Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-10-02
LENGTH OF MANS LIFE.
HOW LONG CAN WE REASONA-
BLY, EXPECT TO LIVE3
Men Have Lived Remarkably Long Lives
Statesmen and Clergymen Seem
to Have the Best Chances
in the Race.

times exceed JnaJ ngufe, ana there
have not been wanting instances to
prove that it is possible to double the
number For example, it has been
pretty clearly shown that certain
countess of Desmond lived for l40
years, and if Old Parr was not 1872
years of age when he died. he was GER
tainly not much less, for the evidence
in proof of his case is even more COM
plete than that in the case of the lady
who danced with Richard III. when he
was Duke of Gloucester, who knew
Sir Walter Raleigh in 1889, when she
was 1874 years old, and whom Fynes
Morrison knew to be alive when he
visited Ireland in 1903.
On the same principal as shown
in the lives of animals, man, four
teen years in growing, can live six or
seven times that term or to ninety or
hundred years. That men do not as
a rule reach that patriarchal age is
due to the fact that they do not live
what Mr. Herbert Spencer would call
"a perfect life" The reasoning may
not be irrefragable, but it will not be
denied that if a more ideal existence
were passed, the normal limit of age
would frequently be passed, and passed
too by considerable term OF years.
Coachmen and watchmen. says the
Saturday Evening Post though ex-
posed much to the weather, are not
long livers because their blood is not
well circulated or "sweetened" by
continual and active exertion; and,
between the ages of twenty and thirty
at least gardeners. laborers. and
drovers may expect to live six years
longer than they, because their occu-
patton allows this natural exercise.
Chimney sweepers, again, are short
lived, and are carried off by cancer
induced by the Initiative qualities of
the SCOT upon certain portions of the
skin of the body. Brewers draymen
are so many giants with feet OF clay.
Their enormous bodies and jolly looks
are delusion and snare ana their
average length of life is no more than
forty-three years. AS for bakers, DIR.
Guy estimates that forty-one in hun
dred of them habitually spit blood;
and that is no good sign of long life.
1T is not the rich or great-not
those who depend on medicines" says
Easton, that become old. but such as
use much exercise, are exposed 10 the
fresh air. and whose food is plain and
Observation-Disclosures. soldiers, etc. -
and such men as perhaps never en-
ployed their thoughts on the means
used to promote longevity" The last
part OF this quotation we have already
seen TO be true, but it does not follow
that the rich and great do not live
long. The cares of State, the excite
ments OF politics or military affairs,
the brain work incidental to tangled
policies and court cabal, may be calcu-
lated TO wear out a delicately construct
ed machine; but it is fact, notwith-
standing that monarchs and politicians
are good livers and long livers-
whether you pre-suppose or not ro-
business of bodily constitution con-
formable 10 the mental does not matter
much to us. More than two-thirds of
the emperors kings, sultans, and
caliphs who ever lived from the dawn
of history, passed their half century.
and large proportion of them could
count another quarter before they
succumbed to the resistless old gentle
man with the lock of hair and the
scythe. Among English sovereigns
the average has been fifty-three, which
is rather low, and which compares but
poorly with that of the English aris-
tocracy. who can boast OF sixty-seven
years.
Statesmen are VIGOROUSLY long lived,
and taken all round, compare well
with the philosophers OF Greece, who
perhaps because they had little to
do and plenty of time to do it in-show
better far even than our clergymen.
Mr.. Gladstone is good specimen of a
long lived politician Lords Beacons-
field, Palmerston, Broughan, Lynd-
hurst Lansdowne. and Talleyrand and
Metternich were others who belonged
to this century; and going further back
we have Henry Dandola reaching the
age of 81; Cardinal Henry. 90; Pombal.
SO; Alberoni, 80. Among men of let
ters and science. too, Hobbies, Voltaire,
Heyze, Fontenelle. Goethe. Newton
Kepler, HALEY, Casino, Maria Agne-
STA, and Humboldt are good instances
Of longevity;for all were between eigh-
ty and n. hundred when they died.
Clergymen live long, and the man.
ager of large insurance company not
long ago confessed that they formed
1.-The best description OF insurances"-
from the company's point of view. of
course. But strange TO say, their
average duration OF life only exceeds
that of medical men by one year, prob
ably because the advantages which the
clergy undoubtedly possesses are null
flied by certain we'll known disadvan-
tages-a sedentary occupation--com-
polling laziness and so on. which the
doctor can hardly count upon. The
doctor has in his turn, "a slight advan-
tage over the lawyer.