A Torch Canadian and a Toucher Spot: A Hermit of Forty Years

About forty years ago, a young man named Wilson, residing near the town of Perth, conceived the lunatic idea of leading a hermit's life. The youth had from his early age showed symptoms of derangement, and this proceeding on his part was not considered strange by his friends. The chosen place of his hermitage was three quarters of a mile from his parental homestead, in the recess of a dense brush, where he erected a small hovel and furnished it with an old log canoe, which he used as a couch to sleep in.

Divesting himself of all clothing, he has ever since remained perfectly nude, with the exception of a tattered remnant of a shirt which his fancy leads him to retain. In this nude state for forty years he has lived, walking in the depth of Winter through the snow, and yet he has never been known to have received a frost bite. When he requires a drink he walks deliberately into the river, it mattering not to him what season of the year it may be, and wades out till the water reaches his waist, and then he stoops and quenches his thirst.

His food is brought to him by his friends, and when given to him is eaten with the voraciousness of an animal, which he now resembles more than man, his body being as heavily coated with hair as that of a cow. He never shows a dangerous disposition, and chatters in monosyllables. When people cross his path he invariably begs for tobacco, for which he has an evident partiality, and in chattering tones will utter "bacca" until his request is granted.

His hair is long, gray, and unkempt, falling far over his shoulders, and his beard, which is similar, reaches down below his waist. He is now between 60 and 70 years of age, and he is possibly the only living being ever known to have lived year after year perfectly naked, and exposed to all the inclemencies of weather which mark our Canadian Winters.