THE BOY GREW OLDER

In his first article on "The Way the World is Going" in the New York Times H. G. Well's chief observation seems to be that its inhabitants are growing older. Insurance statistics are marshalled to prove that the span of life is daily lengthening and that soon it will be proper to send white flowers to the funeral of one who quite his life at the tender age of three score and ton. Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century announced to his rather hostile contempories that all that was necessary to outlive one's friends was a draught of essence of reindeer. Spaniards in the sixteenth century tramped their way to fever and death in the swamps to Florida all for a few bubbles in the fountain of youth. Ladies of the present with a more practical turn of mind submit to the beautifying tortures of the face litter. But as Mr.--Wells points out science threatens to make us stay young whether we like it or not. Baccilll and thyroids are the shibboleths to the new alchemy.

Mr. Wells believes that as our life span increases we ascend the spiral of progress. Sex, he thinks, becomes of less importance and civilization attains maturity. By artificially living longer we are doing something quite out of the range of the other animals. Thus, homo sapiens leaves his competitors far behind in the race, and in his lengthened life can use his mating energies for better things. The results are interesting when this theory of Mr. Wells is applied to the lives on alligators and caterpillars. The latter live only a few days as adult butterflies mate, flutter about a bit, and die. The former survive many generations of men. They are born, they mate, and they die like the others. As for their decades of leisure, most of it is spent in crawling unhurriedly about the ooze.