ENGLAND IS YOUNG.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

ENGLAND IS YOUNG.

COMBINED AGES OF DISTINGUISHED NONAGENARIANS REACH BACK ; TO CAESAR'S DAYS.

It is difficult: to realise that there art nine men of note living in England to-day whose combined ages would stretch bacls beyond the Norman Conquest to the days of Edward the Confessor.

If to this aggregate be added the agea of only twelve more famous Britons one is transported to the time when this country was still smarting from the effects of Caesar's invasion, and when Christ; was still unborn.

It is surprising that so few lives should span so many years, but it is still more remarkable that Lord Tankerville, one o£ the links in this nineteen-centuries chain, should only have one life between himself and the far away days of Charles 1., o£ John Hampden, and the Star Chamber.

The doyen of these giand old Britons is the Hon. Sir Edward Kenny, who nearly; thirty years ago was president of the Privy Council of Nova Scotia, and whoso age is that of the century.

Sir Edward. was an Irish schoolboy; when news came of the victory of Trafalgar, and was commencing his long business life when Waterloo was fought. Although he is nearing his hundredth year! he is young enough to anticipate another; century. Dr. James Martineau, brother of the. famous Harriet Martin'eau, and himself & GIFTED MAN OF LETTERS, is second on the roll of distinguished English nonagenarians. He was born six months before Nelson died at Trafalgar, ninety-three years ago, was ordained when George IV. was King, and had won recognition as a writer before our Queen was crowned. He lives in Bloomsbury, and is a talL dignified, white haired gentleman, almost as erect as when he used to take a thirty; mile constitutional in the far off twenties* Mr Sidney Cooper, the ..well-knowa artist, is two years older than Dr. Mar.tineau, and was a Royal Academy student thirteen years before its president (Sir? Edward Poynter) wa"s born. This wonderful old artist still wields a vigorous and skilful brush, and wrote his autobiography when he was nearfng ninety. The oldest peer in the United Kingdom is the veteran Earl of Perth, who will celebrate his ninety-second birthday in May. Lord Perth, who by the way is * duke, count and baron of France, was an, Army officer when George IV. was King. One of the most interesting and virile of the nonagenarians is Judge da Moleyns, who was an Irish County "Court judge as recently as 1892, and who,'was born ninety-two years ago. This wonderful old man, who still retains his youthful spirits and buoyant humour, was in training for a soldier at Sandhurst nearljr eighty years ago, when the veteran Duke of Cambridge was in the throes of teething, and when Field Marshal Sir John Simmons had not even begun that painful process. He was a fully fledged barrister six years before Lord Herschell was born, and when Lord Halsbury had no ambition beyond a rocking horse.

General Sir Anthony Stransham is our oldest general. He boasts ■ ninety-three years. He was a lieutenant.in the Royal Marines seventy-six years ago, and was capturing towns in the Archipelago six years r-before -the present .Co"mm4nder-in-< Chief,was born. ■ "■'■' 't?.' -■'■ ■- '■*

. Admiral ol the, -Fleet Sir iPfnry Keppel is an old man of whom the Navy has cause to be very proud. Sir Henry was" born four years after Trafalgar, was a lieutenant 70 years ago, before the Sailor King came to the throne, and had wont his spurs as a fighter in Spanish waters before the oldest of our active admirals was born.

Lord Tankerville, Lord i Gwydyr; Lord! Mexborough and Lord Armstrong were all born within eleven months of each other, and just half way between Trafalgar and Waterloo.