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dière might, if so disposed, have gone through the whole gamut of crime, short of treason, without any one daring to interpose, until the period for which it was granted had expired. As things were, the protection was several times renewed.

Thus provided, the Sieur gave himself up a voluntary prisoner, at Fort l'Evêque, Paris, September 1st. 1698.

The matter became at this time more than ever complicated by the death of the Lieutenant of Chatillon, whose heirs, from motives of spect to his memory, felt it their duty to continue the process he had originated.

was not without benefit to the Commonwealth, many questions theretofore of legal uncertainty having been definitively set at rest. A list of fifteen of such decisions were issued to the judges of the various courts, and became thenceforth indisputable law.

The Sieur de la Pivardière did not long survive this event in their lives.

The Sieur, still cherishing his old jealousy, having only consulted his own honour and the safety of his wife in the recent proceeding, refusre-ed to return to his home. He, however, revisited the noble-hearted woman who had come to his rescue, only to bid her farewell. It would be difficult to realize the mingled love and grief of such a parting.

Upon the second trial a large and distinguished bar appeared on either side, and gigantic efforts were made to increase the mysteryefforts so successful that it was not until the 14th June, 1701, that this extraordinary case came to an end.

The final judgment, after duly reciting the foregoing proceedings, decreed in favour of De la Pivardière, acquitting all those placed in arrest during the process, and condemning Marguerite Mercier (her fellow servant, Le Moine, had died during the process) to make the public "amende honorable" in the usual form as a false witness denying "in a loud and intelligible voice" her slanderous assertions, after which she was to be publicly whipped and branded with a fleur-delys on the right shoulder, thereafter to be banished, her goods being forfeited to the

crown.

Whatever may have been the private wrong and suffering inflicted in this strange case, it

De la Pivardière subsequently obtained through his relation, the Duc de la Feuillade, a semi-military employ, in which he was killed while leading his brigade against a large band of" contrebandiers."

Nearly at the same time his lady was found dead in her bed from natural causes, at the château.

The prior Miseray, who had long since ceased to visit at the latter place, died in high esteem, at a very advanced age.

It is pleasant to be able to state that the generous second wife was destined to see many days of peace and prosperity. She was twice married, lived for many years after the events above recorded, and enjoyed the well-deserved esteem of all who knew her, and were acquainted with the strange history in which she alone appears to advantage.

EUTHANASIA.

(From SCOFFERN's Stray Leaves of Science and Folk-Lore.)

THE 'HE change from this seene of existence to the next is usually heralded by suffering and pain, insomuch that dying has come to be regarded as the extreme of calamities.

Usually the animated machine clogs, and in mid-career is disarranged, then struggles before coming to the pause which is death, long be

fore the component parts of it are so far worn or altered as to be unfitted to the functions of vitality.

Few of mankind can be said to die of old age pure and simple; fewer still of non-human animals. Disease or violence or accident precipitate commonly the issue. For man, disease

is the normal rule of death, violence and accident the exception. For non-human animals, conditions are reversed; comparatively few die naturally. In fish the chances in favour of natural death sink to the lowest level. Fish eat each other without compunction, heedless of consanguinity or species similarity.

Violent death may well be called the natural death of fishes; and perhaps this way of going out of the world in their case has important consequences in nature's economy. If terrestrial animals were to die naturally and to remain unburied, the atmosphere would soon become so contaminated, that no living creature could long breathe it and live. It is known that putrefactive decomposition takes place in fresh water at least as readily as it does in air; and although the saline materials of sea-water do check putrefaction to some extent, yet they are not in quantity sufficient to prevent it wholly; wherefore the cannibal propensities of fish may be a wise provision of nature for keeping the waters pure.

Though life-duration, regarded as to the individual, is most uncertain, nobody being able to form the vaguest notion of the hour of his decease, yet considered as to the species, the period of life-duration can be estimated with much certainty. Were it otherwise, the practice of remunerative life-assurance could not obtain. In a general way the rule has been established, that the normal life-duration of an animal is directly proportionate to the time occupied by it in coming to the extreme of growth. To this, however, there are so many exceptions, that they almost invalidate the rule. Thus ravens die extremely old; so do parrots; both having been known to attain ages beyond a hundred years; yet neither parrots nor ravens are slow of growth.

