Semi=weekly graphic., 1899-07-05

People don't live to be as old as Me thuselah these days, but there are a number now living who, if they last until the end of the present year, will have seen three centuries. That, of course, does not mean that they then will be 300 years old, but only that they were born at the close of the suy- enteenth century, and lived through opening of the to-be-more wonderful this wonderful nineteenth, to see the twentieth.
 There are number of these old peo- pie in the United States and some of them were born here, when the repub- lie was In its infancy. They saw the times that tried mems souls;" they remember Washington and his Con- tinentals, and old Tippecanoe Harrison and old Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor fighting in Mexico at the head of the American army; and Mcclellan and Grant and Lee and Stonewall Jackson and Sherman and Sheridan mixing 1t Up in the fratricidal strife that marked the passing of slavery and the martyrdom of Lincoln; they saw the first steamboats and the first rail- road trains and the introduction Of electricity; and in their old age they have come upon people balancing themselves upon two wheels and trav- cling about over the country at sur prising speed; they have wondered at the harnessing of electricity and It's uss as motive power to drive cars and carriages, and engines that once were run by steam; they have just seen war between nations finished off in few short months, with modern fight ing implements, that in their youth would have lasted for years; they have seen the United States grow from an infant republic to world power, and they appreciate the marvellous in the things that to the youth of today seem commonplace.
 There were no records Of births and deaths kept in this country when these old people were young, so there is no way in which their number can be com puted with exactness. But competent authority has estimated that there are at least TOO of them scattered about over the states. Tn the older countries of Europe. however, these records have long been kept up. and over there 1t day of the twentieth century there will be over 1000 persons living who were a live on the last day of tho eighteenth century.
 Servia is especially the country of centenarians, and leaves all other Flu ropean countries hopelessly in the rear in the longevity rase. One man in 2,260 has seen 100 years, and, in all. Servia boasts 575 men of 100 years or over.
 Ireland ranks next. with one cente- marian In every 8,1S0 of the population. or 578 in all
 Spain favors length of years. and out of 43,000 Spaniards one Is centena- 1 rian, with a total of 401.
 Norway, numbers 23l or one in about 96,0O0.
 next, with 192. or one in about IT, GOO.
 France has 213 centenarians, or one in 1sO, 750.
 Sweden ranks seventh. with 20 only. or one in 250,000.
 Germany has 78, or one in 705,000. Denmark only claims 2, or less than one to 100000 of it's population; and Switzerland, with all its reputed health mess, seems not to possess Q single centenarian.
 In Northampton, England, latter | day Methuselah lies buried in the porch of All Saints church. John Bailes' gravestone declares that he lived to be 1 126, but local tradition adds yet an- other four years to the total! This re- vised version Is reached thus: Bales affirmed that when he was boy of F he was present at Tilbury when Queen Elizabeth reviewed her troops, and as that was in 1888 and he died in 1706, his age was 130 instead of 126. Against this is the testimony of the parish reg l ister, which reduces the age of its John Bailes to about IA There is no proof l that the John Bales of the register was I the Bales of the tablet. The latter had q daughter who claimed two years mora than a century for her span of life, and that achievement counts certainly in her fathers favor Leav- | inr him, then, in undisputed possession Of his 130 years, John Bailss began life under Queen Elizabeth, and finished it under Queen Anne, thus seeing out all these rulers: James l.. Charles l.. Cromwell, Charles H., James II. and William and Mary! These old people seem to have stood to one side while the procession of life marched by,