Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-08-26
ONE HUNDRED AND
 TEN YEARS 0LO
AGED SPANISH WOMAN SAW THRONES ToTTER AND NATIONS RISE TO GREATNESS DURING UNUSUAL SPAN OF LIFE.

PHOENIX, August 25.-Emaeiated until it seemed that her parchment skin served merely as covering for col lection of dried bones underneath; toothless, wrinkled and bent under the weight of ll0 years, Old Antonia Perez, witness and participant in the rebellion which overthrew the power of the Austrian prince, Maximilian, in Mexico; a witness also of the war be tween Mexico and the United States and the horrors of Indian warfare, sat in the sheriff s office, making arrange. ments through compatriot of hers, a young chap of 7s years, for the pay. ment to her by the county of a monthly stipend of $6.
 Despite her great age, the eenten. arian presented an appearance of scrupulous cleanliness. With no family to look after her wants, her clothes were entirely free from holes, and the heavy black mantila which shrouded her head was innocent of the slightest speek of dust.
 Apparently, she took not the least interest in her surroundings. Questions directed at her passed by unheeded 1t was only when a random inquiry concerning her children happened to reach her that she suddenly became animated as her thoughts rushed to meet the welcome subject
 .'In all my long, long life, senor, have had but one child, she volleyed in rapid Spanish to an interpreter, who, in turn, translated in English. "He was brave son. He fought for Mexico as an officer, a captain in the army which routed the usurpers out of Mex leo. He would be an old, old man by now.''
 The fire had died out of her dim old eyes and the mummy-like appearance again came over her. It was as though corpse, sun-baked on the desert, had become reimbued with life for a mo ment's time and then relapsed into its former state.
 With the exception of the brief in tervals of time when wars in Mexico called her homeward, especially when her son, the brave and stalwart captain, was fighting to liberate his country from the thrall of the usurper, An tonia has lived in Arizona for fifty years. At the age of 60, when most of humanity is beholding in dread the con. stantly increasing proximity of the grave,- old Antonia Perez left the place of her birth in Sonora and came to a little collection of adobe huts planted on the Arizona desert. The place has since then grown to be large city, and it is- now, as it probably was then, known by the name of Tucson.
 After living there ten years, she again took the dusty trail winding around over the rocks and through the greasewood bushes until she came to another little helter-skelter group of brush and adobe shelters. Through a transformation similar to that which Tucson has undergone, the little peon camp grew and expanded until at the present time people speak of it as Phoenix, the capital of the territory and a city of wealth and culture.
 In looking at Antonia, there comes the feeling of pity for her that she has lived so long. Her body is as dry as the dust. Her mind is completely buried in the past, groping for the recollection of friends and family long since dead. They are all dead. She has no living relatives anywhere. Gen erations have come to earth, thrived and vanished, while she lives on, almost dead in body, dead in mind for more than a quarter century.