THE OLD AGE PENSIONS ACT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12468, 12 January 1904, Page 5

THE OLD AGE PENSIONS ACT.

SOME OP THE HUMOURS OF THE COURT.

VARIOUS MODES OF PROVING AGE.

[BY TELEGRAPH.—OWX COP.HESrOXDENT.]

Chbistchurch, Monday. A Press representative, whose business has taken him into man; of the Old Age Pension Courts, has an interesting article on some of the humours attendant on the five years' working of tho Act. The difficulty of finding accurate records of births to the satisfaction of the magistrates in some instances has been very great. Very old persons have satisfied the Court on sight. A man at 102 years hod no question raised, and another at 97 years who put two sons, aged respectively 70 years and 68 years, into the witness box, had his age admitted without demur. Numbers of family Bibles well kept with the register of families written up, have been accepted. In one case within recollection an applicant who expected the magistrate to take his bare word for it that the name was in a family Bible, when asked to bring it, stated gravely that, the Bcok was too big for him to carry, and as 12 months have passed it is presumed that the Bible is still too much of a load to take to Court. One applicant gained admission of ago on a time-stained paper containing an extract, of a Bible register brought from the old home in Scotland. It had a note attached from his father, and was given to him on leaving Aberdeen for Ballarnt, The holder came to the West Coast in 1856, and had preserved this shred of a connection with his ancestors. Many are the instances where documents that would have proved age have been carelessly lost or thoughtlessly burned, and others in Hood time, or even through fire, or shipwreck, have gone beyond recovery. Many ! of the parish church registers of "the Oid j Country have yielded enough information to gladden many a home in the colony. It was at first thought that hi some of tho obscure parts of the Old Country information would not be procured, and it surprised the magistrates conducting the Courts to find how precise some of the records were, copies of which were sent out from oven Die Orkneys, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. Many of the applicants who were foreigners proved their ages by their naturalisation papers and their residence in the colony by the same documents. Indentures of apprenticeship, certificates of membership in a friendly society, Freemasons' certificates of admission to tin aucieut craft, discharges from the army and navy, and records of admission to the religious ministry (the latter, like the Masons' certificates, being proof of ago tip to 21, if the ago is not given in it), have been used. One individual who wished tho Court to believe his age was 10 when ho was a witness of Queen Victoria's Coronation found it was of no avail. Another who had a letter from Gloucestershire, in which his aunt at 87 stated his mother had told her that the applicant "was born on January 11, 1838, at ten minutes to two in the morning," found the magistrate wanted better evidence, as the statement of the aunt might only be : taken on a statutory declaration being made, i An entry, "Presented to on her tenth birthday, March 17, 1848," has been accepted, ' together with the appearance of the appli-j cant, as proof of age. A couple who asserted i they were married on Christmas Day, at St. Margaret's, London, in tho year 1856, both being 17 years of age, failed to get any further proof of that statement. A man who remembered ho was " ten years old when a very disastrous 'storm visited Kilkenny, wrote to a newspaper for the date, which was furnished and put in as evidence, assisting him to get his i! 18 a year.

Proof of residence for 25 years in the colony has bean established by identification ip. the majority of cases by fellow colonists or fellow passengers in a ship, or by the assistance of the dates afforded by the immigration officers and by lists of passengers in vessels reported in the newspapers. The oldest inhabitant in many localities has performed a large service to many of the deserving aged people. An applicant aged 79, admitted to be eligible on sight, stated he had resided in Canterbury since before there was a. house erected in Christchurch, yet when asked to prove ib could not recall off-hand the name of a single person. One person could only fix the date of his leaving England to having witnessed the great Tooleystreet firo (June 22, 1851), but his assertion was no use as it was not supported. In proof of his great age a man told the magistrate ho had been married three times. "Well," said His Worship, "you might have been married 30 times and then it would not prove your age/' " No," replied the applicant with a sigh, " three times to get married is plenty for me." " How old are you?" queried the magistrate in another case. "I am 67," was the reply, and he handed in a baptism certificate dated 1834. The magistrate said " this beats all, here is a man baptised before he was born," to which the applicant with extreme coolness replied, "I was baptised, sit, before I could keep tolly of my age." Several -Maoris gave evidence of the age ami residence, dating from To Rauparaha's bloodthirsty raid of 1327, and also from when the land transaction for the sale of the South Island for £12000 was made to Colonel Wakefield in 1844, and when Kemp's deed was signed in 1848, and Mr. Mantell's Commission for extinguishing native claims went round. One Maori matron gave her age as 17 at this period, and proved her age by evidence that she had washed the Commissioners' shirts. Others fixed dates by the fall of Kaiapoihi.