“BACK TO NATURE”

Taranaki Daily News, 14 December 1926, Page 3

“BACK TO NATURE”

STRANGE COLONY IN FRANCE. The attention of the French police authorities at Nice has been drawn to a curious colony which has been formed near Grasse by a German, Dr. Gober. A correspondent of the Matin relates that when he visited the settlement, known as the colonj- of Courmettes, he found the doctor and two of his followers, clad only in undershirts and loincloths, engaged in breaking stones. They wore their hair long, and evidently never shaved. In explaining his objects in founding the colong, the doctor declared that society as at present organised is hopelessly lost, and must be overhauled from its very basis so as to make men live and think in an entirely different manner. In his colony, according to the correspond.mt, there are neither laws nor police;' human relations depend entirely upon free will and natural instincts. Marriage is not recognised and children are brought up by the community. The colony at present consists of seven men, three women and 13 children. The children usually go naked and the adults very nearly so. Each evening Dr. Gober lectures his follows on the works of Beethoven, Goethe and Nietzsche, upon which he has founded his philosophy. Residents in the district who have made complaints demand that the exponents of the “return to nature” should either be made to confrm more closely to the rules of ordinary society, or to continue their experiment elsewhere