"Do poor people live longer than the affluent? There are so many more poor in the world than there are rich that we can be sure of finding more poor old people. Probably excessive wealth is a burden sure to exhaust its possessor in the care of it. Our millionaires, however, are men for the most part who began poor and were possessed of tenacious vitality, that is, with a grip on other things as strong as on the money bags. Professor Humphrey's 'Report on Age of Persons' gives us 824 persons, of both sexes, of whom about half were poor and the rest at least in good circumstances, 10 per cent only being possessed of wealth. The real truth seems to be that poverty, with an iron constitution and sound nerves, is most likely to produce an instance of extreme age; but the possession of the comforts and amenities of life produces by far the best average of ages. The average age of the middle classes has always surpassed that of others; but at present sanitation forces on the poor so many provisions against disease that they are saved from their former high death-rate, and brought quite near the privately better-bred and furnished class. "There has certainly been long sustained, in proverbs and otherwise, a conviction that early rising and early retiring have much to do with prolonged vitality. Franklin insisted on it vigorously. Lord Mansfield, also, held it to be an important item in his sustained vigor to near ninety. I am inclined to believe that the estimate is not erroneous. We are far more the creatures of habit than we generally allow. At certain moments we become regularly hungry, regularly sleepy, and so with all other functions. It is wise beyond doubt to recognize this fact and never break our habits, that is, our useful habits. But beyond this, there are certain habits dependent on cosmical causes, such as movements of the sun. Our natural rest would seem to be properly conformed, in the main, to the appearance and disappearance of daylight. "But after we have fairly and fully considered the subject, there remains the one fact that idleness will end life sooner than any other cause. The hour that any person retires from any and all occupation he is sure to drop into decadence. The mind is very sure to begin to lose its clearness when it is withdrawn from regular exercise. Both brain and muscular power lapse with lack of activity. The custom of working excessively till sixty-five or seventy, and then withdrawing from business, is wrong at both ends. We crowd life at the beginning, and let its functioning grow torpid at the close. Much is lost to age by our modern methods of locomotion. Great walkers are scarce; there is almost a total lack of horse-back exercise. Carriage-riding over smooth roads in no way compensates."