Morning journal and courier., 1885-07-13
Longevity.

1 Joseph E. Perkins, old bookseller of
 1 Syracuse, N. Y., has for thirty-fve years
 been collecting reliable statistics in regard to
 people who have lived one hundred years or
 more He claims to have more than ten
 | thousand instances upon record of cases 1 gathered from every part of the globe. He
 1 says: "This country leads in longevity and
 | Connecticut is at the front in the United
 l States. In that State I have gathered statis-
 1 tics in regard to more than six thousand per
 l sons who were more than eighty years of age, and of this number twenty were beyond the century limit. Vermont and New Hamp- shire also show many instances of longevity. The Chinese are short and the Russians long lived. As regards sex the majority of these ten thousand cases of centenarians are wo- men. I account for this by the fact that they lead less irregular lives than men. I have instances of fifty old maids who come up to my century standard, and only twelve bachelors. As regards occupation I find that sailors, soldiers and farmers are the longest lived. Among the professions I have the in stances of one hundred ministers who lived to one hundred years and more, while could find only thirty doctors, ten lawyers and ten actors who came up to the standard. l can find no case among my ten thousand of newspaper man WnO mas uVoQ to D0 one nun dred years old Among the oldest people in l the United States were Flora Thompson, negress of Nashua, $. O., who died at the l age of one hundred and fifty years; Betsy
 Frautham, native of Germany, who died in Tennessee at the age of one hundred and l tifty-four years; and Sims, slave, who died in Virginia one hundred and eighty years old Then there was John Weeks, of New London, Conn.,, who married his tenth wife when be was one hundred and six years of age and she only sixteen. He died at the age ot one hundred and fourteen. His gray hairs had fallen off and they were renewed by dark growth of hair. Several new teeth
 had also made their appearance. The last man in the party that threw the tea over board in Boston harbor at the beginning of the Revolutionary war was David kennlson, who died at the age of one hundred and sev- enteen years. Nicholas Schathowski, of Posen, was another old fellow. He deposed an oath before the council of Constance, A. D. 1414, that he hundred and fifty years of age, and that his father, whose age at the time of his death was nearly two hun dred, could remember the death of the first King of Poland, A. D. 1925. Among the oddities I have is the photograph of man who died at the age of one hundred and twenty-one years. He had one hundred and forty four children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and outlived them all. Then there was Margaret McDowal of Edinburgh, Wno oleu aG the age or one nunureu anu sIA- She married and survived thirteen husbands. John Rovin and his wife, of Hungary, lived together as man and wife one hundredsand forty eight years. He was one hundred and sixty-four and she one hundred and seventy two years at the time they died, and their youngest son was hundred and sixteen years old when the parents died. The most remarkable instance of longevity in British history is the case of Thomas Carr, of St. Leonard, Shoreditch. He died in 1888 at the age of two hundred and seven years. He was born in the reign of Richard II and lived in the reigns of twelve kings and queens, namely Richard II, Henry ", v and VI, Edward " and V, Richard III, Henry VII and VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth.