Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1869-08-19

y
stance of eeutenarianism, found that the
Bible which contained the entry was only
sixty years old. and that no other tcsj;-
] nony was forthcoming.
Registers of birth were not formally
used and legally established til after the
/ year 1880; all such registers before tha.
dase We're voluntary and therefore unear-
tam Even parish registers arc not al
ways reliable, for many Of them, giving
. the year Of death. mention .the age Of the
| deceased but do not s;~S.9 the year Of
Snirth, 50 thai g'pss tr sot txo dates to
( e1rrcct each other S,;f2etimes tombstones
are re-chiseled TO restore the half-decay-
Cd epitaphs, and then the village mason
puzzled at some Of the PARTIAL y-o6liter-
ate} figures. makes q guess At them, and
puts in the date or the aca which seems
to him nearest the ori.inaI There is a
tombstone in Conway churchvar1, recor-
ding the fact that that Lowry Owens
Vaughan, died in l7G6. at the age Of
l"2, and that her husband, Wi.liam
Vaughan, died in t735, at the age Of =
Now 4 recent observer of the tom mhstone
has remarked that tae lady must (if chi>
1a true) have been nearly a hunir Il years
Old wher William Vaughan married h r;
and as the f-ureS on the stcne have a
rather treshly-cut appearance, be prefers
the suppo<ition that 1872 was an incorrect
re-cutting of an earlier n,ision Tne
Worccste: CHroptr:s, in 1872, drew at
tentjon u a tombstone in Cleve Prior
olurchyard, which recorded the death ct
a person AT the startling age Of sos = this
is supposed 80 have been au ignorant ma
sons way OF expressing 80, that is 30
and ga kind of errcr not Ut fred quent
among the humber classes. 1tho Times
noticed IL 1913, that the register Of Shore
ditch parish contained an eutrJ Of Thomas
Cam, who died in 17sS, at the age of 207,
having lived in l. reigns. An iuve~ti
gator afterwards pointed out that Sir Hen
ry Ellis, III his History Of Sloredich ,
Pat down the age at l07; and IN exani-
1natjon OF the register elected tie fac, that
I had been altered to - quite recently
by some mjSchievous person who proba
/ bly, wished to poke fun at the aut'Ila-
ries. Instances Of the following kind are
known to have occurred 4 young mar
ricd couple have a son whom they name
John, and who dies in infancy; twenty
years afterwards another son receives the
similar name Of john aud then, i'll uelgh-
bors gossip eighty years afterwards, one
John becomes contounled with the other,
aud man rsally eighty years old figures
in popular reputc as a centeulrian. Some
aged persons like to be considered older
I than they are, on account Of the celebri-
tg it gives; and they d. not shrink from
few 'cralrmcrs" to bring this about
The Rev Mr. Fletcher, as he was called j,
who was first a farmer, then a soldier,
.hen employed in me West India Docks,
and then a Methodist local preacher, US d
10 say that he was over hundred years
old he drew great crowds to hear such
Phenomenon preach, He probably be
feyel himself to te = oil as he said, aud
at hi, death his age was recorded as los ;
but a subsequent investigator showed
that he was much less instead Of much
more than ecntcnarian. Th, writer of
tn paper knew Of an old womau many
years a50 "Ao oO'd'"ed hoi0ttS%y TOT
beiag, in her own worIs, "a hundred Al!
but two. and Tor beng able to hold 4
sixpcuce horizontally between her no:e
aud chm; BUT he doubts whether there
was any evidence Of h-r age beyond her
own assertion.
There can be no question that this kind
Of incrcdulty renders service. in 50 far
as it Undue careful examination into the
testimony fer alleged facts Of longevity.
Nevertheless centenarianism (and a few
years beyond the even hundrcd) rest on
too many and tcn varied data to be quite
overthrorn.- London Society.