POLICE FIND A "WILD MAN” IN SCRUB COUNTRY

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 August 1949, Page 5

POLICE FIND A "WILD MAN” IN SCRUB COUNTRY

SYDNEY, August 22 (Rec 1 p.m.). Police searching scrub country near the suburb of Maroubra were confronted by a terrifying apparition when their portable searchlights revealed a “wild man” with long black hair and ragged clothing, dodging from bush to bush. He submitted quietly to arrest and will be charged with vagrancy. The man, whom the police immediately christened “Tarzan,” said that he was aged 21 and was a son of' a Sydney accountant. He had severed all family ties to lead the life of a nomad and for over a year had camped in scrub and eaten from garbage tins. , , ~. He told the police he had solved the problem of living without money, as he had six rent-free camps under trees, using bracken and branches for mattress and coverings. .The. camps were convenient to rubbish tips extending from the Randwick rifle range to the shores of Botany Bay. He wore an old military slouch hat trimmed down and adjusted at. a rakish angle. His other clothing included an overcoat picked off the dumps. His hair had grown to a great length, but he demonstrated to the police how he “kept it in trim” by means of old razor blades.