_Authenticated Instances of Longevity._--Your correspondent A. B. R.
(antè, p. 145.) and others argue _their_ question of the old Countess of
Desmond very ably;--will any one of them be pleased to argue _my_
question? Is there one word of truth in the story, or any other story
that rests, as a preliminary condition, on the assumption that people
have lived to one hundred and fifty years of age? Of course the proof is
to rest on dates and facts, parish registers--on _clear legal evidence_.
It is admitted by actuaries and others, learned in such matters, that
the average duration of life is greater now than it was; so, we might
fairly assume, would be the exceptional life. Can these gentlemen refer
us to a single instance of an insured person who lived to one hundred
and fifty? to one hundred and forty, thirty, twenty, ten? aye, to one
hundred and ten? There is a nonsensical inscription to this effect on
the portrait of a man of the name of Gibson, hung up in Greenwich
Hospital, but its untruth has been proved. I also remember another case
made out to the entire satisfaction of some benevolent ladies, by, as
afterwards appeared, the baptismal register of John the father being
made to do duty as the register of John the son. I mention these things
as a warning; I protest, too, at starting against flooding "N. & Q."
with evidence brought from Russia or America, or any of the back
settlements of the world, and against all evidence of people with
impossible memories. What I want is _good legal evidence_; the greatest
age of the oldest members of the Equitable, Amicable, and other
Insurance offices--lives certainly beyond the average; the greatest age
of a member of the House of Peers coming within the eye of proof. When
these preliminary questions, and reasonable inferences, shall have been
determined, it will, I think, be quite time enough to raise questions
about the old Countess, old Parr, old Jenkins, and other like
ante-register longevities.