NAKED-FOR FORTY YEARS.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 570, 17 April 1876, Page 3

NAKED-FOR FORTY YEARS.

Incredible as the following may appear, says the Carletou Place Herald , it is an authentic fact, to which hundreds can bear testimony—“ About folly years ago a young man named Wilson, residing near the town of Perth conceived the lunatic idea of leading a hermit’s life. The youth had from his early age showed symptoms of derangement, and this proceeding on his part was not considered strange by his friends. The chosen place of his hermitage was about Ihice-quarters of a mile from his parental homestead, in the rc-coss of a dense bust), where ho erected a small hovel and furnished it wilh an old logcancn, which he used .as a couch to sleep in. Divesting himself of all clothing, he has ever since remained perfectly mule, with the exception of a tattered remn ant of a shirt, which his fancy leads him to retain. In th a unde state for 1 > years he lies lived, walking in the depth of winter Ihtough the snow, and yet ho has never been known to have received a frost bile. When he requires a drink lie . walks deliberately into the river, it mattering not to him what season of the year it may be, and wades out till the water reaches hit waist, and then he stoops and quenches his thirst. His food is brought to him by his friends, and when given to him is eaten with the voraciousness of an animal, which he now resembles more than man, his body being as heavily coated with hair as that of a cow. He never show a dangerous disposition, and chatters itmonosyllables. When people cross his path he invariably begs for tobacco, for which lit has an evident partiality, and in chattering tones will utter 4 ’bacea’ until his request is granted. His hair is long, grey, and unkempt, falling far over his shoulders, and his beard, which is similar, reaches down below his waist. He is now between 60 and 70 years of age, and is possibly the only living being ever known to have lived year after year perfectly naked and exposed to all the inclemencies of weather which mark our Canadian winters.”