The news that a Lincolnshire hermit has died, after living for 20 years in a hut made of skins and turves, on diet consisting mainly of hedgehogs, reminds me that even in London it has been found possible to live the life of a recluse. Not long ago an eccentric character made periodical appearances in the streets of a southwestern suburb. Dressed entirely in sheets of paper bound with string, he was given the nick-name of Paper Jack, No matter how bad the weather he slept in fields or under hedges. His strange career was brought to an end when he was knocked down and killed by a motorcar.
A hermit's life seems to be a healthy one. The man with a partiality for hedgehogs lived to be 72, and most of the recluses who have died in recent years have reached or exceeded this age, despite their privations and primitive living conditions. One of the strangest homes was that made by a Somerset man who lived in a cave dug by himself in the side of a refuse dump, This burned all the time by spontaneous combustion and provided the tenant with free "central heating."
They Still Write With Quill Pens Quill pens are still being made in England, and still being sold, though the once-thriving industry is now carried on by one man. He isa seventy-year-old Londoner who has made quill pens for fifty years, His output, once a thousand a day, has shrunk to a thousand a week.
Even this number seems surprising. In these days of typewriters, steel pens and fountain pens, who are the writers who cling to this ancient method? Quill pens are used for Ceremonial occasions, of course, but these would hardly account for the weekly thousand.
Queen Victoria, a prodigious letter-writer, always used a quill pen, but I have not heard of any of her descendants following her example, except at public functions such as the signing of the charter of Liverpool Cathedral by King George V. A City bank lizs remained true to the goose but it must be unique in ihe business world. The biggest users are the art schools who employ pens made from crow's quills for decorative writing. Duck quills are used for mapping.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.