A LONDON HERMIT

Southland Times, Issue 19492, 5 March 1925, Page 8

A LONDON HERMIT

LIVING AMONG RUBBISH TONS OF BOTTLES AND TINS MONEY AND SECURITIES OWNED. LONDON,, January 24. William Macfarlane, a man aged 45 years, who seems to have a son in New Zealand, has been dug out of a room barricaded with rubbish. To reach him the police had to dig a tunnel through the rubbish, and when the room was cleared, seven tons of bottles, milk-tins, and other refuse were carted away. Macfarlane is now lying in a semi-conscious condition in a North London infirmary, and while he is being nursed back to life, the authorities are actively attempting to trace his friends and relatives. The only step they have been able to take so far is to write a letter to a son in New Zealand, whose fidclress, from a letter written years ago, was discovered mixed up with the rubbish n the room. In-spite of the self-inflicted incarceration, Macfarlane has been found to be comparatively well off. He has a balance of £ll6 at the savings bank and he holds a number of bonds and shares. Mr Jeeves, who lives on the first floor of the same house in Islington, tells an astonishing story of the hermit and how. he was found. “He came here in rags, and his only possessions were an enamel saucepan and an enamel pail. He took the room, which measures only lift. 6in. by sft. 6in., at 3s 6d a week, and paid the 'rent regularly.

“He had no work and said he had no relations and no friends. Every morning he used to go out and pick up things in the streets. He would gather cabbages leaves, match-sticks, cardboard boxes, date stones, rags, string, bottles, milk-tins, broken toys and old iron. He let his hair grow long until it was like a black fur collar over his shoulders. Children followed and shouted after him, but he had gentlemanly manners and never took notice of them. To our surprise he used to receive letters from banks and companies, which he would open and read in his room with the door locked.”

It appears that Mrs Jeeves was responsible for the police discovery. As she did not. hear Macfarlane moving about she knocked at his door and asked if he were all right. “Yes, yes,” said a faint voice. “Go away. Please go away.” Mr Jeeves and four police officers eventually decided to break the door in. Through a tunnel which they made through the rubbish, they saw a figure. A policesergeant put an arm through to help the man out, but he evaded the helping hand and glided back into the darkness. “We pulled another lon of stuff out, and then found it was two feet deep all round the room, except in the far corner. The window was blocked up, and there was only a passage 18in. wide down the middle,” said Mr Jeeves. “When we saw him again he was just like Tarzan of the Apes, nothing on but a loin-cloth, just as if he had come straight out of the jungle.” The climax came next when a Post Office Savings book was found among the rubbish piled up in the back yard. It showed that Macfarlane had a credit of £ll6 8s 6d. Further investigations showed that he had 50 shares in the Victoria Palace Music Hall, interests in Farrow’s Bank, and companies that had gone into liquidation, deeds of a house, a parcel of bonds, money orders, postal orders, and an officer’s sword and a busby. Of the man himself it appeared from scraps of letters and documents that he was 45 years of age and had lived in Wardour Street before going to Islington. He was born in Paddington, and had been a fashion paper designer. There were also evidences of financial losses and a broken love romance. The man’s hair has been cut and he has been shaved.