PRINCE OF VAGABONDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21022, 10 May 1930, Page 10

PRINCE OF VAGABONDS.

EXCITING WORLD TOUR. Arrested 41 times during .30 days in Japan. This was among the many adventures encountered by the “ Prince of Vagabonds,” Mr Harry A. Franck, an American who lectured on “ A Vagabond Journey Round the World ” to a Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society audience in Newcastle recently. Having worked his way through an American university, Mr Franck sailed To Liverpool on a cattle boat, walked to Brighton and Newhaven, and proceeded t<r France, after he had Vorked for his fare. ■ When Mr Franck had toured the western European countries he went to Port Said and on to Cairo, Egypt. At Cairo he boarded a train to Assuan, where the railway line finished. Determined to. visit the Second Cataract of the River Nile, he tried to got a boat ticket for Wadi Haifa, but the British authorities would not grant him permission to travel further south because he was unknown to them. Just as the boat was leaving Mr Franck jumped aboard and was taken upstream. At Wadi Haifa he was forced to turn back, as he had the same trouble with the authorities there, and, returning to Port Said, he stowed away on a ship, after he had tried to get work on board. At Colombo, Ceylon, the adventurer fell in with an Australian circus, which was wanting four white men to work as general handymen. After a week the circus manager found him standing on his head, and offered him a job on the spot, as a clown, to take the place of another clown who bad fallen ill. A fortnight of clowning satisfied Mr Franck, so with two of the other .white men he set off for India, where he visited Calcutta, and pushed on to Delhi, there meeting an Englishman who was wanting to get to Hongkong. They returned to Calcutta, by way of the sacred city of Benares, on the River Ganges. They intended to walk through the jungle into Burma, but were stopped by a chief of police, who had been sent after them by the British authorities. The pair reached Rangoon, Burma, by another route, and thence travelled to Bangkok, Siam. On their way they had to go through a dense jungle in the rainy season, and while swimming across a river Mr Franck’s companion lost everything he possessed except his hat and shirt. At Bangkok, however, they were given uniforms by a Dutch official. At Hongkong the two men parted. Mr Franck going on to Japan, where he was arrested 41 times during his stay of, ’>o days. At Yokohama he was smuggled aboard a ship for home and stowed away. Arriving at San Francisco be caught a cattle train and arrived safely home.