LONGEVITY OF LITTLE MEN.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1960, 22 September 1863, Page 3

LONGEVITY OF LITTLE MEN.

Yottr little old men abroad live, when they are to be found extant at all, to a prodigious age» They seem to be subject to the same mumifying influence as the bodies of the old monks iv Sicily. They grow very yellow, very withered, their bones seem to crack as they walk, but they don't die. Take my friend, Estremadura, for instance. I have known Senor Ramon de Estramadura ever since I can remember the knowledge of anything. That Hidalgo knew my papa, and he has been dead five-and-thirty years. Estramadura was so old when I was a child that the nurses used to frighten rae with him. I have met him off and on, in almost every capital in Europe. Only this summer, drinking tea with certain friends, there came tt brisk though tremulous little double knock at the door, " Ecoutez," cried the lady of the house ; " that surely, is Estramadura's knock." There was a cry of deris'.ve amazement. Everybody agreed that he had been dead ten years. Somebody had seen an account of his funeral in the newspapers. But the door opened and Estremadura made his appearance. He was the same as ever. Thesame yellow face, black, bead-like eyes,innumerable wrinkles, fixed grin; thesame straw hat, grass-green coat, white trowsers and big stick — his unvarying costume ever since I had known him. ■' How you do?" was my salutation to him. " Ver well since I saw you Jasse." I had not seen him for fifteen years. He chatted and talked and drank tea. He was asked whence he had come? From Rome. Whither he was going ? To Stockholm. He was charming ; yet we could not help feeling, all of us, as though we were sitting in the presence of a facetious phantom, of a jocular ghost. It was rather a relief when he skipped away, and was seen no more. I wonder whether he will ever turn up again. It is clear, that Estremadura is ninety if he is a day old; yet I dare say he will read the account of my death, if anybody takes tbe trouble to advertize that fact in the newspapers, and say, " Aha ! and so he die. Eh ! I knew his papa ver well." Surely we should be careful in keeping up the breed of little old men at home as well as abroad. To me they are infinitely more agreeable than big men, young or old. But, they are dwindling away, they are vanishing fast. The little old ticket-porters, with their white aprons, are being superseded by burly, middle-aged messengers, or else by bearded commissionaires. Artists get into the Academy before tbey are forty ; and- the little old painter who remembers Northcote, and to whom the Princess Amelia sat for her portrait, is a ram axis. ii .-- .— ■ — ***■ ■— —