LONGEVITY RECORDS

Evening Star, Issue 19271, 9 June 1926, Page 2

LONGEVITY RECORDS

To achieve a century is regarded as to have reached very near the limit of human longevity, although now and then one hears of people reaching a few years beyond that span. What is the record attested by good evidence? In the pariah of Shoreditch, London, there is what must either be the record or a strange and unaccountable error on somebody’s part. For that ancient register tells us that one Thomas Cam passed away on January 28, 1588, at the ago of 207 years. This man, then, lived under eleven kings and queens. More astonishing it the attested record of John and Sarah Rovin, They were married at 147 years—surely a record. John died at the ripe ago of 164, his wife, Sarah, at 172. Their longevity they passed on to their children, ono son attaining to 11G years. Another remarkable case' 1 was that of John Effingham, a Cornwall laborer, who had been at work since his early childhood. Ho lived to bo 144. He declared that until ho had passed his hundredth birthday ho had never had a day in bod. He was a vegetarian and teetotaller. Like Dr William Mead, of Ware, he attributed his long life to abstemiousness Dr Mead believed in industry and moderation in all things. A centenarian who worked as a fisherman, suffering exposure at a hundred years of age to all sorts of weather, is recorded from Yorkshire. This man, Henry Jenkins, lived to be 169. Tho case of Peter Garden, of Aberdeenshire, is equally remarkable. Ho not only attained to an amazing old age, but kept his bodily health and faculties. When he was 120 he labored in the fields alongside his son. It was said that ho looked the younger of the two men. Ho died at 131. Here is tho recipe for long life passed on by Thomas Parr, born in 1583 in Athorbury, and who died at 152. Yon may see his monument in Westminster Abbey. Ho said: “Keep your head cool by temperance, your feet warm by exercise, rise early and go soon to bed, and if you are inclined to get fat, keep your eves open, and your month shut-—that is, he moderate in your sleep and diet.” There was also a Countess of Desmond who reached 140. Lord Bacon vouches for her case and mentions her in his ‘Natural History,’ saying: “ Sho did denuture twice or thrice, casting her old teeth, tho others coming in their place.”