DEAD HERMIT'S SECRET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20236, 22 April 1929, Page 11

DEAD HERMIT'S SECRET.

BABY'S BODY IN COFFIN.

DISCOVERY ON CLIFF TOP

Australian mid N.Z. Press Association. (Received April 21, 5.45 p.m.) LONDON, April 20

The Rev. Alexander Thomas Bell died a week ago in a lonely one-roomed hut perched on top of the rugged Kincardineshire cliffs.

The police yesterday were turning over an odd collection of rubbish piled on the floor, and were amazed to find concealed an ornate coffin, containing an inner sealed shell, in which thero was the almost perfectly mummified body of a baby boy, who apparently" had died soon after birth.

The coffin must have lain there for years. There is nothing on the nameplate to suggest the identity of the child. It contained only the inscription: "There's a Homo for littlo children."

Mr. Bell was formerly m the Scottish Episcopal Church, but became a Roman Catholic at the end of tho war. He had preached before tho lato King Edward and also King Georgo, at, All Saints' Church, West London. He had lived a hermit's life in the hut for 25 years. The police despair of fathoming the mystery. Tho body was dressed in a hand-embroidered frock, ''"he inference is that <ho gruesome relic shared Mr. Bell's 20 years of lonely existence, and it is believed that it had in some way been bound up in tho life of the hermit.