MAN'S AGE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1521, 5 March 1886, Page 3

MAN'S AGE.

Few men die of age. Almost all die of disappointment, passion, mental or bodily toil, or accident. The passions kill men sometimes, even suddenly. The common expression " choked with passion" has little exaggeration in it, for even though not suddenly fatal, strong passions shorten life.

Strong-bodied men often die young—weak men live longer than the strong, for the strong use their strength, and the weak have none to use. The latter take care of themselves, the former do not. As it is with the body, so it is with the mind and temper. The sirong are apt to break, or, like the candle, to run; the weak to burn out The inferior animals, which live temperate lives, have generally their pre* scribed number of years. The horse lives twenty-five; the dog ten or twelve ; the rabbit eight; the guineapig six or seven years. These numbers all bear a similar proportion to the time the animal takes to grow to its full size.

But man of all animals is one that seldom lives this average. He ought to lire a hundred years according to physical law, for fire times twenty are one hundred, but instead of that he scarcely reaches on an average four times his growing period; the cat six times; the rabbit even eight times the standard of measurement. The reason is obvious— man ig not only the most irregular and the most ~ intemperate, but the most laborious and hard-worked of all the anim>y He is also the most irritable of all animals, and there is reason to though we cannot tell what an animal secretly feels, that, more than any other animal, man cherishes wrath to keep it warm, and consumes with the fin of his own want nls* tjoa,