MAN’S LONELY END.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17343, 16 July 1924, Page 13

MAN’S LONELY END.

DEATH OF “ BOTTLE OH!” SQUALOR IN BLENHEIM, (Special to the “Star. s ’) BLENHEIM, July 15. *’ Bill’ 3 was found dead this morning in a hut which he occupied on tho brink of the Taylor River, near the Burleigh crossing. He had died alone, surrounded by evidences of incredible squalor, and had probably been dead for a couple of days or more before tho body was discovered. Some months ago Blenheim was shocked into a sudden realisation of tho dreadful conditions under which somo of the people of the town ek© out a sordid existence by the revelations which were made in regard to “Tin Town,” where several families were discovered to be iiving in miserable huts. Tin Town was cleaned up promptly and efficiently, yet the poor huts of tin were palaces compared with the awful hovel in which “ Bottle-Oh Bill 33 lived and died. A reporter visited the place this morning soon after the discovery, and found that the old man’s “ home 33 was nothing more than a few sheets of old corrugated iron tied together and propped up by pieces of manuka. The frost lay thick and white over everything, for the hut is situated under the shade of a thick belt of pines which keep the warming sun from it. There was no door, just a hole in one end of tho structure, but someone had propped a loose sheet of iron over the aperture. The reporter removed the improvised door anti the frosty light of the morn ing flooded the miserable shack. All that was left of “Bottle-Oh Bill 33 lay in a rude bunk at one end of the structure ; his bedding consisted only of sacks—not clean sacks either —and around him lay his household goods, not an article in the place but should have been deposited in the rubbish tip, on the other side of the river ; indeed, there was strong evidence that poor

“Bottle-Oh 33 had retrieved them at some time or other from that dump. A half-burned candle was propped up at the head of the bunk on which the body lay, the rest was just a litter of old boxes, tins and a decrepit old oil stove, which obviously had not worked for years. Stuck into an interstice in the wall was a broken piece of mirror and close handy a rusty pair of scissors ; presumably here the old man made his toilet. In the centre of the earth floor stood a battered oil drum in which were the remnants of a Are and by means of which perhaps the poor wretch, shivering beneath his inadequate sacks, tried to keep himself warm. On a box within arm’s reach of tho bed were the remains of “ BottloOh’s ’’ last frugal meal. There was a battered enamel plate containing h spoonful or two of a porridge-like substance and alongside it was a stale end of a loaf of bread, with an empty fish tin. It was an appalling place, and its sordid misery and the grim tragedy represented by the cold figure on the bunk was emphasised bj* the bright sunlight and the flitting birds which could be seen from the frost-rimmed doorway. “Bottle-Oh Bill’s'' 3 real name is bolieved to have been Charles Johnson, and at one time lie was known as Carl Jahnsen, a Scandinavian. He was about sixty-five years of age and was believed to have been jan ex-sailor hailing from Sweden. He had lived in Blenheim for a number of years following his calling as Pu bottle gatherer. Outside the hut this morning a grey cat was visible now and then ; she was probably the old man’s only friend and his chief mourner. The deceased was last seen alive in Maxwell Road. The Coroner has decided that an inquest is unnecessary.