RECLUSE WITH ££o,ooo

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1926, Page 10

RECLUSE WITH ££o,ooo

FOUND DEAD IN HOUSE. ONLY FRIENDS IN NEW ZEALAND. London, Oct. 8. A recluse found dead in his house yesterday at Gateshead, where he had lived for 24 years, has no relatives or friends in this country, but from letters found in the house it was evident that he corresponded frequently with friends in New Zealand. He veas regarded as a poor man, but the police discovered on the premises securities worth £lO,OOO. So careful was Mr. James Forster Green that he kept house himself though 82 years of age. He bought his own supplies and cooked them himself. He would not have the gas laid on to the house but cooked with the aid of oil and paper. Only a charwoman and a girl who ran messages had been permitted to enter the house at certain periods. When a call was made at the week-end there was no response, and the police were informed. Mr. Green was found huddled up in the kitchen, near a ehair on which he had been sitting. His home, though well furnished, was in an unkempt state, for though his windows were kept clean h« declined to have the interior of the house touched. Apparently he had been dead many hours before anything wrong was suspected. There is no suspicion of foul play. Ho kept a suitcase ready packed with linen in anticipation of his removal to a. nursing home. Of his frugality it is said he told a boy onee to clean the front of the house. The work took only a few minutes, and when he calculated how much an hour the payment of fid represented he flew into a rage.