Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1880-11-12
How Long Ought a Man to Live.

Although the average duration of human
life is found to be increasing for the past
hundred years, or since mortality tables have
been kept, yet it is equally true that fewer
people die of old age than formerly. Scien-
lists say that the natural duration of all ami
nal life is five times the period it takes each
particular species to grow TO maturity. For
illustration, the horse is fully grown at five
years, and barring accidents, bad treatment
and the epizootic, will live to the age Of
twenty-five years. According to the same
physical law, man, who is an average about
| twenty years in arriving at the full develop
ment of manhood, ought to live hundred
years.
But in the case of horses, there be canals
and street railroads, and brutal hackmen and
and paucity of feed, (nstead of perennial
pastures and purling brooks,) to thwart ma
lures laws SO there lays in wait for man
countless and ever increasing vicissltudes to
shorten the thread of his mortal career
There are certain casualties still existing to
which the race has from the first been sub
jected, such as over indulgence of the pas
sions and ppetites-jealousies and little
brown jugs; going to sea in ships and with
out ships; climbing trees; choking to death
from biting off more than on could chew !;
the stern laws flats; going fishing; counting
other mems wives, etc But modern pro-
gross, co called, has added to all these count
less means of ripping off the golden thread
OF spilling the sands of life, so to speak. The
ancients had no delusve soothing syrup
or other patent nostrums; no stomach Bit
ters, secured by u Trademark no coal oil,
or gunpowder, or dynamite, to blow them
selves up withholding worse than moth.
ers-in-law land Adam didn' even have one
OF those explosive articles y no steam boilers
to send them slSy-high, or balloons to tum-
BILE from; no torchlight professions; no rial
road trains or steamboats, running wild, like
drove of Texas steers in cornfed, and
buttng against each other; no dyspeptc
mince pies or delusive "old port" no tight
lacing for the girls, or midnight orgies for
the boys; no nothing of u score of other in
strumentalities that now hurry humanity
so frequently from the cradle to an early
grave.
And so it follows, according to the opin-
ion Of those wise in vital statistics, that if
the present and future generations would
only forego the use of cordials, bitters and
all explosives, and steam and politics and |
highly-seasoned food, and all the delusiye
vanities of fashion and go TO bed with the
lark instead Of ON u lark, they would all live |
TO be ccntenarians, and some might even
)ntinue TO BIO as long as Joyce Heath or
Washington's body servant, the latter of
whom is supposed to be stilled living in Es-
sex county, Va. But is the game worth the
Gambler Isn't il better TO go fast and Glide
over smooth roads by express and palace
cars and reach the journeys end before the
evening gloom of old age envelopssnd than Z
to drag along and be joted over rouhh roads
In old-time cars and coaches and bend a
big fraction Of even IL long life in beih stall. !.
ed in slough holes or slowly climbintrocky
hills2
After all that can be said on the Affect,
pro and con, too much cannot be said in fla.
vor Of teaching the rising generatd the
simple laws Of health, how it may n pre-
served, and how it will be destroyed an en-
tail much misery and an early death if hose
laws are not observed.