RICH WOMAN HERMIT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 July 1924, Page 14

RICH WOMAN HERMIT.

COE ONER. ON “FUNNY OLD LADIES.” ! An inquest was held at Lambeth recently on Alice Smith, 6S, a single woman of independent means, of 46 Frogmore, The Plain, Wandsworth, S.W., who was found drowned in the Thames off Brunswick wharf, Lambeth, on a Saturday evening. Mrs Ethel Luseom.be, of Windmill road, Brentford, Middlesex, said Miss Smith was very eccentric. She lived in her own house, and owned six others. Lately she had' had the idea that she was going to lie evicted from her house. On March 14 her aunt brought her £BOO worth of War Loan and her keys, and said: “If anything happens to me take my securities to a Tsolicitor at Brentford.” A police constable said it was estimated that the body had been six weeks in the water.' The woman'was wearing a man’s hat and boots, size nine, odd stockings, and a puttee round the right leg. Under’her skirt was a bag pinned to her clothing containing a number of pins that she had picked up. The coroner (Mr Ingleby Oddie)' sakl Mrs Smith was one of those funny old ladies whom one came across occasionally, living alone and keening entirely to themselves. She had a'good deal of money, and was living like a hermit in a state of filth, surrounded by old newspapers, cigarette ends, old'boots, and anything she could find and collect and take home in triumph. The only entrance to her house was through, heaps of rubbish. She was known to be very eccentric, and obviously not mentally sound. He returned a. verdict of suicide while of unsoujnd mind.