Preferred Squalor to Riches

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1004, 21 June 1930, Page 20

Preferred Squalor to Riches

Hermits Whose Strange Eccentricities Have Surprised the World ... Millionaire Wanderer of Seven Seas . . . Woman Recluse & Her Hallucination.

—'v ANY stories of strange AttH AVll ° prefer l ° live : constantly brought to I light by the tragic manj manor in which they end their careers lot’ privation and extreme discomiort, | says a -writer in. “News of the World. There was a case of an eccentric I Thames-side recluse. jT>hn Louis Pigott • Leman, known locally as the “Hermit j of Suubury,” who lived in one room laud died in his chair. Once lie was | known as a brilliant dentist, inventoi ; i of an automatic blowpipe for soldering J ! in dentistry. On his wife’s death lie : seemed to lose interest in life. He i let the house, in which he had a large j interest, with the exception of one ; barely furnished room. Here he cooked j : his own meals, ate and slept. Among : Ms ancestors he claimed a former Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Leman, ; who bought the Manor of NY arboys in Huntingdonshire from Oliver Cromwell. Another ancestor he claimed was Sir William Leman, of Northaw, Herts., who was a High Sheriff and M.P. for Hertfordshire, and was made a baronet by Charles 11. A locked chest in a London bank contained the secret of another old recluse, Charles Herbert Church, of Highbury. Before his death he lived in a furnished room in Liverpool Road. Mr. Church was believed to have been an architect, and was reputedly well-to-do, although he lived on little more than Ss a week. He was, according to the wife of the proprietor of the coffeerooms where he lodged, exceedingly economical in his habits, and would not even buy a newspaper. Letters came to him from all parts of the world. Many were believed to contain vouchers for securities, which the old man would immediately transfer to another envelope which he sent to his bank. He was so secretive that when a letter came for him he always tore off the address from the notepaper. When he lay dying in hospital he was asked If he would disclose the name of any relative or friend, but the old man refused to do so. His only wish was that he should be cremated and liis ashes scattered to the winds. Another story seems hardly credible, and reads almost like a page from fiction. In what should have been the prime of his life, a man was found dying of starvation in a house in Islington. The room he occupied was barricaded with a two-feet-thick wall of rubbish. To reach him, the police officers had to dig a tunnel through | the rubbish, and when the room was j cleared seven tons of bottles, milk j tins, and the like were carted away. Yet the man. William Macfarlane, was only 45, and found to be comparatively well off. Ho had a balance of £. 115 at the Savings Bank, and held a number of bonds and shares. He held 50 ! shares in the Victoria Palace Music

Hall, interests in Farrow's Bank, and companies that had gone into liquidation: deeds of a house; a parcel of bonds; money orders and postal orders: and, strangely enough, an ofbcer s sword and busby. The miserable room he lived in measured only 11 , feet by 5 feet 6 inches, so that, taking ; off the 2ft baricade which surrounded the room except at one end, where * a mattress was laid, the only sepace in which he moved and breathed was an aperture IS inches wide down the middle. Neighbours said that when he first rented the room he was clad in rags, and his only possessions "ere an enamel saucepan and an enamel pail. He had no work, and said he had no relations and no friends. Every morning ho would go out and pick rubbish from the streets. He let his hair grow long, until it was like a black fur collar over his shoulders. The hut on the cliffs in which Mr. Herbert Callingham, the “hermit ot Rottingdean,” Sussex, was found dead, was onlv about 14 feet, by 8 feet. It was packed so full of furniture, books, manuscripts, and rubbish that some of the chairs were hung from the rooi for want of space. There was no fireplace in the hut. and a couch was used as a bed. Mr. Callinghams only companion was a big Irish terrier. More than 20 years ago he benefited from the will of his aunt, Sarah E Cumbridge, who used to write fiction for children under the name of “Sid ney E. Grey,” but for years he had lived the life of a recluse in the hut where, on top of a hill, he had lived and died under the most depressins conditions. He was a strange, quiei person, son of a writer and artist, ant was himself at one time an art mas ter. Papers also showed that he was a Mason, who had been a pastmastei many years ago, and there were seve ral bank books found, one of which showed that he had had £I,OOO in the Birkbeek bank. But it is not omy. to the male sex that these eccentricities belong. There died, a few years ago, one of the most remarkable mystery women of modern times. She lived for years the life of a hermit in Gravesend in a large well-appointed house and at last was carried to the town infirmary, where she passed away. Afterward police officers searched the house and then an amazing collection of treasures w as revealed. There were bags packed with sovereigns and half-sbvereigus and cases filled with silver coins, all sorted according to their value. And all of them were wrapped and concealed under strips of old linen which had been torn up and wound many times around the money. There were securities of considerable value and the whole must have amounted io between three and four thousand pounds. A lonely wanderer of the Seven Seas, Mr. Edward Wyllis Scripps, who

had a controlling interest n 2S daily i newspapers in 15 States of the Hutted States, was yet another to succumb to | the desire for a solitary existence. a I few years ago he developed an almost t fanatical haired of the noise and J hustle that had played their part in | the amassing of his fortune. Be turned over the management of his i vast interests to liis only son, left h s wife on their 10.000-acre ranch in California, and set out. lie had fitted up 1 a luxury yacht in which lie could roam ; the seas, it was his boast that not a j soptul could penetrate, and certaialy l there was tlie stillness of the toma I about it. All sounds were shut on- | by artificial means from the ears o; the “Millionaire Hermit of the Seas ' as he was called. I Fear, it is supposed, played an Important part ill tlie determination of i Miss Margaret Ramsey to live the life of a recluse —fear of some mysterious ray. She was found dead beside the I kitchen range. The dust of weeks lay I thick upon everything in the place. I The gas was lighted and the blinds j drawn. She lived alone and her repnI tation for eccentricity among th» , neighbours was largely based upon a I fear of the secret ray, of which she frequently spoke. She seemed to i imagine that this ray would hurt those ; upon whom it fell. The strange story of another American millionaire hermit. Mr. McEvers Bayard Brown, a New York banker, aroused considerable comment. He lived for 36 years iq a yacht, for which he paid £42.000, off the Essex coast. He was guarded night and-dav by watchmen, and the vessel was aiwavs kept in readiness to sail, with full steam up and fully provisioned. Year after year went by, anil the yacht never moved. The story of a hidden fortune was brought to light when a 1 coroner’s officer visited the cottage where Francis Edmund Reeves had I lived in loneliness for 20 years. An old wooden box was discovered lutI ened with a bent nail. It contained £227 in gold. £6O in silver, foreign ! coins, six watches, a building society's i book showing lie had £3.317 to his credit, and M ar Bonds and Certificates I to the value of more than £3OO. Yet Reeves was the shabbiest-dressed man lin Woolwich. He rented a small back I bedroom at the cottage of au old-age pensioner and his wife, and paid es I a week He spent but a few coppers ! on food each day, roaming the streets j of Woolwich, where he had been seen 1 picking up cigarette ends and food.