THE LONGER LIFE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 23 May 1924, Page 4

THE LONGER LIFE.

The world, so our numerous pessimists declare, is a poor sort of .place to abide in: all the same, statistics assure is that the average baby now makes up its mind to live twelve year* longer than its grandfather. Further, the present activity in the monkey trade would. seem to indicate that large numbers cf our adult fellowcitizens are not of one mind with the pessimist, and set life as a fairly cheerful business. The trade in monkeys—monkeys with ghruds—is flourishing, and more than flourishing; so much so that French officials in the African interior are said to be resigning their departmental posts in order to make fortunes by the 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 bea<st are 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 ri.se in the price of the gorilla and his glands is credible evilencc of the existence of a large class of elderlv persons who have not found life too unpleasant to be borne, who have not been disillusioned by bitter experience and crushed beneath the weight of ilie 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 life and declare ''lt was good—let me have it all over again!" Optimistic elderly persons who arc ready to face all the risks of. an uncertain future —Bolshevism. incometax. war and influenza—?so they can but recover the years that were nasi 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 11 the race be but strong enough—and the supply of goiillas large enough—it may be thai, we shall sunn add a new element to the life of the community—the oldyoung man and tTie old-young woman who combine, in tfieir own persons, the experience of age with the -vigor and alertness of youth. Developed human beings who will look back upon us as half-baked creatures —little more than children—and will begin to live, in the lull sense of the word, at an ag"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 com^ —a comforting thought- to all save gorillas that the will to live is strong in the race, iu ihu new-burn as well as 11K' old. It suggests that our vigor is not yet exhausted; that, far from hoing ciß'tc and outworn, we are capable of sticking the troubles of existence for many years longer than our forbears.