He was great grand-son of old Thomas Parr, who lies buried in Westminster Abbey, and died in the reign of King Charles I. What is remarkable, the father of Robert was above 109; the grand-father 113; and the great grandfather, the said Thomas, aforesaid, is well known to have died at the amazing age of 152. HENRY JENKINS. HENRY JENKINS, of the parish of Bolton, in Yorkshire, being produced as a witness, at the assizes there, to prove a right of way over a man's ground, he there swore to near 150 years' memory; for at that time, he said, he well remembered a way over that ground. And being cautioned by the judge to beware what he swore, because there were two men in court of above 80 years of age each, who had sworn they remembered no such way, he replied, "That those men were boys to him." Upon which the judge asked those men how old they took Jenkins to be? who answered, they knew him very well, but not his age, but that he was a very old man when they were boys. Dr. Tancred Robinson, fellow of the College of Physicians, adds farther, concerning this Henry Jenkins, that upon his coming into his sister's kitchen to beg an alms, he asked him how old he was? who after a little pausing, said, he was about an hundred and sixty-two or three. The doctor asked him what kings he remembered; he said, Henry VIII. What public thing he could longest remember? He said, the fight at Flodden-field. Whether the king was there? He said, no, he was in France, and the Earl of Surry was general. How old he was then? He said, about 12 years old. The doctor looked into an old chronicle that was in the house, and found that the battle of Flodden-field was 152 years before; that the earl he named was general, and that Henry VIII. was then at Tournay. Jenkins was a poor man, and could neither read nor write. There were also four or five in the same parish, reputed to be 100 years old, or near it, who all said he was an elderly man ever since they knew him. This remarkable man died on the 8th of December, 1670, at Ellerton-upon-Swale, at the amazing age of 169 years. What a multitude of events, says an ingenious author, have crowded into the period of this man's life! He was born when the Roman Catholic religion was establishe by law; he saw the supremacy of the Pope overturned; the dissolution of monasteries; popery established again; and, at last, the Protestant religion securely fixed on a rock of adamant. In his time the Invincible Armada was destroyed; the Republic of Holland formed; three queens beheaded, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Mary Queen of Scots. A king of Spain seated upon the throne of England; a king of Scotland crowned king of England at Westminster, and his son beheaded before his own palace, his family being proscribed as traitors; and, last of all, the great fire in London, which happened in 1666, toward the close of his wonderful life. He was buried in Bolton church-yard, near Catterick and Richmond, in Yorkshire, where a small pillar was erected to his memory, on which is the following epitaph, composed by Dr. Thomas Chapman, Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, from 1746 to 1760. Blush not, marble, To rescue from oblivion he was enriched with the goods of Nature, and happy in the duration, if not the variety of his enjoyments: with a Patriarch's health a life of labour, and a mind at ease. Annals of Health. 15 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. TATTOOING. AMONG all the known nations of the earth, none have carried the art of tattooing to so high a degree of perfec tion as the inhabitants of the Washington Islands. The regular designs with which the bodies of the men of Nukahiwa are punctured from head to foot, supplies, in some sort, the absence of clothing; for, under so warm a climate, clothing would be insupportable to them. Many people here seek as much to obtain distinction by the symmetry and regularity with which they are tattooed, as among us by the elegant manner in which they are dressed; and although no real elevation of rank is designated by the greater superiority of these decorations, yet as only persons of rank can afford to be at the expense attendant upon any refinement in the ornaments, it does become, in fact, a badge of distinction. The operation of tattooing is performed by certain persons, who gain their livelihood by it entirely, and those who perform it with the greatest dexterity, and evince the greatest degree of taste in the disposition of the ornaments, are as much sought after as among us a particularly good tailor. Thus much, however, must be said, that the choice made is not a matter of equal indifference with them as with us; for if the punctured garment be spoiled in the making, the mischief is irreparable, it must be worn, with all its faults, the whole life through. For performing the operation, the artist uses the wing bone of a tropic bird, phaeton athereus, which is jagged and pointed at the end after the manner of a comb, sometimes in the form of a crescent, sometimes in a strait line, and larger or smaller, according to the figures which the artist intends to make. This instrument is fixed into a bamboo handle about as thick as the finger, with which the puncturer, by means of another cane, strikes sogently and so dexterously, that it scarcely pierces through the skin. The principal strokes of the figures to be tattooed are first sketched upon the body with the same dye that is afterwards rubbed into the punctures, to serve as guides in the use of the instrument. The punctures being made so t at the blood and lymph ooze through the orifice, a thick dye, composed of ashes from the kernel of the burning nut, aleurites triloba, mixed with water, is rubbed in. This occasions at first a slight degree of smarting and inflammation; it then heals, and when the crust comes off, after some days the bluish or blackish-blue figure appears. As soon as an inhabitant of Nukahiwa approaches towards the age of manhood, the operation of tattooing is begun, and this is one of the most important epochs of his life, the artist is sent for, and the agreement made with him that he is to receive so many hogs as his pay; the number is commonly regulated according to the wealth of the person to be tattooed, and the quantity of decoration bestowed is regulated by the pay. While we were at the island, a son of the chief Katanuah was to be tattooed. For this purpose, as belonging to the principal person in the island, he was put into a separate house for several weeks, which was tabooed; that is to say, it was forbidden to every body, except those who were exempted from the taboo by his father, to approach the house; here he was to remain during the whole time that the operation continued. All women, even the mother, are prohibited from seeing the youth while the taboo remains in force. Both the operator and the operatee are fed with the very best food during the continuance of the operation: to the former, these are days of great festivity. In the first year only the ground-work of the principal figures upon the breast, arms, back, and thighs, is laid; and in doing this, the first punctures must be entirely healed, and the crust must have come off before new ones are made. Every single mark takes three or four days to heal; and the first sitting, as it may be called, commonly lasts three or four weeks. While the patient is going through the operation, he must drink very little, for fear of creating too much inflammation; and he is not allowed to eat early in the morning, only at noon and in the evening. When once the decorations are begun, some addition is constantly made to them at intervals of from three to six months, and this is not unfrequently continued for thirty or forty years betore the whole tattooing is completed. We saw some old men |