CANNIBAL FINERY

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 96, 17 January 1933, Page 3

CANNIBAL FINERY

Salesman to Savages CAST-OFF STAGE PROPERTY The outfitter of cannibal kings and queens and native tribes of half a century ago, a man who made a great fortune by sending old clothes salesmen among the fiercest of black races, is now living in a little house off the Brighton (English) front. He is facing poverty at the age of 79. Mr. John Hyman supplied the belles of the native villages with the frills and furbelows once worn before the footlights of the West End stage. In return for the discarded tinsel and bangles of the stage which he shipped to the islands off the Malay Peninsula, Siam, the Australian bush and both West and East Africa, he was given by the native chiefs as much rubber as he could take away in his ships. Often there were loads of ivory and other precious things. In mid-Victorian days Mr. Hyman was also one of the best-known of London costumiers. It is only a few months since he gave up his shop in Leicester Square. "I am a broken man,” he said recently to a “Daily Express” writer. “Twice I have lost all I made. Now all I can do is to dream of the days when the . life of a millionaire was almost in my grasp.

“Once upon n time I did not know all the monej’ I made with my romantie trading—and now I am penniless and sleepless.” I asked Mr. Hyman to tell me of the days when he was the “Worth of West Africa” and the “Poirot of Polynesia.” “I sold every kind of old clothing I could get,” he said. “I used to buy up all the old military and police uniforms of this country and ship them over to the native. There was such a demand for these things that scon I had to go all over Europe buying them up. Civil War Blow. “I was in partnership with two young men, and we had three ships to take the. old clothes out. and to bring back loads of rubber and other things the chiefs gave us. “About 1890 we sent ships laden to the plimsoll-line with old clothes in charge of a young nephew of one of my partners. When the ships got to Buenos Aires there was a civil war, and one side persuaded the young man to lend them the vessels. “Unfortunately they were on the losing side. We iost our ships and our fortunes in all that followed. "Th(> two brothers went out from Manchester to get the ships back, but they were captured in Buenos Aires mid sentenced to death. One of them died of shock. “The Manchester Chamber of Commerce interceded with the King of Portugal, and he was the means of getting the other brother released. He was able to return to England. Wall Street Losses. “That was my first crash. The other was three years ago on Wall Street after I had made up for the first misfortune. “I ennnot bear lo go near London now, and it is terrible that although £ am still active I have to give up business.” Once one of Mr. Hyman’s travellers came back from a world trip and reported that lie had seen a native chief ruling bis tribes in the robes of a sheriff of the City of. London. Policemen's helmets were regarded as beautiful by the natives, who bought them for festive occasions. John Hyman may be down now, but he can never forget the romance of the “cast-off.”