Total Abstinence and Longevity.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 106, 13 June 1885, Page 4

Total Abstinence and Longevity.

Mr A. Bowser, manager of the Whittington Life Assurance Company, thus referred to this Bubject at their last annual meeting :— " Three years ago I stated that the deaths in tho temperance section had, in three years, been 23 per 1,000, against 50 per 1,000 in the genoral section. I have now tho satisfaction of stating that tho comparison is oven a little more favourablo for the temporance section during tho past three years; it hasjbeon at the rato of 22 per 1,000, while in the general soction it has been at the rato of 51 per 1,000. Some allowance must, however, be mado for the fact that lives in the temperance soction aro somo years younger than in the other, as the company did not commenco the temperance section until the year 1863, while tho genoral soction commenced in I S55 ; and I find that tho average age at commencement of assurance in tho tomperance section is 30, while the general soction it is 36."

' A rich vein of humour pervades some of the rumours which arrive from Rangoon by way of Caloutta. That, for example, which represents King Theebaw as trying to cultivate the British alliance by offering a couple of thousand men for service in the Soudan—the charges being defrayed out of the sums which he is extorting by force from the wealthy traders at Mandalay— is suggestive of Swift's best manner.