From very ancient times there has been a traditionary belief in the long life of deer-even hundreds of years. The Egyptians in their hieroglyphic code chose the deer for their symbol of longevity. From the Egyptians the belief passed down to the Romans, and thence to our own times.

years being assigned for the usual term of existence of a red deer. The Highland belief is, that certain old stags are endowed with a magic vitality; that they are a sort of wizard stags. Of these weird creatures numerous tales are told. Take, for example, the following :—

In the year 1826, the late Glengarry, when hunting in the garth of Glengarry, shot a fine stag, which was seen to have a certain mark on the left ear. A gillie coming up said it was the mark of Ewen-Mac-Ian Og. Five other gillies coincided, and they all agreed that EwenMac-Ian Og had been dead one hundred and fifty years. The tradition had been handed down that this old chieftain for thirty years before his death had marked with this particular brand all the calf-deer he could lay hands upon. Assuming the mark on this particular deer to have been authentic, then the animal's age could not have been less than a hundred and fifty, and it might have been a hundred and eighty years.

The anecdote is narrated by Mr. Scrope, who, however, suggests that the old forester's mark was known to the hillmen, and had been by them imitated. Hundreds of Highland traditions might be cited in regard to the alleged longevity of deer. The belief has always prevailed in the Highlands, and hence a certain Gaelic proverb, which stands thus translated into English:

'Thrice the age of a dog is that of a horse,
Thrice the age of a horse is that of a man,
Thrice the age of a man is that of a deer,
Thrice the age of a deer is that of an eagle,
Thrice the age of an eagle is that of an oak-tree.'

What may be considered the normal age of man, the age to which the human mechanism might be expected to endure but for disease, accident, or other collateral interference? Threescore years and ten is the scriptural answer; but without irreverence we may easily assume that the scriptural statement contemplated the probability of disease, of accident, of one or another amongst the extraneous causes which in by far the majority of cases terminates human life; not allowing euthanasia, or death from actual wearing out of the animal mechan

In no part of the world is belief in the longevity of deer more firmly fixed than in the High-ism, to supervene. lands. It is not asserted by Scottish Highlanders that the lives of deer in general are immoderately long, something like twenty-five

The physiologist Blumenbach came to the conclusion that there is no period which can be said to be entitled by its frequency and marked

regularity to be considered the natural term of advanced old age. Trying to determine this point, he consulted all the bills of mortality he could gain access to, and the conclusion he was able to arrive at was, that in Europe no inconsiderable number of individuals reach their 85th year, but few get beyond it; that farther, from one or other cause, only one in every seventy-eight human beings in a thousand can be said to die in the condition of euthanasia. Blumenbach, it is worthy of remark, died in the beginning of 1840, aged eighty-eight, having retained his faculties to the last. He continued to lecture up to a few days before his death, and with the spirit and humour that had always been his wont Hufeland was of opinion that, were it not for disease or accident, or other extraneous cause, the natural term of man's existence, ending in euthanasia, might be fixed at about two hundred years. He considered the assertion strengthened by its agreement with the proportion between the time of growth and the duration of life. An animal, according to Hufeland, lives eight times as long as it grows; and the growth of man can be hardly looked upon as complete until twenty-five. According to this calculation, the term of human euthanasia would of course be two hundred years.

Hufeland occupied by no means a solitary position among physiologists in respect to this conclusion. Blumenbach was of the same opinion; so was Buffon. Those who uphold this belief have much to advance in support of it. Take almost any extreme case of old age of which records are extant, and it will be found that death came through the operation of some extraneous cause. Take the case of Old Parr, for instance, who died at one hundred and fiftytwo. We shall find he did not actually wear out; he was killed by kindness.

Who of us, having arrived at the age of one hundred and fifty-two, would mind dying under the perpetration of such kindness as I find recorded in a certain ancient book entitled The Old, Old, very Old Man, being a chronicle of Mr. Parr's last days? From the account in this book, it seems that the Earl of Arundel and Surrey, being in Shropshire, heard of the venerable Mr. Parr ; ' when,' states my record, 'his lordship was pleased to see him, and in his innate noble and Christian piety, he took him into his charitable tuition and protection,

commanding that a litter and two horses be provided for him; also that a daughter-in-law of his (named Lucy) should likewise attend him, and have a horse for her own riding with him. And to cheer up the old man and make him merry, there was an antique-faced fellow called Jack, or John the Fool, that had also a horse for his carriage. These all were to be brought out of the country to London by easy journeys; the charges being allowed by his lordship, and likewise one of his honour's own servants, named Brian Kelly, to ride on horseback with them, and to attend and def ay all manner of reckonings and expenses all of which was done as followeth.'

