MADE HIS LIFE A PURGATORY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 117, 7 November 1911, Page 5

MADE HIS LIFE A PURGATORY

SHEPHERD STARVED TO DEATH WITH £I2BO ON HIM. One of the most extraordinary examples of self-sacrifice of which there is any m-ord has just, come to light by. the death uuir Lucerne it recent Sunday of an old shepherd nam:-d Dan-' Fifty years ago, when'he w<i.s"twentT r ~'" seven, Dangeli, who is a Swiss, left his native mountains and vallejV for France. There for half a centiiy . . tended flocks, and was noted fur his reticent ways. ■" Nobody ever saw .Dangeli spend a penny in luxury ; lie just spent, enough to keep body and soul together. Every coin he could save was religiously hoarded up, and the self-denial he poetised was the subject of conversation -wherever he worked. At last he decided to return to Switzerland, and lo save money determined to walk the whole distance to Escholsmatt, where his sister lives. But at seventy-seven years of age. and with a frame impoverished by self-imposed privation, the task was beyond his powers. ' ' He was found lying on some straw, in a barn in tluv village of Xebikon, n^ : '' Uticeine. He was in the last stages of exiLiMntlon. and was starving. The fanner and his assistants' who found the man sent, for a doctor, and Dangeli told his story to him. "My papers are correct." lie said; "you will find that T am wearing three suits of clothes. Tn each of the suits are pockets in which you will lind altogether £I2BO ill notes and shares, "1 saved almost, even- pennv of my earning, for my sister. ' T walked from France to Lucerne so that inu sister, who is an old woman, and unmarried, will benefit bv every farthing of my savings. My life has been a pulsatory " A few minutes later the old shepherd was dead. The money was found on D.uwli, an.l will be givui to hi- sister. She states that she long ago believed him to be dead, be lie had never written to her. The doctor said Dangeli bad died from starvation and exhaustion.