The evening world. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1887-1931, 1909-02-19
CAVE DWELLER IS
FOUND IN MIDST
Of GREATER CITY
Lives In a Real Hole In the
Ground, Like Those of
Stone Age.

The queerest human habltatlon in the
Greater City, with It's four million and
more OF people was found to-day by
police sergeant-under the roots Of a
tree And the four million and more
| number among them no stranger look
Ing creature than the dweller In that
! habitation.
Yet he ls only plain, ignorant farm
hand, Sebastian Wachter by name,
who being without work. and having
no friends to help him, did what seemed
, to him the best thing and the simplest
thing under the circumstances. He
became a cave dweller. as near like his
prototype OF the Stone Age as was pos
slble, seeing that he picked out the
biggest city In this hemisphere for his
abiding place, and had to accommodate
his primal instincts TO such modern
things as truck farms, paved streets
and gas lights.
Children Told Of wild Man."
Ever since the late fall OF last year
old Newtown. Queens Borough, which
has been converted into a suburban ad-
ditioa and rechristened Forest Hill. have
been telling OF seeing wild man with
matted hair and beard who went clothed
in rags and spoke a weird g!bbersh, un-
Ineligible to civilized ears. But to the
average school child any tattered wan
derer who uses an allen tongue and
sights the barber shop is likely to be a
Wild man, and so It happened that the
police OF the Newtown statlon-house-
Precinct No, 20 in the official l!st-pald
scant attention to these stories that
came 10 them from time to time.
But to-day Sergt. Hatten, Of that
station-house, on mounted detail. was
loping his horse through Souire's
Woods, a ten-acre patch Of uncleared
timberland AUDITING on the cottage
sites and villa plots of Forest Hill
when he saw something that made
him rein up sharply and stare open.
eyed. A human head. unkempt and dis.
hevelled. but unmlstakably human
head. was protruded cautiously from
the earth, sixty feet away from the
road.
We'll, I'll be jlggered," said Hatten.
and he climbed of his horse unshipped
his club In case the head might be at.
tached to belligerent body, and pro-
ceeded to cautiously investigate.
HOLD In tho Ground His Homo,
What he found was a middle-ared
man doing light housekeeping In a hols
In the ground. A big elm, going. down
before some storm. had left a ragged
hole In the earth, all faced In and pro-
tected by Its spreading roots. This hole
had been followed out deeper until 1,
made a cavern six feet long and five
feet deep, A ragged scrap OF ollcloth
that had been picked up from some
dump pile was draped across the front
for door and to keep out part Of the
wind and some Of the rain.
A pile Of musty leaves and an ancient
blanket made the bed and the stove was
crazy little makeshlft OF rusty scraps
OF sheet iron and smoke-smudged bricks,
A screen Of underbrush and tangled
sapling trunks at the mouth Of the
cave helped to hide It from the casual
pessers' gaze and added little protec-
ton from the weather.
=. In this hole SEBASTIAN wachter had
lived since the latter part OF November,
enduring exposure and lack OF food that
would have killed many man out OF
hand. How he ever lived through
three months Of a northern winter is
more than the Newtown police can un-
derstand, but the man Is there to prove
II.
HatIess, Clad In Rags,
He was a strange looking object as he
stood facing Magistrate Connolly In the
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