Haller, who has collected a great number of examples of Longevity, says that he has found more than
| 1000 who have lived from | 100 to 110 years |
| 60 ” ” | 110 to 120 ” |
| 29 ” ” | 120 to 130 ” |
| 15 ” ” | 130 to 140 ” |
| 6 ” ” | 140 to 160 ” |
and one who reached the astonishing age of 169 years.
[36]. Human Longevity and the Amount of Life upon the Globe. By P. Flourens, Perpetual Secretary to the Academy of Sciences, Paris, 1855.
LENGTH OF DAYS.
There are few records so generally interesting as those of human existence being protracted beyond “threescore years and ten,” and the Psalmist’s limit of “fourscore years.” It is natural to expect every man, woman, and child to take a kindred interest in such matters: the girl or boy reads with wonder the dates upon the tombstones of very aged persons; and old men and women approach these memorials with awe, in proportion to their fancied distance from the same earthly bourn. All cannot alike read the story of the pictured urn, or the mysteries of the inverted torch or the winged mundus; but the uneducated young and old are sensible of the solemnity of the line, “Aged 102 years;” whilst the more pretentious “Hic jacet” only teaches the comparatively few that
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
We are not, therefore, surprised at the implicit belief in such records in times gone by, when no populous village in England was without a man or woman of fourscore years old. It has, however, become of late a matter of some moment to inquire into the authority on which statements of extreme old age have usually rested; and the result has been to shake the testimony of many recorded cases of great longevity.