The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1869-10-07

of the thirteenth century, and lived nearly
to the middle of the fifteenth, had the same
age imputed to him. If the parish regis
ter of Minsbull. in Cheshire, may be re-
lied upon when it says that one Thomas
Damme lived TO 'Fsevenscore and fourteen
years. this looks very much like 154.
TIE most celebrated parsonage, how
ever, who exceeded 80 years was that
renowned old Parr, who always seems to
be making and taking ''life pills. and
whose portraits seem intended to show
how vigorous and venerable we shall all
become if we will only take the pills in
question. The testimony as to Thomas
PARIS age seems to be tolerably complete.
He was born in Shropshire, in 1888, re-
mained bachelor till 80 years old, mar
ried in 1868, lived with his first wife 30
years, became a widower In 1895, mar
ried again in 1908, when he was 12O
years old, and lived to see the year 1888.
In that year the Earl of Arundel visited
him, and was so struck by his appear
ance as to invite him TO come to his town
mansion The old man was brought by
very easy stages in litter to London, but
the fatigue, the crowds of visitors who
came TO see him, and the luXuries which
were pressed upon him, carried him off at
the wonderful age of l52. He was bur-
led on November l5, 1855, at Westmin
ster Abbey, where a monument was erect
ed to his memory.
Shall we 90 beyond eight score ? Let
US see. There was one John Hovin, who
died in 174l, at the alleged age of 172,
and who left widow destined to live TO
her l64;h year. There was Tairville,
who, according to Martins description
of the Western Isles," died in the Shet-
land Islands at the age of l8O. There
was Peter Torton, who gained renown in
1924 as having survived till 1856; and
there was Jane Britton, who, as we are
informed by the Parish register of Ever
crick, in Somerset, for 1888, "was a
maiden, as she affirmed, Of 200 years"
Leaving this bIushing maiden and her
compeers, we must observe that the only
we'll authenticated case Gf it is au h9ntica-
ted) of eight score and upward was that
of Henry Jenkins He was born in the
year 1901. When boy, he carried
horse-load OF arrows to Northalerton, to
be employed by the English army in re-
sisting the invasion of James ", of
Scotland and he lived to see the year
1910, when he died at Ellerton-upon-
Swale, in Yorks shire, at the age of l69.
Now, what are we to think of all these
alleged cases of extreme old age? The
grounds on which skepticism has been
expressed concerning them are numerous.
1t has been pointed out tha; most of them
are among the humber classes. where
registers and formal entries are but little
attended to. The middle and upper class
es, among whom authentic records are
more plentiful, take but small part in the
marvels of longevity. "Can actuaries, :"
it is asked, "refer us 10 single instance
of an assured person living 10 hundred
and forty, thirty, twenty, ten,-ay, TO one
hundred and ten! The legal evidence
is almost always deficient. Registers of
birth were not formally and legally estab-
lished till after the year 1880; all such
registers before that date were voluntary,
and, therefore, uncertain. Even parish
registers are not always reliable, for many
of them, giving the year of death, mention
the age of the deceased, but do not name
the year Of birth, so that there are not
two dates to correct each other.
Sometimes tombstones are rechiseled to
restore the half-decayed epitaphs; and
then the village mason, puzzled at some
of the partially y-obliterated figures, makes
a guess at them, and puts in the date or
the age which seems to him nearest like
the original. A tombstone in q church~
yard at Conway, England, records the
fact that Lowry Owens Vaughan died in
1866, at the age of 1872, and that her
husband, William Vaughan, died in 1875,
at the age of 72. Now, a recent observer
of the tombstone has remarked that the
lady must (f this be true) have been nearly
aHhundred years old when VIM. Vaughan
married her; and as the figures on the
stone have a rather freshly cut appearance,
he prefers the supposition that 1872 was an
incorrect recutting of an earlier incision.
The Worcester Chronicle, in 1852, drew
attention to a stone in Cleve Prior church
yard, which recorded the death of per
son at the startling age of 500. This is
supposed TO have been an ignorant mason's
way Of expressing 39-that is, so and 8.
The Times noticed, in 1913, that the re-
gister of Shoreditch Parish contained an
entry of Thomas Cam, who died III 598,
at the age of 207, having lived in twelve
reigns. An investigator afterwards point
ed out that Sir Henry Ellis, in his 'His
tory of Shoreditch,'' put down the age at
lO7 and an examination of the register
elected the fact that 'l'' had been altered
to "2" quite recently, by some mischiev~
Gus person who probably wished to poke
fun at the antiquaries.
There can be no question that this kind
of incredibly renders service, in so far as
it induces more careful examination into
the testimony for alleged facts of longevi-
ty. Nevertheless, centenarianisin ests on