LIVING IN A HOVEL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5230, 23 January 1928, Page 4

LIVING IN A HOVEL.

A STAIIVING NOBLEMAN. ON BEACH WITH DERELICTS. A Russian Count Has Ween snaring a hovel on the fpiresihores; of. Carrington, New South Wales, with a ber of down-and-out Sailors. The, appalling condition of some of the sailors who have been paid off from their ships at Newcastle was revealed when a stabbing affray attracted. attention to the beachcombers at Carrington. In hollows in the sand, in disused pipes, and e,ven under wornl-out coal trucks, these men of the sea exist. In the daytime they collect food wherever it is offering. Sometimes they are supplied by brother seamen from ships in port, and occasionally they do odd jobs for a few shillings; but every night, wet or finej, they huddle in their bleak resting places, using old newspapers for covering, until another dawn breaks.

Kn’own: to his mates as “Stiffy,”Count Kherson, a Russian aristocrat, experienced the pangs of hunger and the miseries of the long nights in a hole in the sand.

Nobody knew “Stiffy’s” real. name until He confided it to a. companion in distress. “Stiffy” had found a ship and was leaving port that night. He produced papers to prove his identity.

During the.war “Stiffy” served with a crack British regiment, was three times wounded, and, for conspicuous bravery, was decorated by the King. . He went to England before the war, but a desire to again reach his homer land forced 'him into a merchant ship when, hostilities ceased. Three months ago he went to Newcastle was influenced by companions tq leave his ship in a search f°r shore work, failed miserably, and has lived on starvation rations ever since.