WONDERFUL FOR OUR TIMES.
By S. Osborn
MR. JOHN ALLEN was born Oct. 9, 1771, on the Atlantic Ocean, and lived in Newburn, N. C., until March 3, 1875, at which time he started to walk to Huntington, a town on the Ohio River, four hundred miles distant. This journey he performed in four months, averaging about four miles per day. At that time he was in the one hundred and fifth year of his age. In conversation with him on board the steamer Hudson, Feb. 16, 1876, when he was on his way to the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, I solicited the following facts respecting his life and habits:— His principal articles of diet have been rice and sweet potatoes, with occasionally a little bread and milk, and sometimes a little pork. He has used but little coffee and no tea, and has generally eaten but two meals a day. He never drank a dram of liquor in his life, never took a dose of medicine, and he was never much sick. He can remember things that transpired ninety to one hundred years ago better than those transpiring around him; and he converses on general topics with considerable intelligence. His hearing is as good as that of most young people. The most of his life he has worked hard in the pinery, making tar and turpentine, his wages varying from 12½ to 25 cents per day. He has an uncle living near Newburn whose habits of life have been about like his own, and who is one hundred and twenty-four years old. He also spoke of others residing at the same place, aged respectively one hundred and six and one hundred and ten years. Mr. Allen expects to live fifteen or twenty years longer, and loves life as well as he ever did. Surely his habits of life, and those of others in that poor region, have had an influence in promoting this wonderful longevity. S. OSBORN.