A YOGA DEVOTEE

Evening Star, Issue 23355, 26 August 1939, Page 11

A YOGA DEVOTEE

CLAIMS TO BE 110 Mr Charles Arnold, a Londoner, who claims to be 110, "celebrated Ms birth, day recently by. filling in an application ■form for a passport to the Unifed States. Only 3ft tall," he declares that his faculties are as keen as those of a man of 50. “ My earliest recollection,” he said t “ was a walk around the Houses of Par. liament. That was about 105 year* ago.” His first job was in a merchant’* office in the city. Then he became an apprentice journalist on a North London newspaper. About the year 1852 he began a long series of travels, visiting Malay, India, Ceylon, and Manila. In India Mj Arnold met'Swami Chanrada, a master Yogi. He attributed his longevity to the practice of Yoga./ “ By practising tjiis X have kept my facilities and youthfulness of mind*. . My teacher was 147. years old at the time he taught me. He said I might live to be 200 year* old.

“ During the last war I was a special correspondent for a London newspaper,” he said, “ and incidentally nearly 90 years old. But I never told them-that. I was determined to get inside Germany. I spoke seven languages, including Spanish. I went to Spain, obtained Spanish papers, whiclt reputed me to be a Spanish journalist, and then went to Germany. I finally arrived at Frankfurt. Here I put up at an hotel. Before I went to bed l I instructed them to awaken me early, as I had a train to catch. “ They did so. While thov were shaking me I exclaimed in English: ‘ All right. All right. I’m coming.*' I was arrested and subseouently sen. tenced to death. The night before I was to bo shot 1 made one desperate effort to save my life. I asked them to fetch the Spanish Consul. He came to see me. He knew I .wasn’t Spanish, yet he didn’t give me away. They took his word for it and deported me to Spain.”-