Apr. 19, Auono the Chinese the three auspicious stars are those of] happiness, wealth and longevity; the three kinds of abundance to be prayed for are abundance of good fortome, of years, lof male children; the five felicities'are longevity, riches, seron-_ ity, the love of virtue, and the crowning of life. Of all these! blessings longevity seems to. be most valued as it holds the foremost place in the list of felicities. In the West some of these! values may, be differently estimated, but certainly longevity is greatly desired. We have the proverb, "All that aman hath will he give for his life,' and the Chinese bandits act on this assumption when they capture foreigners and hold them) to ransom. Apart from external circumstances over which we have no power, what must we do or avoid to attain to a goo! old age? Whatever the answer it should correspond with the actual facts of life.
Instead of reaching @_priori conclusions, starting off with hypotheses and argoing th: certain results must necessarily follow, an Ameri scientist, leading biometrician, recently conceived the happy idea of writing to all persons he could hear of who had reached the ayo of ninety-five years, in order to ascertain from these experts la the-art of living what were the factors which conduced to their) longevity. At first he thought there would be little response and that the replies might not be accurate. Tye years ex: perience dissipated: these fears. Aged people like to talk about themselves, and their neigh-boars are preyd of them and after critical investigation - are glad to furnish whatever information they possess. Over three hundred replies were _re-) ceived, the elaborate question-aire sent to' each nonagenarisa being filled in with painstaking accursed. Tt is hoped that. before long one thousand histories will be received. In the meantime, in a paper in the official journal of the American Medical Association careful statistics are given of the first fifty-one. Tha mean age of the women is 96.98 years; that of the men; 97.98. Twenty out of the fifty-one are centenarians, the oldest, a man, being 105. "Twenty-si€ of the twenty-seven men and twenty-! two of the twenty-four women) had been married one or mote times, so marriage has a very favourable influence. By far the most important factor, however, is heredity. Nearly all were members of long-lived families, the years of both direct and collateral kinsfolk being much above the average. Questions were asked as to the use of alcohol and tobacco, Four. teen (54 per cent.) of the mea) had used alcohol a6 a beverage during their lives, one excessive. ly s0, and twelve (46 per cent had been total abstainers. The mean present age of users is 97.2 years, and of the non-users, 97.8 years. As the scientist observes, it is thins evident that it is possible to attain great age either with or without the use of alcohol as a beverage. Of the! Women, 68 per cent. were total abstainers, with s mean per. centage of 98.8 years. Thirty. two per cent were moderate drinkers with an average present age of 98.7 years. As to tobacco, of the twenty-six men, six smoked, five chewed, and two both smoked and chewed tobacco. The. remaining thirteen have never used tobacco in any form. Of twenty-one women, only one hag used tobacco and she has smoked all het life. Again, it appears that the use or non-use of tobacco is equally compatible with the attainment lof great longevity. We quote one more question. Does the use of alcohol or tobacco blast the prospects of parenthood 'The twenty persons who used alcohol og a beverage had' 150 children, giving an average ai 1.8 children per family. "The twenty-five 8 who were total abstainers had 169 chil-} dren, an average of 6.76 children per family. Again the abstain. ers do not lead. The whole paper is very interesting, and the statements should receive careful and unbiassed consideration.
What the moral of it In the first place, prohibition advocates stiould not weaken their cause by overstatement. Indugence in alcohol, excessive and habitual, is certainly injurious, but to assert that even to in moderation always means financial ruin, disease, insanity and early death, is not jin accord with the facts, Se condly, if an inherited predis-Position to long life is at least very favourable if not necessary to longevity, as it appears to be, then it is most probable that th majority of persons whose lives are ruined by excessive indulgence in alcohol are of weak, defective stock; consequently, from tle point of view of pure eugenics the wisdom of perficial protection is questionable. 'Thirdly, whet a nation deems it necessary to enforce' prohibition lows for tig protection ofthe Bakedve ge ehowtd not be.
proportion, of the weak ani
garded with' inordinate pride as if it Wore evidence of a moral triumph of the whole nation; tig substitution of state control {for self-control is a confession of weakness. Finally, it is well for all to be modest and cautions: [Prohibition is a vast experiment' and what the moral and physiosil results will be individually and nationally, cannot a3 yet be foretold.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.