LEAD SIMPLE LIFE

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 14 February 1930, Page 4

LEAD SIMPLE LIFE

QUEER CULT* IN FRANCE. Tile is very simple in a colony 'which lias been founded by a vegetarian cult in the sloping hills of Sevres, between Paris and Versailles The niemhers of the cult eat no meat, do not -smoke; drink no alcohol, employ no- servants, do without docks, and have no use for the barber. M. Paul Hirzel, a naturalised Frenchman from Switzerland, is the leader of the cult He has the longest hair of them all. tie says there is no fanaticism about the group; Mich issues as “free lore' and religion have nothing to do with the colony. They ha\e merely gathered at this spot, which they have uaineu the Maison des Arts, to lead the simplest life possible.

The colonists wear Grecian tunics and sandals. Each person does his oilier own cooking, sewing, and carpentry. The women can build a fence as well as the men. The men can burn and, patch as well as the women, Selfstiff i. ienev is part of their belief.

The colonists tell the time bv Iha sun. They get up at dawn ; when the sun goes down they go to bed. Asked the purpose of the colony, M. Hirzel said: “We advocate living life fully, intensely, but usefully and naturally. There is a rhythm in life which we try to catch.” The colonists’ principal occupation is painting silks for Chicago and New York stores. The colours thev use are “squeezed” from plants M. Hirzel ways the designs they make are “dances •of life."