Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-01-01
THE DREAD OF OLD AGE.
The Disease Called Senil;ty Much RareI
Than it Used to Be.

|
The Disease Called seniIity Much Rarer
| Than it Used to Be.
There is nothing to surprise us in the
interest displayed all over the world
often in such kindly and graceful fash
| ion-in the hundredth anniversary of
Sir Moses Monteiiore's birthday. Apart
from the dignity of the great Hebrews
personal character, which, though in a
different way, resembles the dignity of
Lord Shaftesbury's and from the fact
that he has illustrated a cosmopolitan
clan very sensitive to such illustrations,
all mankind are attracted by any in
stance of extreme old age reached with
out loss of faculties, ofvisible happiness
or of consid Grafton, We all of us, or
at least all of us who are slipping past
fifty, secretly dread old age, and regard
with aversion its usual, or additionally
usual, conditions; and the sight of
man about whose years there can be no
question who has passed by thirty years
the average limit of human life, and by
ten wears an extreme limit, and yet
talks we'll, hears fairly well, sees per-
fectly well, and could walk like another
but for weakness, is pleasantly reassur-
ing. If the man of century can be
like Sir Moses, the man of ninety may
be only little indolent, the man of
eighty hale and hearty, and the man of
seventy retain ''the fullest vigor of his
faculties "a phrase so habitually used
and in so conventional sense that a
Suffolk laborer was once heard to tell
his clergyman: THANK We, sir, I'm
we'll enow, but my faculties is failing,
specially my feet That is one secret,
we are convinced, of the decided popu-
laritv of very old statesmen, and espec-
tally old statesmen of great vigor,
a sense among the middle-aged
that if they who are SO visible
lean be so strong and active and
|be so dreadful after all. An appre-
hension is removed or lessened, and a
very keen one. Some of the dread, no
oovish recollections, and even upon
BOOKS. Shakespeare in particular hav-
| ao expressed, in lines which have |
tuck in the National memory, an I'M
| sually strong sense of the intirmities of |
sye. His celebrated lines were proba- |
| Iy accurate at the time, for they are |
| acurate now when applied to certain |
| casses of the very poor, but they no |
1hger describe the majority of the |
| aed well-to-do. Whatever the cause, |
wether improved sanitary appliances,
| on greater temperance, or, as we |
shuld ourselves believe. an increase in |
til habit of persistently using the mind |
an consistently taking interest in
evs1ts, it is certain that the disease |
caed senility is among the fully-fed
meh rarer than it used to be. The |
oldose their hearing and their activ-
ityand part of the keenness of their sight |
antare supposed to be grown duller alike
to Ieasure and to pain; but they much
seldmer become totally blind, or fatu-
ous,or unable to control their features,
| or Incapable of guiding themselves
abot. Men of eighty-four or eighty.
five,who in the early part of the CEN
tarywould have fallen into second
chilAood, then a disease recognized
not DIV by doctors, but by all men,
and kgarded as sort of idiocy, now
talk asily, and glide over little def
ciencs of memory, and are, apart from
nohngraceful, or at all events not
disg1ting physical weakness, truly
men. The younger generation has,
howesr. scarcely realized the change
in its All extent, and fears age, there
fore, hconsciously, a little more acute
ly thalit should, though it has reason
for SON of its fear. The lot of the old
is not se happiest. even if they are for
tunatea placed. -L0sd0D Spectator.