Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1876 — Long Life. [ARTICLE]

Long Life.

According to the Hebrew literature, with which, happily, Christendom is familiar, the ancients had a peculiarly strong horror of death. The supreme promise in those primitive days was “that thy days may be long in the land.” At the present time mere existence is not looked upon as a blessing to be coveted. To live on under conditions of misery is esteemed worse than death, unless there be hope of a change for the better. Life is good or ill according to its accessories. But Uie instinct of a continuance, as it might be called, is sufficiently eager to make inquiry into the comparative duration of human life in various trades and professions an interesting one. In the recently-published supplement to the thirty-fifth annual report of the British Registrar General of Births, Deaths ana Marriages, a chapter is devoted to this subject. As a class, professional men live longer than tradesmen. The ministers, who are compelled to be moral, in reputation, at least, are longest lived. Lawyersand doctors rank next, and in the order named. Protestant clergymen have abetter record, from the standpoint of longevity, than the celibates of the Romish priesthood. The latter rarely pass beyond the people of mature middle age. Of artisans, those are the best off, physically, who work in wood, whether indoors or out. The exhalations from wood seem to be peculiarly wholesome. Next to them are the operatives in woolen mills. For some unexplained reason they live longer than the “hands” in cotton mills. The ironmongers labor under the serious disadvantage of being excessively overheated nearly all the time they are at work. Tailors and shoemakers live longer than most artisans. Those who serve the public at hostelries of any kind, from grogshops to hotels, present a high rate of mortality, owing, no doubt, to the fact that as a class they are much given to social drinking. The manufacture of tobacco, in any form whatever, is exceedingly deleterious. Working with chemicals is worst of all. The poison is sure to permeate the air, more or less, and gradually destroy life. Farm labor is of all others the most favorable to longevity. Such are the general facts attested by this report. The ennui of rural life is less wearing to the system than the excitement of the city, still it is claimed that excitement, if not excessive, is invigorating to the body. It does one good to be aroused occasionally. The blood gets torpid and thick if unstirred by some unwonted emotion. It is like a stream which breeds miasma if it flows on too lazily. A vigorous stirring up by either emotions of pleasure, curiosity or* anxiety serves as a tonic. If the farmers did not overwork, and had enough excitement of a legitimate kind, their mode of life would be the very ideal for longevity. As it is, we advise all who care most for long life to make a straight “chute” for the country and stay there. — Chicago Journal.

—Says a Massachusetts correspondent: “In Cambridge, Longfellow is loved, Lowell admired. Though younger by a dozen years, it is generally conceded that Lowell is a broader, finer scholar, than the translator of Dante and the author of the 'Spanish Student? Mr. Longfellow is primarily a noetzMr. Lowell is both a poet and critic. The conversation of both is simple and witty; that of Mr. Lowell is characterized by a blunt, Yankee-like frankness suggestive of the * Biglow Papers? Mr. Longfellow's library is a model of order and artistic arrangement; Mr. Lowell’s is suggestive of the original chaos; books in cases, on shelves, tables, chairs and the floor, books anywhere, everywhere, helter-skelter?’