St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-10-16
ABOUT LONGEVITY.
Conclusive Proof That It Is
Increasing in This
Country.
Some of the Old Men That
Young America Can
Boast Of.
Sketches of the Oldest Post
master. Oldest Farmer and
Oldest Lawyer.
Chicago Has the Oldest Cir
Gus Performer in the
> World.

cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand .'Edipus' - and Simonides =
Bore OFT The prize of verse from his COM
peers,
When each had numbered more than four
score years;
And Theophrastus at fourscore aud ten
TaG but begun his ''Characters of Men,"
Chaucer at Woodstock with the nightin-
gales,
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last.
Completed Faust when eighty years were
past.
These are indeed exceptions, but they show
How far the gulf stream of our youth may
flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.
Long fellow.
Exceptions, indeed, they were, but
the proofs multiply daily that such cases
are increasing SO rapidly that they will
soon cease to be eXceptions-that good
: ork may be done by man long past his
eightieth year. That Americans and
Englishmen live much longer than for
merly is not now, says the New York
Advertiser, questioned by any statisti-
clan. England has city mayor nearly
ninety years old. Sir Provo Wallis died
the other day at the age of one hundred
and one, and was active till within
few weeks of his death. Aud the Unit
ell States now boasts of the oldest law
yer, oldest working farmer, oldest circus
performer and oldest postmaster in the
world.
Of these more anon. To properly in
TT oduce them it is we'll to preface few
facts on the question. What do man.
kind in general consider old age? 1t is
now considered by all antiQuarians that
we mOderns are not only better fixed in
every way and rather more moral than
the anclentS. but we are larger, stronger
and more tenacious of life. Consider
the heroes of the olden time-hOw
young they died-AleXander the Great
at thirty-two, Henry V. at thirty-four.
The Black Prince died long before his
father did, and even Marlborough, COM
paratively modern, died eight days
before the completion of his seventy
second year, when all England was
wondering how he lived so long
The ancient historians did not con-
descend to tell us about the common peo-
pie; but from what they say of the kings
we must conclude that the commOners
were very short-lived. King David, for
instance. was so completely worn out at
SiXty-nlne that bedclotheS would not
keep him warm, aud they had to resort
to peculiar species Of massage, and
that only sustained him a few months.
Solomon Sol became king when a boy, had
700 wives before he was thirty, and died
at fifty-two Tor fifty-eighD. All the Ro-
man army looked nn with amazement
when MaSinisSa appeared on horseback
at ninety.
Compare these with modern mon
archs. Frederick Willla am was an Off
Ger i'll the battle of Waterloo in 1915,
was crowned emperor at Versailles in
1871, ana it seems but yesterday that he
died. AurungZebe, the last of the great
moguls OF the Akbar dynasty, died at
ninety-one, after a reign of forty-nine
years. preceded by long and very
active career as prince and soldier.
Louis XIV. took the crown at thirteen
and died at Seventy-Seven, having been
king sixty-four years, and Henry I'LL,
who outrankS all other British sover-
eigns in that particular, reigned fifty
six years, yet he was only SiXty-tive
when he died. We will not count
George ILL, for his mind failed in mid
die life. yet he died in the eighty-sec-
Ond year of his life and the sixtieth
after taking the crown.
AS TO Queen Victoria. she is mere
girl-onlY Seventy-three last May. She
has been queen fifty-five years, her
health is excellent and her constitution
good, and by the table of probabilities
she is entitled to thirteen more years.
Without accident, Shewill far exceed
the reignS of Henry Ill. and George
Ill, of Louis XIV. and Aurungzebe.
1t is time to come to the modernS, and
men of ninety or thereabouts still in
firm health are by no means rare. At
No. 16S Indiana street, Chicago, lives
Peter William Brown. the oldest circus
performer in the world. He was born
Ill London Nov. Is. 1899, went into the
ring as the Infant cherub'' ION his
fathers head on the spotted show
norse'O in 1903, appeared before the
royal family as bareback rider at ten,
and continued i'll active life as show
man till 1S75-seventy-O years after
his first appearance.
He quit the sawdust arena, however.
in early boYhood, and was one of the
! royal jockeys Ill 1913, then visited all
! capitals of Europe in turn, was i'm Mos
i COW when the inhabitants first returned
after the great fire. and was riding fast
horses in Berlin when the news of the
| battle of Waterloo arrived. He returned
/ to the ling for Il few years, came to the
| United States with the original Francis
! TOumer circus, and with it crossed the
! then wilds of Texas to Mexico in the
carly fOrties.
Once more he quit the ring and served
! as advance agent for various shows, WAS
Jenny Lind'S interpreter for a few
| months after she came to America. anu
then event back to the sawdust'' and
stuck to 1t til, III making somersauIt