TRADER HORN

Evening Star, Issue 20876, 20 August 1931, Page 9

TRADER HORN

A SMALL ESTATE LONDON, August 19. (Received August 20, at 10,35 a.m.) “Trader” Horn left £1,704. Alov,sins Horn, better known as “ Trader ” Horn, died in a nursing home at Tankerton, Kent, after a brief illness, on June 20. He was in his eighty-third year. Trader Horn was born "in Preston, and Jived in Lancashire before going to the West Coast of Africa at the ago of fourteen. He enjoyed remarkably good health,- and as recently as June 2 he spent the forenoon with .3,000 members of the League of Youth, who filled the New Victoria Cinema, S.W., to witness the film exhibition of his famous book. After the film Horn was besieged by, clamorous children. With one arm round his little grandchild, Scales, aged seven, who, with herfather, mother, brother, and two sisters—all members of the league—had seen the film, he signed hundreds of autograph books and told many stories of adventure.

Alfred Aloysius Smith became known as Aloysius Horn, the name under which the book, ‘ The Ivory Coast in the Earlies,’ was published when he was seventy-three years of age. The book was the consequence of a visit to the homo of Mrs Ethelreda Lewis, the South African novelist, Horn was peddling gridirons, toasting forks, and other wire goods. Stories he told in talking with Mrs Lewis led to other visits, and the book was shaped from his yarns of remarkable adventures among native races. Mr John Galsworthy praised the work, which became a “best seller,” and brought wealth to its author. It was also adapted to the picture screen. Horn visited Australia in March, 1929. He said that he had landed at Fremantle thirty years earlier as third mate of a sailing ship. In 1929, arriving by the Demosthenes, ho spent one day in touring Melbourne and its suburbs in a hansom cab. He strolled casually into ' The Argus ’ Office in the afternoon, and, introduced himself (carefully pronouncing the five syllables of “Aloysius”), entertained a handful of reporters with thrilling adventures described in simple language and in easy narrative style.