hearty as ever. Pray, remarked a by-stander, where are your boon companions? Ah," he quickly replied, "that's another affair; if the truth may be told, I have buried three entire generations of them." Dr. Beddoes, a physician of high reputation, in allusion to the popular objection, that all who indulge in the use of intoxicating liquors are not injured, remarks, that we are perpetually reminded of the exception, as an excuse for a practice so universally marked by medical observers as destructive. But neither, he continues, do all who are exposed to its contagion catch the plague. And yet is the hazard sufficient to induce every man in his sober senses to keep out of the way of infection? Dr. Rush argues much in the same strain. “The solitary instances of longevity," he observes, "which are now and then met with in hard drinkers, no more disprove the deadly effects of ardent spirits, than the solitary instances of recoveries from apparent death by drowning, prove that there is no danger to life from a human body lying an hour under water." On reference to authentic data, however, it is found that drunkards do not escape the consequences which result from unlawful indulgence. Appropriate illustrations are now adduced. Dr. Parry details the cases of two gentlemen, each of whom drank in a day a bottle of gin, the same quantity of rum, and two bottles of Madeira. One was afflicted for some time with mental alienation, and put under the necessary restraint. The other for many weeks had repeated attacks of epilepsy-followed by occasional wanderings of perception. The following case fell under the observation of Mr. Cheselden, an anatomist of great celebrity: A man died through excessive palpitation of the heart, occasioned by hard drinking. He had indulged in this habit for years. About ten inches of the largest vessel that issues from that organ, was found to be distended with blood about three times its natural diameter. Dr. Cheyne details the following case:-a naval officer took two or three tumblers of grog gaily. On one occasion, after feasting |