To the Editor of the Sir,—The accuracy of some information on the subject of Longevity in China which I sent you a few weeks ago was called in question by, I think, your contemporary, the Courier.
From the very hurried glance which was all that I was able at the time to devote to the lively article to which I refer, I gathered that my critic was incredulous as to the extreme age of my old friends, chiefly because the Chinese reckon their years after '80 loose and uncertain a method. Their reckoning, however, though loose, is so only within certain limits. If you deduct one year, crat most two, from the age mentioned, You may be sure of an accurate estimate far aa this particular is concerned. A child born on New-year's eve is no doubt called two years old on New-year's morning, but this is the extreme case; and as my old friend is called now, in the latter
he has actually completed his 94th year, of the year, 95, it seems probable that which was the age mentioned, if I am not mistaken, in my last letter.
Last week I visited the family again, and found the old people well and friendly. I was received with unusual cordiality by the old woman, who is just completion, her 90th year—if the Courier will believe me. "She was busy cleaning cotton, and opposite to her satan old man, her second son, between 60 and 70 years of age. I was so much interested in my conversation with the old patriarch, who rose from his bed to greet me, that forgot to make the minute inquiries which I had proposed to make.
The bystanders, however, said that there were five generations living in a row of continuous houses; the descendants of the old couple. They told me also that in the early part of the present year there were five persons over 90 living in this town that two of these had died, and that only one now remained, of an age rivalling that of my old friends.' I have never yet heard of a person in this neighbourhood over a hundred; and the Chinese treat with incredulity equal to that of the eminent sceptics quoted by the Courier, the mention of persons in England passing this great goal of Chinese ambition.
The sanitary condition of the town in which my old friends live, is not in any sense satisfactory; and the sight of these aged people suggested the thought that good houses, and good drainage, and good food cannot indefinitely prolong life—they make it only more pleasant and endurable within certain limits.
As the Chinese say: "the world is good for a rest-shed, but not for a permanent Awelling-place."
Lam, Sir, yours faithfully, A. E. Movue.
Ningpo, Oct. 17, 1872.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.