SLUMP IN CENTENARIANS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 312, 31 October 1929, Page 1

SLUMP IN CENTENARIANS.

COMPARATIVE FIGURES. In the iconoclastic blast of modernism even the tenets of the pessimists are blown aside. The Centenarians Club, at all events, has a full membership of people, who are firmly convinced that the allotted span of three score years and ten errs on the side of modesty and that anyone with a sound genealogy, a fair wind, and n disciplined diet can touch three figures. It is true that the 600 members have for the most part a long way to go before they can fully justify their faith in the institution, but they are buoyed with hope and nourish their belief on copious draughts of statistics and out-of-the-way facts connected with longevity. They have learned, for instance, that women have a better chance of scoring a century than men, for the simple reason that they naturally breathe more deeply and frequently. They have, also been taught the wisdom of temperance and temperamental placidity, and the achievements of past centenarians are available for them if their spirits flag. They have been provided, too, with the stimulus of salving a losing cause, for the number of centenarians seems to be declining. In Scotland, for instance, there were in 1881 17 males and 40 females who lived to celebrate their hundredth birthday, but in 1921 they had dwindled to six and 29 respectively. In the case of England, too, 140 became a mere 37, while Ireland has dropped woefully from her splendid record of 700, which, could it have been maintained, would in these days of publicity, have done a world of good for the potato.