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New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 17, 27 April 1907, Page 41

It may seem strange to us, though the fact nevertheless remains, that the veterans of the grand army of Napoleon, weighed down by age and glory, were men of whom few had passed their thirtyfifth year! It was a time of rash and short living, with an early age and no overtures of real youth—a time when we find Thackeray ridiculing De Florae for holding claims on being still a young man at the age of thirty-five! The average man of to-day carries the spirit and power of youth into an age which a century ago was regarded as bordering on the shady side of existence, says Dr. A. E. Gibson in the "Medical Brief.” The buoyancy and vigor characteristic of our present middle-aged man make it, in most eases, extremely difficult to approach any fair degree of accuracy in determining the age of a person passing along the ascension scale between forty and fiftyfive. And what is said of man refers, of course, in equal, if not in stilt more accentuated degree, to woman. One of the causes of this remarkable arrest of old ago lies undoubtedly in the increasing indulgence of our time in healthy outdoor sports, with their carefree and worry-free abandon.