WILD MEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7667, 28 March 1903, Page 1

WILD MEN.

(By S. BARING GOULD.) Author of "Mchalah." "John Herring," etc. [All Rights Reserved.] Some few years ago, Mr Greenwood called attention to the North Devon savages. They are all gone now, swept away by disease. The colony consisted of several generations, occupying a cottage, one side of which had fallen down • pigs, a donkey, grandfathers and grandmothers, and sous, daughters, children, all lived together, wearing only such clothing as could be stolen, and sometimes none at .all. A young woman would sit unconcernedly, stark naked, outside the hovel, on a fallen tree, suckling her child. The men were shy and sullen, and rushed out with pitchforks, howling at any inquisitive person wbo ventured to approach. Strange as-ib iaa'y seem, but actually, a small farmer mar-, ■lied a girl out of this community, and she induced her father to follow her to the farm. But he would not live inside; so a, barrel was attached to a post in an outr house by a ohain, littered within with straw, jmd in this the old: man slept,- and . Kffex&; the greater part of his day. : ""' ' ' : " " One of tiic brothers broke away, and lived in another parish. Ho found a ruined cottage. without a stair, with no glass ia the- windows, and he made that his den. He was morose, and. would speak to no'one, but worked fairly well for Uhe farmers who employed him. The family was one of itivctera-tc" poachers, as might be expected, bub could never be caught— they were too cunning. They seemed all to b-3 endowed, lik-a cats, with a faculty for seeing in the dark almost as well as by day. They were dispersed by tie breakmg-out of an epidemic among, thorn, when the sanitary authorities interfered, and moved them to a hospital. Whilst- away, the people of the village tore down the cottage, nob leaving a stick standing, and ..as they were' in debt, an auction was h^lrl. and pigs, and donkey, and the v< : y ground -was sold; so that, when dieeharg-.-rl. they had no home to which to return, and Avere forced to disperse. la diaries I.'s tivne> such colonies of savages must, have l>G>en not uncommon in Devon, for a poet of the period speaks of them in terms that, might, well describe the family that existed tilf a few years ago in the north of the county, .lawless, furious if spied upon, and living hy depredation. An amusing story was told by a clever writer, now dead. A missionary Society had captured, converted and educated a black man. He \ra.s such a proir.ijnng' pupil and looked so respectable' in black clothes and a white tie, that he \va.st advanced to the ministry, and in due course consecrated .bishop, and sent- out, shovel' hat, lavrn sleeves, rochet, and all complete, to the Gold Coast, to found a church among the nations there. Now, the Right Rev Black Bishop got on for a little while decorously ; but one day the old wild blood in him boiled up, away went shovel hat and boots, hft peeled off his gaiters and knee-breeches, tore his lawn sleeves to rags-, and dashed off, a howling savage, stark naked, to take to himself a dozen wives, and to go head-hunting. What. was born in tihe bone would come out in the flesh. It is said of the Russian -that, if you scratch him, you come on the Tartar. Probably there is an underlying vein of the savage in all of us, but it is kept in control hy the accumulated restraint of habit, through genei-ations of civilisation. Yetthere it is. A quiet, well-conducted dotr wiU sometimes disappear for a few days and nights. It has gone off on a spree, to poach on its own account. Then., when it has had its fling, it returns, and is meek, docile), and orderly as before. TEere is something of this in man. He becomes impatient of the trammels of ordinary life, its routine and maxter of fact, and a hunger comes over him for a complete change, to shake off the bonds of conventionality, escape the drudgery of work, and live a free, wild lite. Among majiy, chis takes the form oi going to the colonies or to Wild Africa or Western Canada, to shoot i gairw, to camp out f and be a savage for. a while. -Among the artisan class it takes another form : the great arm.v of tramps is reoruited thus. The ' struggle to maintain a family; the dry, uninteresting toil, drives the man. into a fit of impatience, and he leaves his work, and his wife and bairns, and becomes a wanderer, idle, moving on from. place to place., never starving, never very comfortable— in dirt and idleness, ana often in drink, but with no ties, and going here, there, anywhere