THE LONGER LIFE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3220, 19 May 1924, Page 2

THE LONGER LIFE.

The world, .so our numerous pessimists declare, is a poor sort of place to abide in; all the same, statistics assurel is that the average baby now makes up its mind to live twelve years longer than its grandfather. Further, the present activity in the monkey trade would seem' to indicate that large numbers of our adult fellowcitizens are not of one mind with the pessimist, and see life as a fairly cheerful business. The trade in monkeys—monkeys with glands—is nourishing, and more than flourishing; so much so that French officials in the African interior are said to he resigning their departmental posts in order to make fortunes by tlm export of the local gorilla. As a paying proposition the local gorilla is worth many years in the service of the great French nation; the glands of the beast arc so much in demand for rejuvenating purposes- that his value in the market has gone up with a rush, and a first-class specimen now fetches a good thousand pounds. The rise in the price of the gorilla and his glands is credible evilence of the existence of a large class of elderly persons who have not found life too unpleasant to he borne, who have not been disillusioned' by hitter experience and crushed beneath the weight of the years. On the contrary. ther experience has been kindly, on the whole, and their shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of their worries; they can look back on l life ifnd declare “It was good—let me have it ail over again !” Optimistic elderly persons who are ready to face all the risks of an uncertain future—Bolshevism, incometax, war and influenza —so they can but recover the years that were past and continue to wake with the morning. The world that is despised and abused by the pessimist they find a desirable place to inhabit, a would they would not willingly part from. If the will to live n the race be but strong enough—anil the supply of goiillas large enough—it may he that we shall snon add a new element to the life of the community—-the oldyoung man and the old-young woman who combine, in their own persons, the experience of age with the vigor and alertness of youth. Developed human beings who will look hack upon ns as half-baked creatures—little more than children —and will begin to live, in the full sense of the word, at an age when their forefathers were losing their faculties and lapsing into senile decay. The race, in short, that Shaw has foreshadowed in his drama of the New Methuselah. Be that as it may. it is a comforting thought for the year to come—a comforting thought to all save gorillas —that the will to live is strong in the race, in the new-born as well as the old. It suggests that our vigor is not .vet exhausted ; that, far from being effete and outworn, wo are capable of sticking the troubles of existence for many years longer than our forbears.