Then comes the itinerary. How Master

Parr was received in this town and that is minutely recorded; how Master Kelly' had much to do to keep the people off that pressed upon him in all places where he came ; yet at Coventry he was most opprest; for they came in such multitudes to see the old man, that those that defended him were almost quite tired and spent, and the aged man in danger to have been stifled.'

Arrived at London, Master Parr was sumptuously lodged, profusely and delicately fed He became a court lion, dividing the regards of sight-seers of Charles I.'s court with a giant and a dwarf, also under royal patronage; all three, as I gather from the curious old book from which these particulars are taken, court pensioners. There seems to have been a court poet in those days, whose name has passed into oblivion. He printed an effusion to celebrate the three court prodigies; the opening lines of this effort of genius are as follow:

'Of subjects, my dread liege, 'tis manifest
You have the old'st, the greatest, and the least;
That for an old, a great, and a little man,
No kingdom, sure, compare with Britain can.'

They lodged Master Parr sumptuously. they fed him delicately. It killed him. Abundant meat and generous wines failed to agree with one who throughout life had eaten very little animal food, and who, though indulging in ale occasionally, had seldom tasted wine. He died at the mature age of one hundred and fifty-two, but not of pure old age, the condition of euthanasia. Harvey, the celebrated anatomist, who dissected Master Parr's body, found in it no

signs of natural decay. And here it may not be inopportunely stated, that when Master Parr had outlived a century by some years, a certain youthful indiscretion brought on him the penalty of doing church-penance in a white sheet!

Speculating on the average age of mankind, and animals in general, some have expressed surprise that the organism should wear out at all, seeing that the materials of it are so constantly replenished; others, on the contrary, have wondered that the mechanism should last so long as it ordinarily does.

In reference to the former, it has been said that every part of a living animal's body undergoes renewal once in about three months; but this is not strictly correct. Every soft part of the body may, indeed probably does, come under that process of regeneration in the time specified, gelatine or the soft portion of the bones inclusive. The composition of our bodies alters with age, notwithstanding. During life something goes on comparable to the furring of a tea-kettle or the fouling of a steam-boiler. Hard earthy concretions deposit in the heart, impeding its movements; in the arteries, impairing the elasticity needful to their vital functions. Vainly are the soft portions of our bodies renovated, whilst those earthy depositions continue to be formed. The longer we live the more brittle do we grow. Young children can fall about, rarely breaking their bones; whereas old people often fracture their limbs by the mere exertion of turning in bed.

Bearing in mind the fact, that as we grow older we become more brittle, this is explained; and being explained, shall we not marvel that life's fire burns so long? Consider what the animal machine has to do to keep itself alive and going, the heart above all. Taking an average of different ages, the human heart may be considered to beat one hundred thousand times in the twenty-four hours. A human adult may be considered to hold from fifty to sixty pounds of blood; and this has to be kept in continuous motion by the pulsating heart to the very end of life. The mechanical labour is enormous. Were a mechanician to devise a machine of ordinary materials for overcoming the weight of fifty or sixty pounds, as happens to the blood, repairs would be incessant, the machine would soon wear out.

I do not know how it happens that, when an

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illustration of extreme old age is in question, we all recur to Master Parr. He was an old man certainly, a very old man; but by no means the oldest of whom authentic records exist. Old Jenkins beats him. Of Jenkins more anon. The very oldest man I can find account of is Thomas Carn, who, according to the parish-register of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, died 28th January, 1588, æt. two hundred and seven. He was born in the reign of Richard II. in 1381. He lived in the reigns of ten sove. reigns, viz., Richard II., Henries IV., V. and VI., Richard III., Henries VII. and VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth.

Some years ago, when Parliament had closed and London was deserted-when the silly season, as newspaper-people call it, had fairly set in--the leading journal admitted to its columns a series of letters, the general purport of which was to cast a doubt on records of extreme longevity. Could it be demonstrated that, since the existence of scriptural patriarchs, any man or any woman had completed a hundred years?

Such was the general question; and much argument was expended to prove the negative. Amongst others reasons for disbelieving the statements of persons of extreme age, their failure of memory was insisted on; also a certain pride of age, that dawns and dominates, just like the pride of youth at earlier epochs of life. Deferring to these arguments in their general application, it is still impossible to set aside the precise testimony of certain cases. However easy it would be for a supra-centenarian to tell an untruth, or to make a mistake, as to the bare statement of age, it would not be easy-rather would it be impossible-for him to make the bare statement consist with cross-questioning founded upon consideration of events and historical periods. The extreme age of Jenkins-he died at one hundred and sixty-nine-is attested by the following line of, as it would seem, unimpeachable evidence.