as he lists. ■ Not many y'eax-s ago there was a man who lives by the Devil's Dyke, , on the South Downs of Sussex, in a shelter, under a Sedge, picking, up coppers from visitors to the Dyke, dressed tike Allv Sloper, but living in a- manner., more squalid and ;under a worse shelter than would be endured by most savages in the darkest part of Africa. v*iiat his history wa», no one jknew. It. is now somewhat- longer since a. medical man, in. an access if impatience againstcivilisation, constructed for himself a hovel dut of hurdles thatched with reeds, in South Devon. -, He lived-in it, solitary, speaking to no l one. Occasionally, he "bought a fiheep and killed it, and ate it as thVftppev

tit 15 prompted, but before it was done the 1 meat had become almost putrid. At length ■the police interfered, the stench having be- ; come intolerable in the neighbourhood, and ! the hovel bo ing: .by the > roadside. ' The i doctor was ordered 'to remove, arid he went -—no 0110 ise-ems to know whither. There is a man, at the present day, livi ing on the Cornish inoor.s. in wtter lonolii n*&«. His mother was with him for years, sleeping on the earth floor, in a hole scooped out in th'e bank at the hack of the hovel. She aieil, the man said' nothing 'about it, and it was only after a good many days that it was rumoured that the old woman was no more. Inquiries we v c instituted, and it was found that the rats had eaten her face away... The son had not thought it necessary to remove the bo-:ly, : a-ad make any provision for her iuteriivjrit. H<J v.-a-s highly incensed at the inu-rfcr-I erce with hisliberty, by the removal of tru? I 'body; -he provided himself with an old gun, and anyone who approached his cottage he threatened .to shoot. Near Okehampton in a glen of the Moors may still be traced the marks where lived lor years a wild man. Th-e writer rcmem- j ■'bers'the tales tpld of him. when *lia was p. 'lk>y. He lived by stealing she-'jp, and -eati&g them, £0- that he was on a love! lower fan the doctor who bought hh ?h<?ep. iis went- on for years. He v;: I.*1 .* so era fry, intimate with the- r<?co->tos of the monrs. •'and so wtvry, that although those deprH-a---tions wont "en for a. goo-1 length oi tim. 1 . ; he could not be eausrht. To avoid dcipciion j he did not brins his stolen boasts t^i his j cottage, but skinned and 'cut them tip r-:v1 j cooked them among the rocky tors frmu ! wbjch he could see- anyone approaching j ■ within many rnilos. j '.' Not ma-ny years ago an Englishman pot .•. tirnong the Aiiftralinn snvKges. n.'v.l r-vttl-i ti •down to th-cir mode o.t l ; f?. T!i : s w,-jh v-i "that importer Roii^mon;. Tiie anthro- \ -prlogists'at last got lmM o? liin. r.v<] };np- | ••d to obtain m-ucn" infornni ion ruii. <x r l.im : but -w-ere disappointed. Hi? niin'l h-ul :ui;k to the level of the «ava.?p, he 1-a 1 oh-civ.d nothing, could discover noil: in;.' — l:is n;io ambition was to 1« away 'mm civilisation ' and return to savajrery. V»> lmve read at intervals in the daily pap?r?. of a v.\--min living in one of the "\Ynstr.Ti Isles by th-e seashore— Avith almost no eheltoi 1 ov-ev b'-r. ,At the present time there is a Man of the Woods in France. His name is. Ant nine Hedin. He was born in 13W. hi th? village of Mairg, near Audun-le-Rnman. in Lorraine, not far from Metz, and lives ps did our primitive parents. His father was a sntnll farmer, and as the boy showed plenty of intelligence, it was resolved to place him in a seminary as ai prepar: 1 tion for tho pri-.-w.-hood. But his impatieneo of restraint obliged his parents to abandon the idea. It was not till 1070. shortly after the capitulation of Metz, that lie adopted ihe strange life which he has now pursued for over thirty years. ; When Metz was surrendered;^ the fanrorq iaround were ready to buy the ihorees, which the French trnnpersi were pre-pareil to dispose of for a pong rather than that they should be taken by ihe enemy. A joo-l number of farmers saw their ormcrturcilv, ; and bought. Among others, youna: Hedin entered the city, purchased and sold again, realising some fifteen hundred francs in tha transaction. Vastly pleased with' himself, and exerted over his «ucces«, he returned to Mairg, -to find his brother, ta whom he was „Vdev v o4*ldly,.attaehed, at the point of .death.; ~ '^ed%r''wStf-%'a^-^ -; «h~impuls^e~l»rn"mind, afc onoo concluded that- Heaven, was wroth with him for having contrived to pet the. horses away as his own property, which by right belonged to the Germans. % What he did with the fiftc-en hundred francs he never told, nor