The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1842-02-12
From the Boston Transcript.
LONGEVITY AND LQNGI LILlE ----

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Almost every city boasts of the longevity of ITS in
habtants but the people Of South Kingston andthoso
of Providence Rhode Island, in the Providence Pa..-
tatons quarelling as to the longevity OF the peo-
pie no dwell in their respective towns The contest
is hard one and it is doubtful which will win the
race Each one puts his best foot foremost to gam the
| victory The latest accounts are in favor of the
South Kingston side
On the LIST of June, ls4O there were living in than
town rs persons whose united ages amounted to 2l!o
years or about IS years each the youngest beln.
and the oldest 95 years of age The name OF the old
est is VIM. Lunt and he was barber TO Gen. Wash
ington. In addition to these, there were 9 men be-
tN cen 80 and 80 years of age ID women between
80 and 80; 5women between 80 and 100, and ~ woman
l05 years of age besides lots of youths from % 70
50.
This is pretty well for town with less than four
thousand inhabitants. But there is telling what
Newport will do now that she has got into spirit OF
competition.
The question has often been asked whether ba
chelor has ever been known to live to the age ct
hundred years. We unable to answer the in
quiry.
But to pass from longevity to longitude, there ara
some families who seem to grow to an lima odeFiie
height Their, altitude oyertops that OF all Their
neighbors. They Overlook their contemporaries -
The Bible tells of the of Anak, and that
there were giants in those days Occasionally wc
find one of these tall customers, such as Mons b
him. who was here year or two ago, and the Ken
lucky Giant, and Mr.. Freeman the American q ant
who, we believe, is now in this city
But they pgmics to what existed in for
mer days if may believe what tradition and Il
tory tells us
Og, King Of Bashan, who is spoken of in Scripture
is said to have been than twelve feet high
Goah was about nine feet nine inches high, eleven
feet according to some commentators The EnPc-
ror Maximinlis is said to have been nine feet l
height Turner, the naturalist mentions haIn1
seen the Brazil coast, of gigantic savage.
one of whom measured twelve feet Thcyet IN Tvs
description of America, published at Paris i'll ljl5
declares that he saw and measured the skeleton of
South American which was eleven feet five inches
in length. Dimerbroeck saw, at Utrecht, well FRO
portioned living man, measuring feet inches and
DR. Becamus was introduced to youth who was
nearly nine feet high, almost ten feet, and 4
woman quite ten feet The Patagonlans have been
represented as nation of giants. The {" Phllosoph,-
cal Transactions of the ROYAL Society contain ac-
counts of skeletons dug up in England measuring
eight or nine feet in length, which probably were
Roman In the 4st and AID volumes of the sa he
work two engrayngs, taken from an @ os lronts
and an os fcmoris the former of which is reckencd
to have belonged to person between eleven aud
twelve feet high the latter, to giant thirteen feet
four inches. Walter Parsons, porter to King jane
l.. was seven feet some inches in height. .a#
The Chinese pretend that they have giants iti, ia
feet in height but, before they have done with John
Bull---or John Bull is done with them--wc slI>pG
they will not loom up quite so tall as they wouii
make the barbarirns think them to be-