Henry Jenkins is said to have been born at Bolton-upon-Swale, Yorkshire, in 1500, and to have followed the active employment of fisherman for about a hundred and forty years. Being produced as a witness on a trial at the Yorkshire assizes, to prove a contested right of way, he swore to near one hundred and fifty years' memory, during all which time he said he remembered the right of way. 'Beware what

you are swearing,' said the judge; there are two men in the court each above eighty-they have both sworn they have known no such right of way.'

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'Those men,' replied Jenkins, are boys to Upon which the judge inquired of those men how old they took Jenkins to be. Their answer was, they knew Jenkins very well, but not his age; for that he was a very old man when they were boys.

Here, then, we have evidence of the great age of this patriarch,-evidence, so far as it goes, of the most satisfactory kind; educed, as it was, from the testimony of those who, being in a certain sense antagonists, can hardly be assumed to have gone out of their way to enhance his antiquity. Evidence equally satisfactory and more precise, as it goes to fix his age exactly, was elicited by judicial crossquestioning founded on comparison of historical dates. Being brought before a court of law to give evidence, he testified to one hundred and twenty years having been born before parish-registers were kept, these only having been established by the 30th of Henry VIII.

This seemed so extraordinary that Jenkins was cross-questioned with reference to historical occurrences. What remarkable battle or event had happened in his memory? Flodden Field,' said Jenkins: I being then turned twelve years of age.' How did he live? By thatching and salmon-fishing. I was thatching when served with your subpœna, and can dub a hook with any man in Yorkshire.'

Reference to Flodden Field brought more cross-questioning. His reply was consistent, and still more confirmatory. When eleven or twelve years old, he said, he was sent to Northallerton in the North Riding, with a horse-load of arrows to be used in the battle of Flodden Field. From Northallerton the arrows were sent on to the field of battle by a bigger boy, all the men being employed getting-in the harvest. The battle of Flodden Field was fought September 9th, 1513. Being farther questioned, Jenkins said that he had been butler to Lord Conyers of Hornby Castle, when Marmaduke Brodelay, lord abbot of Fountains, did frequently visit his lord, and drink a hearty glass with him; that his lord often sent him to inquire how the abbot did, who always sent for him to his lodg

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ings, and, after ceremonies, besides wassal (a liquor made from apples, sugar, and ale), ordered him a quarter of a yard of roast beef. for his dinner (for that monasteries did deliver their guests' meat by measure) and a great black-jack of strong drink.

Being next questioned whether he remembered the dissolution of religious houses, he said, Very well;' that he was between thirty and forty years old when the order came to dissolve those in Yorkshire; that great lamentation was made, and the county all in a tumult when the monks were turned out. After this sort of evidence it will be impossible, I think, to refuse credence to this very old man's tale.

Is growing old an art to be acquired? is it a matter of eating, drinking, and avoiding? These are amongst the questions that people, desirous of growing very old, will not fail to propose to themselves. And thus may we reply: Viability, or the capacity of living long, wrote somebody, is an inheritance. Like talent, it may be cultivated; like talent, it may be perverted; but it exists independent of all cultivation. Some men have a talent for long life. Longevity tends to be hereditary. M. Charles Lejoncourt, in his Galerie des Centenaires, publishes some cnrious examples. He cites a daylabourer, who died at one hundred and eight; his father having lived to one hundred and four, and his grandfather to one hundred and eight. His daughter, then living, had arrived at eighty. In another page of M. Lejoncourt's treatise, we find a saddler whose grandfather died at one hundred and twelve, his father at one hundred and thirteen, and he himself at one hundred and fifteen. This man, two years before his death, being asked by Louis XIV. how he had managed to live so long?' Sire,' said he, 'by acting on two principles since I was fifty; the principles of keeping my winecellar open and my heart shut.'

A more surprising illustration of hereditary longevity is furnished by John Golembiewski, a Pole. In 1846 this man was living, aged one hundred and two. His father died at one hundred and twenty-one, his grandfather at one hundred and thirty. This Pole had been eighty years a common soldier. He had served in thirty-five campaigns under Napoleon; had even survived the terrible Russian campaign in spite of five wounds.

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