AN ESSA Y ON LONGEVITY. 103 



nor other European states. Statistics are liable to 

 error when relating, above all things, to old age ; 

 since, as men get old they lose their memory, or 

 gain a superstitious reverence from others which in- 

 duces them to lengthen their reputed age, or to allow 

 others to do so for them. The Russian census, in 

 which so many persons are returned as over 150 

 years of age, is worthless, in this regard, on account 

 of the ignorance and superstition of the lower classes ;^ 

 whilst the interesting comparisons which might fairly 

 be anticipated from facts as to the negroes and whites 

 in the United States are .similarly rendered quite 

 useless and untrustworthy. Thus the average age 

 of those dying above 20 at Charleston appears as 

 4774 for whites, and 52'56 for blacks. (Wynn, loc. 

 cit). Leaving out of the question all other interfering 

 causes as to shifting of population, the greater age of 

 the blacks is quite probably due to their inventive 

 and imaginative talents. Americans tell us that the 

 number of negroes reputed to have been 'servant 

 to George Washington' is something extraordinary. 

 It is clear that numerous advantages in the shape 

 of diminished labour are to be obtained by pleading 

 old age, or greater price than he would otherwise 

 realize may have been gained by the slave-dealer 

 by passing off a youth as a mature man. 



' According to the Russian census, the age of 100 is reached by 9 

 persons out of every 10,000 that are bom — that is, by nearly i in 1000. 

 This is known to be absurd. 



