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Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Feb 22, 1899

HOW TO LIVE A CENTURY. No. 4.

THERE is a man living in San Francisco who is a fair sample of what the body will do when we keep it clean, feed it properly, and give it pure water to drink. I have the pleasure of meeting and conversing with this aged gentleman daily while he is eating his meals at the Helping Hand and Medical Mission in San Francisco. And I do not see how I can bestow a greater favor on the readers of this article than by giving in his own words his method of keeping his body in perfect health, even at the remarkable age of nearly 103 years, and by also giving his picture, taken when 65 and 102 years of age respectively.

GODDARD E. D. DIAMOND AT 65. (Tintype Taken in 1861.)

He says: "My name is Goddard Ezekiel Dodge Diamond. My father's family record showed that I was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the first day of May, 1796. My parents were Joseph and Mahala Diamond. The Diamonds were of Scottish ancestry, and my father was of the first American generation, and lived to the ripe old age of 106 years, and died at Huntsville, Alabama, about 1865.

"My mother's maiden name was Allen, and she was a niece of General Ethan Allen, of Ticonderoga fame. Her ancestry on her mother's side was the Cotton's, who came over on the Mayflower. So it appears that in my veins runs the blood of the Scotch, Irish, Dutch, and English, about as desirable mixture as one can wish for ancestry.

"In the first year of my life my father removed from Plymouth to the province of Massachusetts, now known as Oxford County, State of Maine. In that heavily-timbered country I grew up to young manhood, unseen and not seeing much aside from our own home. I assisted my father to fell the trees, pile up and burn the brush, clear off and till the land for a living, until he returned from the war of 1812, which I believe was in the year of 1814, at which time he gave me my liberty and sent me out empty-handed. These early years of my life were so concealed from the public, and the world was so unknown to me, that scarcely an event occurred outside of the routine of farm life to impress my mind until the war of 1812, which made the first indelible impression upon my understanding.

"I do not despise the lowly life through which I passed my early years on the farm. It is quite probable that I owe much of my lifelong good health to the simple, industrious habits of swinging the ax, digging with the hoe, and breathing the pure air.

"My loss of early education met with some compensation in escaping the poisonous air of our modern-day school-rooms, and the retaining of my nervous system intact, instead of being wrecked by an excited pressure of educational stuffing to meet the demands of the text-books, to the exclusion of the application of common sense. Blessed is the youth who enjoys the privilege of country life, runs barefoot, and wades every creek and pond in the community.

"From the paternal roof I went to a small community called Yarmouth. Here I spent six months, gathering sufficient courage to go to Boston. Then and there I began a migratory life, spending my summers in Massachusetts and New York and my winters in Florida, Mississippi, and New Orleans, with the exception of an occasional trip to the West Indies and the continent of Europe.

"While in the South I was employed in the commission business or superintending plantations, and when in the North, I was engaged in building the first railroads in the United States, among them being the railroad from Worcester to Boston, the old colony road from Boston to Plymouth, and the road from Albany, New York, to old Durripp, now Schenectady. I took part in the construction of the New York and Erie Canal, from New York to Buffalo, which I twice assisted to enlarge. When the war began in 1861 I was in St. Louis, engaged in building the Lexington and Farmer City Railroad. As I look back over that long period of long ago—aggregating sixty-five years of my life, and then look at men alongside of me who say they are now sixty-five years old, it seems an incredible thing that my age was then more than threescore years.

"The most memorable campaign in which I ever engaged was in 1840, when General Harrison was the candidate. At Albany, New York, of that year, I rode in the 'Log Cabin,' drawn by four hundred yoke of oxen, there being four lines of teams of one hundred yoke to the line. Fifty years later I marched in the line of Republicans in San Francisco, who were 'whooping it up' for the grandson of General Benjamin Harrison."

"WHAT I EAT AND DRINK.—That which enters within the man tells the story of building up or tearing down. Breathing, eating, and drinking are the three processes of taking into the body the vital forces of nature.

"Three things I have faithfully practised in the last half century, jointly. The first is that of breathing the freshest air possible, long, deep draughts. The second is the selection and eating of the best bone and blood-making food at my command. The third is the use of pure water at proper time and temperature. When I began to prepare the body for long and healthy life, I left out of my diet slaughtered meats entirely. I saw enough in the flesh of butchered animals while it was hanging in the slaughtering-pens throughout the country to satisfy me that there was more disease and cause for suffering in it than there was food. I eat grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables; I drink boiled or distilled water. I take a sponge bath every night, after which I rub a little olive oil in each of my joints, thus keeping the machinery in good working order.

"I have never used a pipe, cigar, or cigaret; never indulged in wine, nor any intoxicating liquor, omitting entirely the use of tea and coffee. None of these things contain food, and nature rebels at their use. There are better uses for our cash. Food is to build up what is daily being torn down, but there is no food in stimulants, and the person who indulges in them cuts short his life, sins against his own body, against his neighbor, and against his Maker.

"For more than half a century I have lived the life of a vegetarian, and I can see no reason why I should not live a long time yet, for I am perfectly well, with not an organic disease. I eat well, also sleep well, and I look much younger than when I was fifty years old, and I am sure I feel younger, for I was then an old man, with round shoulders and bent form. If I live till the first day of May, 1899, I will be

one hundred and three years of age. Next April I will take a bath in the Pacific Ocean at Seal Rock, San Francisco, Cal., and will then start on my long walk to New York City, and will take my next ocean bath in the Atlantic Ocean, at Coney Island, New York. I walk now about twenty miles each day, so you see I believe in bodily exercise."

Captain Diamond has written a book entitled "The Secret of Long Life," which he sells for twenty-five cents, in which he gives a brief history of his life. His address is 315 1/2 Ellis Street, San Francisco, Cal. He is a strong advocate of temperance in all things, for it has done wonderful things for him.

B. F. RICHARDS.