SEVEN YEARS OUT OF BED.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1520, 19 February 1886, Page 3

SEVEN YEARS OUT OF BED.

A Woolwich correspondent vouches for the fact that there is an old man employed as night porter at the work* house, Plumstead, who has not been to bed for nearlv seven years. He sometimes dozes in bis chair at the lodgegate, but is seldom undisturbed for half an hour at a time, ar.d the longest sleep he has had in the seven years Was one stretch of three hours. He is 74 jeirs of age, but quite active and in capital health ; he has recently become a teetotaler, and gave up smoking a few years since because be had reached a consumption of 9oz. a week, and thou>*ht the habit extravagant. As he d es not need rest, he is never off duty, except when be takes a day's holiday ; but after concluding his night watch at the gate be goes on a daywatch as assistant porter at the workhouse, and does this double task without reli<f or change for months together. The old man, who is intelli. gent and well-informed, was formerly a butcher, and it has been his habit, dur* ing most of his life to exist without his bed from Sunday to Sunday, being late in the slaughterhouse and early in the market ho long as he was fit for hard work.