WORE PAPER CLOTHES

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 March 1935, Page 10

WORE PAPER CLOTHES

A CROYDON" ECCENTRIC

LONDON, Febr.u«ry 1

The mystery of the identity of “Paper Jack." a man who wore clothes made of newspapers and lived in the open air, who was killed in a street accident al Croydon on Wednesday night, was Heated up yesterday. He was Mr Jack Preece, 65, the well-educated son of a once prosperous London business man. Preece was born in Carshahpri. studied higher mathematics, qualified as a surveyor and helped to map a section of I he Brighton Railway, liming the war he was employed by the War Office to help in decoying secret service documents. A crippling attack of rheumatic fever in youth led him to his unusual mode of life. He claimed to have! cured himself by wc.uing paper clothing, sleeping in the open in all

weathers and cal Ing only two pennyworth of brown bread a day. Some time ago he said: “I am warm because my heart -and lungs work as nature "jeant them to. I am happy because I believe in God and not in gold, never get any letters or bills, novel look at a clock, and

sleep when I feel- lilto it—wider the stars or in a little wooden* litit.” For years ills picturesque figure, with flowing white hair and beard, end bare arms, copper-coloured from exposure, had been seen trudging along the road in the Croydon district.