was it found out'. Probably, in a moment of compunction, lte threw tnern away. His reason seems to have given way at this time, for he then rc-scjved on abandoning the society oi his ftllowmen. Since 1870 he has. not once slept in a bfd, nor has cooked food passed his lips. He retired into a dense wood, or coppice, near his home, and has made that his habitation ever since. In summer he sleeps under a hedge by the side of a road that skirts the wood, but in winter he buries himself in the depths of ihe forest, where 'he makes a five by which he can -warm himself, but has no shelter for his head in thb bitterest frost or in the most drenching storm. He lives on roots, berries, potatoes: — all eaten raw, and wears hardly any clothing. Nevertheless, Lis health is robust, and lie has not been known to be ill. Although ovzr ilfty years old, his appearance is that of a. man of thirty. He is snWll built, aud liis hair, which is never cut, iiur.g:> far down his back. His beard has only known the razor once in thirty years, and that was on the following occasion : — About, twenty years ago, he was required to undergo l'niiitary training for a month. The> gendarmes had much difficulty in cap-, turing him, and they had to chase him during eight days through the forest before tuer could lay their hands on him. He was carried oif to Verdun, where he was trimmed and washed. Then it was that the splendid beard of ten yews' groM'tij tVll from iiis chin. At ihe end of four days he was dismissed by the mn:t»ry authorities, who could make nothing of him. J Hedin rareiy speaks to anyone, and only to such as have gained his confidence. If | given a piece of money, he gives back a button. or a berry, for he never asks for no; 1 will receivd alms. Bread he steadily refuses, and. he 'will not touch meat. He has been induced on r.are occasions to "ac- j cept a glass of spirits,- but- for that he insists on paying, by giving a bit of soap or some thread that he carries about with him. Xor will h© ever receive anything from anyone's hand. Whatever is presented to him must be placed on his folded elbow, or else on the ground, from which he will pick it up, when the fancy takes him. Another of his peculiarities is thot he will never suffeE anyone to -pass •on his right side. His father is dead; but his brother lives at Mairg, and a married sister in a j neighbouring parish., Either would gladly I receive him and take care of him, but no j solicitation will induce him to abandon his j wild life as a man of the -woods. A great deal has been made of the doc- 1 trine of evolution, which is supposed to j explain the development of races of men j and beasts, and birds and plants. But there is another and complementary law, of which sufficient cognisance has not been taken, and that is, the law of reversion. Certainly cultivated plants and fruit, unless subjected to high pressure gardening, will relapse in course of a short time to their primitive conditions. It is the same with domestic animals. Give them their liber ty, and they speedily deteriorate, and return to the original state out of which they have been drawn by centuries of attention and selection by man. And it is not different with man'. Throw him back into a situation where he. is free from the limitations and ties of civilised life, .and he will lose all desire for the amenities of culture, and revert to the condition of the savage. We cannot exactly call the gipsies "wild men,", but their mode of life is hardly that j of those who have abandoned the nomadic j life for one that is sedentary and domestic.^ j And there have been many instances of [ their ranks being recruited from those of I a higher type of culture, who have deliberj ately gone dowri a step to- live a more J primitive life under the tent and in tho I hedge-side." . ( I .Perhaps the mosfc conspicuous, ■ at all j events the best known instance, was that / of Bampfylde Moore Carew, appertaining to 1 one of the oldest and brst families in Devonshire: a man well educated, and by 'no means without ability. Yet !he, out: of. j free choice, cast aside all the restraints of .

j family and culture, and lived with the gipsies, "and is sometinif-s spok-en of as having ! been their kin;. Education is the bringing under control of the wild and capricious rai.u-e in man, and tii* subjecting him to the restraints of modern civilisation. But it is not to be. wondered at' tliat occasionally n'<?n are found who bieak loose, and cast all restraints from them, reverting more or loss completely to the conditions of the savage.