YOUNG AT EIGHTY

Evening Star, Issue 22720, 6 August 1937, Page 1

YOUNG AT EIGHTY

VIGOROUS OLD MEN SOME INSTANCES IN BRITAIN Youth must be served, but are employers justified in saying that under present-day conditions “ men are too old at 40?” asks a writer in the ‘ News-Chronicle.’ They simply hate to see “ old men tottering about the works.” President Roosevelt, for his part, tells aged American judges that they must go, and a good many people m this country agree that men of 80 ought to quit the public stage away their “ few remaining days. Medical opinion is undecided. One well-known medical man said that he knew of no reason why a man of 80 should be incapable of exercising his own judgment and doing useful work. “ A man of active life,” he says, “one engaged in the same kind of work that he has been doing for many years, is often quite capable of carrying on for several years. “ Men of outstanding ability are not necessarily exhausted at 80. What is impossible for an industrial worker is often quite possible for other types of workers. . “ The increased expectation of life and the greater longevity of our people itself is evidence that old age is not the handicap that it used to be.” _ Dean Swift once said that no wise man ever wished to be younger; and old Dr Johnson, who died at the age of 75, declared that “ at 77 it is time to be in earnest.” Emerson, on the other hand, held that “ old age brings along with its ugliness the comfort that you will soon be out of it. . . “ To be out of '.he war, out of debt, out of the drought, out of the blues, out of the dentist’s hands, out of second thoughts, mortifications, and remorses that inflict such twinges_ and shooting pains—out of the next winter, and the high prices, and the company below your ambition ” Whatever the truth, Great Britain is to-day full of virile octogenarians who simply refuse to make their wills and pack their bags and go. The country is crowded with bold fellows of 80 who keep on doing things that no bright youths can do. If our octogenarians marched in procession from the Thames Embankment to Hyde Park, that procession would occupy hours in passing a fixed point in Pall Mall! Consider Mr Bernard Shaw. G.B.S. ik 80 and - doesn’t realise that fact. True, h© talks about himself as being “ mouldy ,hut ho regards : men aged 60 as young! He is- still going as strongly as ever, and after having produced as many plays as William Shakespeare, is to-day completing a new one that will probably be produced at Malvern during the coming summer. _ Consider, too, the undiminished energy of Lord BadeutPowell. In the last century the Chief Scout gained fame by defending Mafekiug against the Boers. To-day ho is in India, inspecting the hosts of Indian Scouts. “ Forty for the second time in his life,” B.P. is still best described as “ a remarkable young man,” one whose energy is as inexhaustible as that of the youngest Cub who goes a-scouting. G.B.S. and B.P. both belong to the select company of the immortals, but they are only two among the many 'famous men who are as active at 80 as they were at 40. The queer thing is that so many members of the original Fabian Society and so many “ pestilential agitators.” are as busy to-day as ever. Mr and Mrs Sidney Webb are both approaching 80. This world-famous couple recently published an epochmaking book on the new Russia, and are now busily engaged on yet another massive volume. Will Thorne, now more than 80. has Just returned to the House of Commons, where George Lansbury still unholds the scarlet flag as enthusiastically as he did when still an ardent youth. BOLD ADVENTURERS. Tom Mann’s next'stopping point is 90, and Ben Tillett is fast approaching 80; but these two bold adventurers still sniff the air of battle, and they could hardly be dissuaded six months ago from going to Spain to fight in. defence of the Socialist Government. George Barnes, the erstwhile leader of the engineers, at 79 is still an active member of many committees and Government commissions, and that other famous engineer John Burns, once “the man with a red flag,” who first entered the House of Commons as “a petition in boots ” nearly 40 years' ago, still makes public speeches when he feels so inclined, and is every bit as hearty as he was when he first encountered the police in Trafalgar Square on “ Bloody Sunday.” 1 One would hardly expect these rebels would have survived so long; but the philosophers are just as tough. Havelock Ellis, most urbane and erudite of revolutionary thinkers, keeps on producing original work at. his home in Brixton, and Sir James Fraser, whose prolonged researches have illuminated many dark places of human evolution, has just published yet another master-" piece, and is as alert at 83 as he was when an inquiring .youth of 35. Judges are notoriously long-lived, as President Roosevelt has discovered; hut what is one to make of Mr Justice Eve, who at 82 caravans about the country, driving a not too energetic horse and puffing at a well-used pipe when ho is not dispensing justice in the High Courts, is only now contemplating retirement.

Lord llunciman at 90 is still concerned with ships and shipping. Dr Josiah Oldfield, whose age is much too great to be computed, still teaches the millions how to grow old gaily. Robert Blatchford at 87 still does more than a little writing, and Lord Lonsdale at 81 is still concerned about the disposal of his honourable belt and the winning of every famous sporting trophy. Hero is no room to compile a complete ‘ Who’s Who ’ of British octogenarians, for the list is almost endless. They are to be found In every class and iwcrv walk of life, from the.humble

village labourer to the coronelted peer, and if they seem most numerous among tho so-called learned professions, they are so only because the vast majority of the men of 80 have the good fortune to be obscure.