The Honorable John Morrissey, ex-champion pugilist of America, in conversation with us about diet, said:

“Mr. James, you can form no idea of the glorious feeling that a man experiences when he gets himself in perfect condition. Everything in the world looks different to him from what it does when his system is clogged up with bile, and he is carrying a quantity of flesh that is only a burden to him. It is almost impossible to get a man when in such a condition into a bad humor. He feels like a young colt, and wants to kick up his heels and have a good time with everybody and everything he meets.” His course of training was as follows:

First. Take a black draught. Any druggist will put it up. All prize-fighters take this when they begin to train for a fight. You’ll find it the liveliest dose of medicine you ever took.

Second. Be sure and get at least seven or eight hours of good sound sleep every day.

Third. In the morning when you first get up drink a glass of hard cider with a raw egg in it. If the cider is not to be had then use sherry wine, but I prefer the cider. Then start out and walk briskly for a couple of miles. When you come back take a sponge bath and rub yourself dry with a coarse towel. Bub until your skin is all aglow.

Fourth. For breakfast eat a lean steak, cooked rare, and stale bread. Use no milk, no sugar, no butter, and no potatoes, with the exception of about once a week. If you wish you can eat a roast or baked potato in the morning. Drink sparingly of tea and coffee. Tea is the best.

Fifth. For dinner eat rare roast beef and stale bread. Use no potatoes or vegetables of any kind with this meal. For change you can have occasionally a mutton chop.

Sixth. For supper, a lean steak or a mutton chop, without fat. Do not eat any warm biscuits or warm bread, at any time. Stick to good wholesome stale wheat bread. Eat no pies, cakes or pastry of any kind, and use pepper, salt and all other seasonings very sparingly.

Seventh. Use no stimulants of any kind. Do not smoke. Drink sparingly of water. Do not eat berries or vegetables of any kind, excepting occasionally a raw onion.

Eighth. If you feel weak in the morning before breakfast, it comes from the bathing, and it should be discontinued for a few days.

The system for hardening the muscles, etc., most approved of by the Senator and the leading pugilists, is being first sponged with a decoction of arnica flowers, alum, borax and Jamaica rum, then bathed with hartshorn liniment, and an application of white wine vinegar mixed with alum and borax to the face and hands. The proportions of the ingredients used in the sponge bath have hitherto been a profound secret with the professional trainer. For the benefit of the fraternity we here print them: Take two pounds of arnica flowers, five cents’ worth of borax, five cents’ worth of alum, and steep all together, after pulverizing the alum and borax, in a gallon or so of Jamaica rum, and after letting it steep for twenty-four hours, apply as before stated.