The papers are full of the deaths of very old
people carried off by the recent cold. Twelve nonagenarians died last week, and in this at least two persons said to be over a hundred. The oldest re- corded is a lady of 107, who married for the first time at sixty. We entertain a good deal of suspicion about these very high figures. That people do reach a hundred is certain, but every year above that increases the necessity for strict evidence. The state- ments of centenarians about themselves are not worth a straw, and as they must have outlived all contemporaries, documentary evi- dence, old Bibles, or baptismal certificates, are alone trust- worthy. Age exaggerates itself to the imagination, nonagenarians generally feeling like the villager who said she " did not know her age accurate, but it warn't less than one thousand."
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