CENTENARIAN "BOYS AND GIRLS."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 225, 10 November 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

CENTENARIAN "BOYS AND GIRLS."

SOME ASTONISHING PERFORMANCES OF MEN AND WOMEN OK

ONE HUNDRED

Miss Young, of Richmond, Yorkshire, who recently passed her lOOt.u birthday amid ninny hearty congratulations from her townsmen, is a remarkable old lady. She. enjoys most excellent health, was for more than seventy years a Sunday school teacher, and wears the war-workers' badge, specially granted to her for the large number of pairs of stockings and many warm comforters which she has herself knitted and sent on to the troops since war broke out.

Mr. J. Hoad, of Folkestone, has not only long been the doyon of that wellknown watering-place on account of his having passed the century, and being still "not out,'' but from the fact that in many respects lie is yet fax more juvenile than thousands of men fifty years his juniors! The grand old man of Folkestone can still take Ion;; walks, do a decent day's work at gardening, or other labour he likes, and may 1«? scon practically any day strolling about the town, occasionally whistling or humming a song as if • e were but a youth of seventeen ! A FAMOUS YORKSHIRE FAMILY. Mrs. Mary Whincup, who resides with her daughter in Layerthorpe, York, tells you with a chuckle that, though now well past 100, she expects to live many years .yet, seeing that her family is perhaps the most famous of all centenarian ones in these island* Indeed, it almost seems as if the Richardsons (her maicren name), of Toefcwith, Yorkshire, never dream of dying until they have attained at least 1001 Mrs. Whincup's grandparents were both centenarians, and her father lived to 98, whilst her mother got to be 99! Her great-great-grandfather fought qt Mairston Moor, and was hidden in :i field from Cromwell's men fo.- ten days .after the battle; this Richardson, too, is believed to have been close on, if not quite, 100 when he died. The eld lady is to-day in very fair health, and has twenty-nine grandchildren, living, and ?ix great-grandchildren. Not long ago, in connection with a paragraph about the then Mayor of High AVycombe, a .well-known London newspaper stated that probably' his Worship's family was unique in its record, seeing that the Mayor's father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother had all lived to be centenarians! So far as his Worship remembered them, too, he could bear testimony that they were all surprisingly healthy, jovial, and active when past the 100 th milestone. It can hardly l>3 supposed that there is another man now living in our islands who can boast simijariy that his four immediate progenitors all lived to be over a hundred years old. SAW NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

Mrs. Sarah Brooks, of Downham. Essex, is alive at the time this account is written, and can boast of being 103 years of age. She is certainly now the only living person who can truthfully claim that she once saw Napoleon Bonaoairto. Her husband was an officer in the mercantile marine, and Mrs. Brooks tells how. when three years old, she was taken to sea H.M.S. Bellerophon come into Plymouth Sound with the famous Emperor of the French on board, after Waterloo, when he was about to lie sent to St. Helena.

Also, when it comes to longevity of a whole family, the Bucks, who cam? from Holdemess, in East Yorks., though not one of them has ever actually attained the century during the thirty years, can hoast a notable record indeed. For the eldest sister (Margaret) died at Hull, aged 99 and nine months; another sister (Ellen) at Exeter, when 91; the youngest, Ann, at Leamington two years ago. aged 95; n brother, James, at floods, at the excellent old age of 94! For six brothers and sisters to make an average of clos? on 92 years each, with the total not yet entirely finished, must he going on tar towards an absolute record. And the writer is proud of belonging to such a family.

WORLD'S GREATEST EXPLOSION" BRINGS NO RAIN.

The European war has no effect whatever on the weather either w Europe or the United States, aoeording to Dr. Charles F. Marvin, chief ot the United States Meatier Bureau. "The most convincing rei'i tation of the popular impression that explosions cause rain occurred sewrnl days aga ii. tiie munitions explosion in New .lersev. which was undoubtedly tiie largest single explosion <>|' muirtions in this or any other country, says I)' Marvin i i a " Herald" intereview. "It had mi effect on the We.itho", and it wis not followed by rain, although the. concussion from the explosion was felt at a distance of about a hundred miles in every direction. "The amount of rain depends upon the temperature. If tlve temperature increases, the amount of o\ nnoratun increases, which, when .affected by cold nir, consumes and precipitates as rain. '