MR. THOMS ON HUMAN LONGEVITY.* THE book before us is
the result of a number of inquiries conducted with great industry and patience on the part of Mr. Thoms him- self, though on behalf of his correspondents it must be added that they have often laboured as abundantly as he has, and taken quite as much trouble. Searches among parish registers and regimental rolls, comparisons of tombstones and coffin plates, scrutinies of dates of various events, and Christian names of successive genera- tions, are among the methods which have been resorted to for the purpose of correcting the credulous eccentricities of tradition, and reducing excessive length of life to more probable limits. The most glaring instances of exaggeration with which Mr. Thome has had to deal are, of course, those of Jenkins, who is said to have lived to the age of 169 ; and of Old Parr, to whom 152 years have been assigned. Yet, according to a list of ages quoted in the book before us, these two latter-day patriarchs were by no means nnapproached in longevity. We are told that Haller " collected more than a thousand cases of people dying between 100 and 110 ; sixty between 110 and 120 ; twenty- nine between 120 and 130; fifteen between 130 and 140; and six between 140 and 150." Mr. Thorns does not profess to have in- vestigated any of these cases. He is content with characterising their collector as one who picked up with unfailing faith whatever he heard said about people attaining a marvellous age, and set it down much as he heard it, without attempting to sift or test the evidence on which it rested. From the course of Mr. Thome' own inquiries we may fairly conclude that the evidence in these older cases was of much the same character as that which marks those of more modern date. In the latter cases either the professed centenarians spoke strongly, or their believers believed readily. So long as mere assertion sufficed, everything seemed plain enough. A man was found who looked very old, must be very old, evidently was very old. In a very short space of time he was accepted as a centenarian, was assigned from 106 to 114 years, was proclaimed about the country, in the local papers, perhaps in the Times, as a marvel of longevity, and probably received subscriptions. This was all very well till Mr. Thome, or Sir Cornewall Lewis, or some other sceptic came on the scene. The supporters of the ceutena- clans were then asked what proof there was of the great age which they had put forward. It was easier to ask the question than to answer it. Some indeed would appeal confidently to the old man's looks, others to the events which he professed to re- member. But as a rule, all these answers would be reduced to .one,—the old man's own statement. The positive evidence could go no farther than this, and when the case of the other aide was .opened, the whole story began to wear a very different aspect. If the parish register did not happen to have conveniently lost a leaf just where the old man's baptism ought to have been, it would generally show that he had added ten or fifteen years to his life. Even if the baptismal register was not forthcoming, the record of marriage would sometimes throw light on the matter, or it would appear that the old man enlisted a certain number of years back, and then gave an age inconsistent with his later story. By some smell means as these Mr. Thoms has been able to lower many extravagant pretensions, and to give us one chapter full of such headings as, "Mary Billinge not 112, but 91," "Jonathan Reeves not 104, but 80," " Joshua Miller not 111, but 90," " George Fletcher not 108, but 92," "Edward Couch not 110, but 95."
The enthusiasm with which Mr. Thome enters into his subject imparts an interest to much that would otherwise be dry and tedious. The account of searches amongst tombstones and through parish registers for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were two or more children of the same Christian name in the same family does not at first eight seem very promising. But a con- templation of Mr. Thome' method of proceeding leads us to admire his industry. In one instance, that of Mary Billinge, whom we have already mentioned, the test applied is very curious. This lady died in 1863, at the age, as it was stated, of 112 years. An obituary notice assigning this number of years was published in the Times, and the same number was claimed for her on her tombstone. As Miss Billinge said she had been born at Eccleston, near Prescot, the pariah register there was examined, and this seemed to confirm the story, for it contained the following entry, under the year 1751 :—" Mary, daughter of William Billinge, farmer, and Lidia, his wife, born May 24, 1751, and christened on June 5." This was enough to satisfy some inquirers, but not Mr. Thorns' cor- respondent. Having ascertained that Miss Billinge had a brother and sister named William and Anne who had died some years
• Raman Longevity: its Facts and its Fictions, including an Inquiry into some of the snore Remarkable Instances and Suggestions for Testing Reputed Cases, illustrated by Examples. By William J. Thome F.S.A. London : Murray. 1873.
before at the respective ages of 46 and 59, the correspondent searched for their baptismal registers, and found Miss Billinge's brother and sister described as the children of Charles and Margaret Billinge. This clue led to a further search in the register, and that disclosed the true entry of Miss Billinge's baptism in the year 1772, her identity being rendered complete by the agreement of the Christian names of her parents with those given in the baptismal register of her brother and sister. We do not propose to follow Mr. Thorns through any of his other modern instances. Let us just observe in passing that one alleged centenarian added on twelve years to his age when he was only thirty-seven, and had the consistency to keep them till the end of his life. The explana- tion of this is not that the man looked forward to attaining the honours of being able to claim more than a hundred years, but that on leaving the Army he managed to add seven years to his real term of service, and so to receive an extra pension. The first deceit was profitable, and its good effects continued, so that the man who obtained his pension by a fraud in 1802 was able in 1854 to attract crowds to hear sermons preached by "a venerable minister in his 108th year."
With regard to Jenkins and Old Parr, what chiefly strikes us is the absence of all evidence either for or against their reputed ages. The presumption is, of course, against any man's life being prolonged either to 169 or 152 years, and therefore it is sufficient for Mr. Thorns to show that there is nothing to support the re- ceived tradition. He observes that Jenkins' age rests entirely on Jenkins' own statement, and that statement is in itself suspicious. The story is, that Jenkins gave evidence at the York Assizes about some fact which had occurred either 120 or 140 years before, and on being asked about this by Miss Savile, whose account of her interview with him was published in the Philosophical Tran- sactions for 1696, he went more fully into details :—" I told him," says Miss Saville, " he was an old man who must soon expect to give an account to God of all he did or said, and I &sired him to tell me very truly how old he was ; on which he paused a little, and then said, to the best of his remembrance, he was about 162 or 163. I asked him what kings he remembered ? He said Henry VIII. I asked him what public thing he could longest remember ? He said Flodden Field. I asked him how old he might be then ? He said, I believe I might be between 10 and 12, for,' says he, I was sent to Northallerton with a horseload of arrows, but they sent a bigger boy from thence to the army with them.'" From this statement, made by Jenkins to Miss Savile about the year 1665, all the legends of his having fought at Flodden appear to have been derived. Another account of his age, however, was given some two or three years later, for in 1667 he was called as a witness under a commission, and then he described himself as " aged one hundreth fifty and seaven, or theirabouts,"—five years less than he had claimed when be spoke to Miss Savile. It is also a singular fact that the entry of his death in the parish register is in the handwriting of the very clergyman on whose behalf Jenkins gave evidence under the commission which has just been men-. tioned, and that in this entry Jenkins is described as " a very aged and poore man," without any particulars about his age. If the clergyman, who is said to have been a " strict, exact man, and evidently a very careful pariah priest," did not believe his own witness, why are we to be more credulous? Mr. Thoms has full justification for his scepticism.
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