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NOTES* AND QUERIES. [9* s. VHL AUG. 10,1901.

Derby, free warren in the demesne lands of Salford, among other places ; thus showing that Salford at that time was a royal demesne. ARTHUR MAYALL.

There are many reasons for the adoption of the title " royal " by towns in England ; but one town, to my own knowledge, has a clear claimthe little Warwickshire place char- tered by Henry VIII. as the "King's Town, Manor, and Lordship of Button Coldfield." K. W. R. BEDFORD. (Other replies received.]

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, FIRST EARL OF STIRLING (9 th S. viii. 83). An examination of dates ought to have shown the biographers to whom MR. WILCOCK alludes that it was impossible William Alexander should have been tutor to the seventh Earl of Argyll. William Alexander was born in 1580. Allow- ing for the precocity of genius, he could scarcely have been a tutor or travelling com- panion before he was eighteen. This brings us to 1598, when Archibald, seventh Earl of Argyll, was twenty- two years of age, and had been married four years to Lady Anne Douglas, to whom Alexander in 1604 in- scribed his * Aurora.' CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

LIVING IN THREE CENTURIES (9 th S. vii. 86, 314). For the last tan years I have fol- lowed with ever - increasing surprise the number of instances of centenarianism re- corded in the newspapers. In spite of all that Mr. W. J. Thorns, in his ' Human Lon- gevity,' may say with regard to the "fabulous" accounts of Old Parr's 152 vears, and the author's hope that they will be " eliminated from all serious inquiries concerning human longevity," there is apparently nothing to prove tnat this 152 years was not actually reached. The celebrated " discoverer " of the circulation of the blood believed in him, and when he opened him he found the cartilages of his ribs, instead of being ossified as they generally are in elderly persons, soft and flexible, while his brain was sound. It was remarked, in connexion with a census of cen- tenarians taken in France and published in 1895, that in almost every instance the cen- tenarian was a person in the humblest rank of life. One venerable dame died peacefully in a hamlet in the Haute Garonne aged 150 years, subsisting during the last decade of her life on goat's milk and cheese, and pre- serving all her mental faculties to the last. Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson thought the normal period of human life, even to-day, to be about 110 years, and that seven out of ten people ought to live to that age if they took proper care of themselves. Whether we

should all see the necessity of such longevity is another matter. Some of us might be liable to the stricture passed ^by a villager upon a century recorder: "So that's the oldest inhabitant ! One hundred and four

ght o' time to do tnat." it may

be granted to MR. THOMAS AULD that it is remarkable how the records of centenarian- ism decrease, as regards the number of years attained, with the enervating influences of civilization, or rather with the adoption of its artificialities. One seldom now hears of instances of more than from one hundred to a hundred and five or so years ; but it will require something more than MR. AULD'S ipse dixit (9 th S. vii. 314) to discredit the numerous cases that recur so frequently. A hundred and fifty and two hundred years ago it was not uncommon to meet with what would now be extraordinary records. For instance :

" We hear from Mullingar that a man dy'd lately there in the 123 rd Year of his Age." Weekly Journal, 28 August, 1725.

" We are credibly informed that there is now living near Ribchester in Lancashire William Walker, aged 122 Years, who was at the Battle of Edge Hill wounded in the Arm, and had two Horses shot under him. He is now perfect in all his Senses, and capable of travelling on Horse back." Craftsman, 22 November, 1735.

"James Redmond has just died in County Wex- ford at the patriarchal age of 110. He had been a moderate smoker and drinker all his life." News- paper, March, 1896.

"Mr. William Salmon, of Pennline Court, and a Deputy - Lieutenant for Glamorganshire, who recently attained the age of 107 years, is still alive and well." Newspaper, April, 189(5 or 6).

" The oldest man in the world," Noah Roby, was still living in 1900, an inmate of the poor-house at Piscataway township, New Jersey. He was born at Eatontown, North Carolina, and declared that he was 128 years of age on 1 April. Born of an Indian father and a white mother, his skin betrays no evidence of Indian blood (Daily Telegraph, 15 November, 1900). I should observe that during the eighteenth century it was not uncommon to find reported in the leading journals the attainment of 110 years.

Capt. Edward Hoare, of the Cork Militia, once told Mr. H. Syer Cuming, vice-president of the British Archaeological Association, that lie had an uncle who was born in December, 1699, and died January, 1801, thus embracing five reigns, from William III. to George III., Desides "living in three centuries."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.