THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8236, 14 September 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1906.

The "irreduoible minimum" has always been a pet phrase for political juggling, but in ordinary walks of life, and particularly where the cost of living is concerned, it has been as difficult to locate definitely as the squared oirole or the process of perpetual motion. An Bash End curate recently successfully solved the problem of how to live on fourpenoe a day, but be has been quite outdone by two German professors who have achieved the reoord of learning to live permanently at a cost of nothing. These two savants are at present leading an exceedingly simple existence in Kabakou, a small island in the Bismarck Arohipelago, in the South Seas, where their food consists solely of ooooanuts, which grow themselves, and tbeir amusement of sitting in the sea reading or

watching native dancers. The discovery of howj to live on notning was male by Professor Englebeart, of Munich and Erlangen Universitiea. He suffered from ill-health from his childhood, and nine years ago he started experimenting with a fruit diet. He was soon convinced that the fruits obtainable in Europe were not the most suitable and in 1901 he ieft for Ceylon. After experimenting and in Kabakou he name co the conclusion coooanut was the original and, therefore, the most suitable food of man. Fifteen months ago the professor was joined by Dr. A. Batbmann, whose experience entirely ooincided with that of his colleague. An English visitor who has just returned from the island speaks with warm enthusiasm of tho success of the experiment. "I weufc out," he said, "by the Germaa-Lloyd boat for a holiday. The trip lusted seventeen weeks and cost me less than £SO. 1 found both the professors in very good health, and after adopting the coooanut diet myself I was compelled to admit that it agreed with me excellently. The coaaanuta are quite different from those seen in this couutry. Ihey are fresh and soft, and are'eaten with a spoon, like butter. The nut is full of a fresh milk, and that ia the only drink used. The island is a land of perpetual spring. It is thickly covered with vegetation, is only two miles long and one broad." "It is," adds the writer, "an ideal place to take a trip to, and the expense will be only the passage money." But this system of going back to Naturw, however successful it may bo in individual instances, ia hardly suitable for the relief of congestion in the world's big centres.