Semi=weekly graphic., 1899-06-17


 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 sev- 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 It's 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 it 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 use as motive power to drive cars and carriages, and engines that opce 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 a competent authority has estimated that there are at least 700 of them scattered about over the states In the older countries of Europe, however, these records have long been kept up, and over there it has been figured out that on the first day of the twentieth century there will be over 1000 persons living who were live on the last day of the eighteenth century.
 Servia Is especially the codatry of centenarians, and leaves all other Eu- ropean countries hopelessly in the rear In the longevity race. One man in 2,26O has seen 100 years, and in all, Seryia boasts 575 men of 100 years or over.
 Ireland ranks next, with one cente- marian in every 8130 of the population, or 578 in all.
 Spain favors length of years, and out of 43,000 Spaniards one is a centena- rian, with total of 401.
 Norway, numbers 23, or one in about 96,oOO.
 England, Scotland and Wales rank next, with 192, or one in about 177,- 900.
 France has 213 centenarians, or one in 1S0, 750
 Sweden ranks seventh, with 90 only. or one in 250,000.
 Germany has IS, or one in 705,0O0.
 Denmark only claims 2, or less than one to 100000 of it's po- alation; and Switzerland, with all its reputed health mess, seems not to possess a 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 126, but local tradition adds yet an- other four years to the total! This re- vised ' fsion is reached thus: Bailes affirmed that when he was boy of 12 he was present at TilD,.. when Queen Elizabeth reviewed her troops, and as that was in 1588 and he died in 1706, his age was 130 instead of 126. Against this is the testimony of the parish reg