DERELICT’S DEATH.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5465, 23 August 1929, Page 3

DERELICT’S DEATH.

o VETERAN KNIGHT OF THE ROAD SUCCUMBS AT HUNTLY. There died recently, in the Huntly Hospital, a well-known "knight of the road,” known as Walter Davis, otherwise Prince (states the Huntly correspondent of the Waikato Times). Some 40 years ago Davis worked in the Huntly coal mines, but he off and on received remittance noney amounting from £l5O to £2OO, which only lasted him and his temporary friends about two mouths. He received his? last remittance about 33 years ago of some £2OOO. Davis then went into a small coal and firewood business in Auckland, ‘but in less than a year he, with the help of his friend’, was down and out. For 32 years he tramped ‘the roads from Huntly, through Hamilton and Morrinsville, to Waihi and back to Huntly, where he halted about once a month to enjoy a pint or two with some of his old friends. He slept by the roads in fine weather, and on cold nights got into railway flag-stations and school sheds. He always avoided work, getting food and old clothes from people who pitied him. On two or three occasions he got into His Majesty’s Prison for vagrancy, as he was often found in a weak condition, when it was a kindness to send him there to get a good clean up. as he often needed it. When told by the bench that it was a kindness, Davis disagreed. He was a man of strong constitution, he strongly objected to undue familiarity on his position, was always read with a string of adjectives, and a few men found that they had struck a Jack Dempsey for being too free. The cold weather about three weeks ago told on the old man, as he was found in a dying condition in a railway flag-sta-tion at Huntly West. Hospital, where he died two, days The police took him to the Huntly after admittance. His age was about 72 years. He was buried in the Huntly cemetery* His heavy swag, weighing about 601 b, which he had carried some thousands of miles, was buried with him.