OLD ISAAC” DEAD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 143, 19 June 1931, Page 8

OLD ISAAC” DEAD

PICTURESQUE AUSTRALIAN AN ARTIST IN BEGGING ST. PATRICK’S DAY RUSE SYDNEY, June 12. One of Australia’s most picturesque characters died last week in the Old Men’s Home at Parramatta, Sydney. He was known probably to every Prime Minister, bishop, and other public man in Australia as “Old Isaac.” His fame, however, rested on the fact that he had written more letters than any other person in the Commonwealth. Old Isaac chose his moments well for his appeals to generosity. When a public man was knighted, he could always count on a laudatory letter from the old man, in which was included a request for asistance “in his old age.” It is known that these appe- Is miscarried only rarely. New Prime Ministers, Governors and members of Parliament were treated all alike by “Old Isaac,” and his mail sometimes brought in as much as £5O as the result of his begging letters. A favourite resort of his was to manufacture tin harps, paint them green and deck them out with green ribbons, and then, on St. Patrick’s Day, send them to prominent Irish prelates, or public men, reaping a harvest of postal notes. Similarly, on Empire Day, his “victims” would receive emblems of Empire, emblazoned with red, white and blue ribbons, with which, of course, was an appeal for funds. Rarely did these letters fail to find a response. Old Isaac had lived in the Old Men’s Home for nearly 30 years, and officials state that it was very seldom that he did not have plenty of pocket money, which he invariably apent on rum.