The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-05-03
About Some Old Men.

| have not yet lost the image of Capt
! Lahrbush in his coffin-the old soldier
who recently died in this city at the age,
| as is supposed, of III years So vividly
was the superscription of old age written
upon his face in death, it was painful to
think that mortality had endured the
weight OF so many years. Had it been
affirmed Of him. as he lay in his narrow
house. that he had lived 125, or, even 100,
years, the statement would have been forti-
! fed by the looks of the man. Having
read the testimony for anu against the
claim Of the Captain to have been born in
1865, am disposed to put confidence in
his statement, and to believe that he died
Ill years old.
Other men have lived much longer than
he. If Methusaleh. lived 969 years, 1t
may be that others lived to be older. It
is nowhere said, except in the children's
catechisms, that he was the oldest man.
And he might have lived many years
longer, had he not, as is supposed, been
drowned in Noah's flood. The great age
of the patriarchs is called in question in
this age of unbelief, but there is nothing
incredible in the fact that the first man,
Adam, lived $50 years. Why should
he notl
The ordinary period of life appears to
have been gradually shortened after the
deluge. The Father Of the Faithful barely
survived l75 years, and Joseph succumbed
when he had gone ten years beyond his
first century. From the Exodus to the
present time, there has been no material
difference IN the average length of human
life. In the time of David, seventy was
old age, and sill beyond was labor and sor.
row, and the same psalm of life has been
sung every day since, in all climes of the
! world For climate does not make much
difference in the average length of life.
1t is affected by the habits of people,
and it is not certain that the higher civil
ization, with its luxuries and elixirs, tends
to the extension of the period. The ma
terial in cereals which makes bones and
teeth is largely excluded from -four by the
milling Processes, and we get the whitest
superfn4 article for bread, and will have;
no other: the whittier The bread, the more
favor it finds on the table of the refined
and rich: but we get poor teeth and ten
der bones, because the gist Of them was
taken out Of the -four. Nations that do
net bolt their flour have better teeth
than we.
Vespasian, who was born nine years
after our Lord and became q Roman
Emperor, instituted esasus, and found
in one region between the River Po and
the Apennines, fifty-four persons 100
years old, fourteen who we're ITO, twenty
who were 125, forty of the age of 100,
forty also 1876, and thirty who were f4O
years old! The object0rs to these figures
will say that there were no registers to be
relied on, and these statements may be
secuted as Fabulous Mr. Thoms, who
assailed the record of the age of Capt.
Lahrbush, held the theory that no one
lives to be hundred years. old. But We
have so many instances of centenarians
among us, whose record is unimpeachable,
that we may dismiss Mr.. Thoms without
hesitation DIR. Van Oven has enumera-
ted no less than seventeen persons who
lived TO the age OF $50 years, and Mr..
Bailey, in his work on longevity, gives
three or four thousand instances of age
reaching nearly to or above the century,
and some OF these mount up to the century
and half. Peter Czartan,. q Hungarian.
peasant, was bora ils 1880 and died j1f
s17S4S having lived l165 years, and left
the evidence behind him that this was
no exaggeration, but a. literal fact. The
life of Thomas Parr has been subjected
10 very careful criticism, and it Is not
denied that he was, as his biographer,
John Taylor, styles him. the olde,
olde, very Olde man." he was born, &C
cording to this account, in 1888 and died
IN London, 1855. being 152 years of age.
.ticated to make Il certain that ceetpzy
these later days. And it is true that these
rw~nrfsov. ~1lxv <.1I r,crv.lo ApO11u Avs,v& <1fF
not from the wearing out Of the machine,
they might have avoided, and 81 lived ON
Lahrbush he was stepping from street
car, and, declining any help, he skipped
of as lightly "a II the weight Of only
He went to call on friend in the midst
Of cold rain, laying of. before he went,
his heavy winter clothing, and wearing
ssdress suit He took violent cold and
died Of it. But such deaths are a. truly
parts Of the Providential plan - The ex-
tensl! :: f!lllfgys4 thsdEH9I 9ef3
knQR ~ 1t3k ~ ne11 sf16&18 W1n.
bring forth. Il may be- life prolonged;
but In the midst OF life We ere in deash.
Such an old age Il not in itself to BE-
desired. It hds ia1fnfliss I'D 36sses that
make death more to be desired than life. i
II the grasshopper be mot burden 70
the aged. the aged often arp : burden 70
;thean2 - aid othefu What 'tA4y o6co
dqIiehted b are 70 loa&er pleasures,
wkiIe thooe near them ~ happy only ID
pursuits for which ~ ngo4 k6xp lost all
taste. and sven the capacity 10 enjoy.
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