LIVING THE SIMPLE LIFE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21529, 29 December 1931, Page 8

LIVING THE SIMPLE LIFE

“TRAPER HORN’S” DOUBLE ! STRANGE LIFE DRAMA. 1 “Trader Horn” is not dead. He lives, again in the person of “Paper Jack,” an astonishing philosopher whose strange figure has aroused the interest of people for miles around Waddon and West Croydon, Surrey (says' a correspondent of the Daily Mail). “Paper Jack” was found lately, an almost exact counterpart of the “ Trader,” with flowing beard and hair to his shoulders, dozing peacefully on a strip of frosty waste land beside the railway line at Waddon. .His only clothing was a suit of brown paper tided to his massive frame with bits of string. His ■ ax-ms -were herculean in development, and , bronzed with health, and his eyes had the merry twinkle of youth. “ Sit down, my friend,” JTack said, motioning the writer to a seat on the •gra® beside him, and his voice had the" ‘culture of an academician. Then Jack saw that, even in a thick overcoat, his visitor was shivering, and he smiled tolerantly. “My poor fellow,” he said, “ I had almost forgotten that you hail from the dear, mad world which believes that warmth comes from clothes and fires, and that food comes from shops.” Jack laughed. “I’m 58,” he went on, “or so I think, fot I have rather _ lost track of time. I have not slept in a bed or had a suit of clothes or an illness for 10 years. I have not been in'an aeroplane, and Ido not eli vy anyone in the world. “ I am warm because my heart and lungs work as nature meant them to. I am happy because I believe in God and not in gold, never get any letters or bills, never look at a clock, and sleep—when 1 feel like it—under the stars or in a little wooden hut.” “ Paper Jack ” does not smoke or drink, and he exist# on about twopence worth of brown bread a day. He told his story as we eat there on the grass. The -eon of a once-prosperous London business man who shared in erectiilg a famous building of 700_ offices, this.straty individual studied in higher mathematics, took his degree as a surveyor, and helped to map out a section of the Brighton railway. “But I was crippled in my youth by rheumatic fever,” Jack said, “ and would still be the same way if I had not got away from the doctor. One side of my body was almost helpless. “ Suddenly I decided to get back to Nature. For nearly three years I almost starved, wandering around the country and sleeping in the wet. But gradually, my body, softened by coddling in youth, became strong to fight. “ I went about barefoot, and once 1 got a terribly poisoned leg through treading on a-rusty nail. They wanted me to go to hospital—to have the leg off—but I refused. I just left it alone and it* got better. “Nature will put anything right if you let it; I have found that out in 10 years of homelessness.” “ Paper Jack ” gripped his visitor's hand, and the latter left him—dozing again, his brown arms crossed on his chest.