Again a pleasing delusion has crumbled under the ruthless hand of scientific criticism. The popular belief in the ease and frequency with which the human race reaches the age of 100 years is firm and wide-spread. Scarcely a neighborhood has not had its local "centurion," as Mrs. Partington calls it, while ages of 125, 150, and even 175 years are recorded with the utmost gravity. Several of these have passed into the enclyclopedias, such as the famous "Old Parr," who is credited with 159 years, and an agricultural laborer, named Jenkins, who died at the amazing age of 168 years. The subject has just been taken up in an interesting little volume, by Mr. Young, late president of the Institute of Actuaries, who has most carefully collected and sifted all the instances of centenarianism, recorded in England, with the result of finding that the vast majority of them are utterly