Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1895 — Remarkable Span of Life. [ARTICLE]

Remarkable Span of Life.

On a tombstone in Landaff Centre, N. H., is the following inscription: "Widow Susanna Brownson was born AugustS, 1699, and died June 12, 1802, aged 103 years.” This is the record of a life which took in parts of the 17th and 19th centuries and thewhole of the 18th century. As the average of human life is increasing in modern days, it is probable that some infants now living will continue to live until the year 2,000 A. D. They would then be not so old as are a number of persons who have died considerably exceeding a century within recent years. It is likely also that the number of centenarians in proportion to population will be much greater during the 20th century than it has been in the 19th. We frequently hear the span of human life spoken of as seventy years, and if it goes to four score it means labor, weakness and sorrow. But a still older record in the Bible makes one hundred and twenty years the natural period of human life. To that age Moses lived, and we are told of him that "his eyes were not dimmed nor his natural force abated.” Many who now die early from contagious diseases have natural vitality which should insure an advanced age, and will when medical science learns how to control these diseases and make them harmless. The very playthings in Japan have now a warlike character. The Jkpan Mail says that even the game of chess is transformed, the figures being painted clay images representiug Japanese and Chinese soldiers of various ranks.