The San Francisco call., 1906-04-15
George Griffeth, the Writer.
Decides to Settle Down
After World Wanderings
HOME ON ISLE OF MAN
Author of a ''Honeymoon in
Space to Be a Neighbor
of Novelist Hall Caine
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE CALL.

| rently he means it, too, for he has just
bought charming little property near
Port Erin, on the Isle Of Man--where he
VIII have Hall Caine as neighbor-
and has already arranged to build
! house upon il, in which he intends to
90 most of his future novel writing
Griffeth says he means TO travel no
more. 1t will be rather surprising,
| however, if he keeps his word, for be-
sides being the author of "a Honey
moon in Space" and about dozen other
| exciting novels of adventure, it is prob
able that he has covered as many miles
as any other man living, and sooner or
later the travelling bacillus is sure to
get into his system again
Even Cutcliffe Hyne, who wrote
Captain Kettle" and who is generally
supposed to have wandered farther in
quest of material" than any other
novelist, is veritable stay-at- home
compared with Griffeth, who mas COM
pletely girdled the globe no less than
seven times. Upon one of these trips,
| moreover, he was trying for a record
and secured it by making the 24,960-mile
circuit in sixty-four days, eleven hours
and twenty minutes, an achievement
which has yet to be beaten.
He has been once across the Rockies
and three times across the Andes, and
still cherishes a pipe which he will tell
you has been smoked at $4,000 feet
above the sea level. He has been three
times round the Horn, once in the Ant
arctic ice, and few years ago, just by
way of variety, he went up in balloon
from the ground of the Crystal Palace,
near London, and came down on the
historic Field of Agincourt. in France.
AS boy, Griffeth shipped before the
mast and had his first adventures dur
ing three years spell among the South
Sea Islands He has been lost In the
Australian bush, too but his most In
teresting wanderings have been in
South America, where he claims to have
found the true source of the Amazon
little hot lake under Monte Rosa in
the Peruvian Cordilleras,
In another of his journeys Griffeth
managed to get mixed up in lively
South American revolution, and had
rather an exciting time of It,
The 'tjaunt" which he most likes to tell
of, however. was that in which Griffeth
followed the route of Pizarro and his
companions and explored the ruined
Inca cities and Notifications. The re-
suit of this journey was his historical
novel, The Virgin of the Sum-" but
apropos it may be said that this au-
thor's own adventures have furnished
him with grist for his romancing mill
to much slighter extent than might
books are, perhaps. The Angel of the
Revolution" and I'm an Unknown
Prison Land
In the course of his varied career
Griffeth has been a sailor, a stock-rider,
butcher, newspaper man and
schoolmaster, but now he says he Is
going to take life easy in his new Manx
home and divide his time between yacht
sailing-which is his greatest pleasure
in life-and novel writing. about which
he is less enthusiastic. He is, however,
rather hopeful for the success of new
novel, on which he has been at work
for some time, and which is to bear the
title of The Great Weather Syndicate
How infinitely more interesting fiction
is than fact was demonstrated afresh
the other day, when the announcement
was made that the ancient crypt of the
Church of st. George the Martyr, in the
Southwark district of London, was ito
let" for storage purposes. crypt to
leti-the statement seems surprising
enough. in itself. but it may be ex-
planned that the regions in quite mum
ber of these old London churches where
once people were buried have been
cleared out in recent years and en-
ployed for intensely utilitarian pur-
poses; in Cne case for bakers shop
and in another for combined soup
kitchen and billiard room! So it is
really not so very startling to hear that
the crypt of st. George the Martyr
which once was orammed with collins
to the extent of 1400-iS now to be had
for Storage purposes of another kind
Now, this particular London church
has quite a number of historical aSsocf-
ations of an interesting nature. 1t was
for instance, the marriage place, in 1852
of General Monk, WHO restored the
throne of England to the Stuarts, and
1t was the burial place of the famous
Bishop Bonner, who died in the nearby
Marshalsea Prison in 1857, as well as of
Cocker, the arithmetician, to whom we
owe the phrase according to Cocker
But was it because of these that all
London was interested In the announce
ment regarding the crypt of the ia
nous old church? No, but because this
Church of ST. George the Martyr was
the place where Dickens Little Dorrit'
rested after the night of the famous
party when she was too late to return
to the Marshalsea Prison, and where
she was actually married!
In other words, 1t is famous for what
never happened, and not for what really
did happen-a tribute to the genius OF
Dickens. From the eastern end or the
church can be seen the whole of the
original south front of the Marshalsea
Debtors Prison; and at the eastern end
of the long roof the very window or
Little Dorrits garrett In her time
the crypt still held It's population of
dead, but Dickens was probably not
aware of the charnel-house beneath the
church floor, or 1t is more likely that
st. Georges would have been treated
by the novelist as was that burial
ground off Russell Court where poor
Memo lay, and at the iron gate OF
which Lady Deadlock died This plague
spot also has been swept away. and Its
site is like the crypt of ST. Georges.
spacious and dry
"T. p" IN A. p" "P. T. O." This
is not a new form of cryptogram; 1t is
only the progress, to date, OF one OF
the cleverest and most successful Irish
men of his time-of course. IN other
words T. p. O'Connor. M. P. somehow
you cannot get away from initials In
referring to Mr.. O'Connor and 1t is all
his fault. for not content with getting to
be known as 1T. P.," he insisted, when
starting the weekly paper which is now
so well known in England. in calling IT
m A. p" which means Mainly Aoouf
People," And now Mr.. OConnor is go
ing to sever his connection with this
journal and start new one, and TINS
latter he says. will be called I. o.,
~