A short time ago Leslie's Weekly said that centenarians are not such a prodigy in the world as to make the simple attainment of one hundred years of life an event calling for special comment This is true. To last one hundred years with no particular purpose in view, is one thing; to live one hundred years, or even to a high average of longevity, behind which is a practical aim, is a different matter entirely. Many persons have existed for a century; others have actually lived a century. For lack of space I can name only a few centenarians from whose lives some lessons can be drawn.

The real life of Colonel George L. Perkins is a fascination. He was born at Norwich, Con necticut, August fifth, 1788, and died in the same city September sixth, 1888. Centenarians are rare enough at best, but Colonel Perkins was an exceptionally choice and noble specimen of his species. Some facts of his life possess a peculiar interest. He passed away only seven teen years ago, and yet he remembered Washington well; was a paymaster in the United States army in the war with Great Britain in 1812; was a member of the committee to welcome General Lafayette in 1824; was one of the incorporators of the Norwich and Worcester railway in 1836; was elected treasurer of the company when he was forty-seven years old, and was active in performing the duties of the office upwards of fifty years. He outlived eight of the nine presidents of the company, and more than ninety directors. He voted at eighteen presidential elections, and cast his ballot at every state and general election for seventy-six years. A correspondent of the New York Tribune, noting the celebration of Colonel Perkins' one hundredth birthday, suggests that it is hard to realize that only nineteen such lifetimes, one after another, "would reach back from the present year beyond the birth of Christ!"

But how can the Colonel's century of life and remarkable activity in private business and an unlagging interest and participation in this world's affairs for eighty years be accounted for? The correspondent referred to says that Colonel Perkins so admirably preserved his body and mind that without information concerning his age no one who met him for the first time would ever imagine that he had passed further along in years than the seventies. He made it a law to adapt himself easily and happily to the conditions surrounding him, and by that means was "singularly free from senile prolixity." His excellent health was largely due to his fine care of himself, and his buoyant and amicable disposition. He studied the art of preserving health with splendid carefulness. This, it is said, was his only hobby, and "the wonderful success that attended his efforts in that direction not only justified riding it freely, but lends to his convictions and precepts great value" to those who are interested in prolonging a life worth living.

Mrs. Perkins reached her ninetieth birthday, and it is pleasant to record the fact that they lived together as lovers for seventy-one years.

When Dr. John H. Kellogg, editor of Good Health, Battle Creek, Michigan, was in San Francisco in 1903, he met Captain C. E. D. Diamond of that city, who at that time was one hundred and seven years old. The doctor says he was a remarkable representative of the results of sober and temperate living. He had been engaged all his life in active muscular pursuits, and could then outdo the majority of young men in athletic performances.

Dr. Kellogg gave Captain Diamond an examination, and found no evidence whatever of physical degeneracy. The cheerful centenarian ate two meals a day, consisting chiefly of fruits and nuts. He had never made use of stimulants or narcotics of any sort. He stands as a splendid example of what can be done by a natural, wholesome mode of living, as a means to attain a happy old age.

California has another centenarian in the person of J. J. Overton, who has lived in three centuries. He is a citizen of Long Beach, and his business is that of a peanut and candy vender. He was born in Warren County, Pennsylvania, in October 1797. He is a veteran in military service, having been in the Black Hawk Indian War, the Mexican War, and by some means he was enlisted in the Civil War when he was sixty-seven. His activity at the age of one hundred and seven is surprising. In the summer of 1904 he walked to Los An geles, twenty-two miles. A walk of three or four miles a day he calls moderate exercise.

Mr. Overton is quite a philosopher. When he feels ill, he refrains from eating until his health is restored. He never takes medicine; and he attributes his long and peaceful life to abstemiousness in diet, having always lived on plain, coarse food. He claims that the majority of people eat too much.- An epigram of his is worth remembering - "Digestion is the key to life."

Mr. Wolf Weismann, a Russian Jew, of Hoboken, New Jersey, attained his one hundred and fourth year in 1904. He had always been interested in the accounts of long-lived persons of various countries, and therefore was prepared to speak intelligently on the subject of longevity. When asked to give the press his views on old age, he said that it was good to be old, if one had lived as he ought to. Though past a century old, he enjoyed life as much as when he was thirty. He made the happy expression that every man ought to be "an evergreen." Nature had always been his model - sturdy, straight, wholesome, and refreshing.

Mr. Weismann stated that the nervous American sleeps too much. Instead of sleeping so long, he ought to walk much out of doors. He offered the suggestion that if one would live happily and healthily he should be with children as much as possible, as they can teach elderly people much of the beauty and simplicity of life.

In all his reading about long-lived races and individuals, Mr. Weismann said he was constantly impressed with the influence of contentment of mind. It seemed to him that in spite of all the efforts of modem science, enlightened Americans and Europeans cannot compete with certain barbarous, almost uncivilized peoples, in the matter of prolonging the span of human life.