MADE HIS LIFE A PURGATORY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3363, 1 November 1911, Page 7

MADE HIS LIFE A PURGATORY.

SHEPHERD STARVED TO DEATH WITH £1,280 ON HIM.

One of the most extarordinary examples of self-sacrifice of which there is any record has just come to light by the death near Lucerne on a recent Sunday of an old shepherd named Dangeli. Fifty years ago, when he was twentyseven, Dangeli, who is a Swiss, left his native mountains and valleys for France. There for half a century he tended flocks, and was noted for his reticent ways.

Nobody ever saw Dangeli spend a penny in luxury; he just enought to keep body iand soul together. Every coin he could save was religiously hoard, ed up and the self-denial he practisedwas the subject of conversation wherever he worked. At last he decided to return to Switzerland, and to save money determined to walk the whole distance to Eseholsmatt, where his sister lives. But at seventy-seven years of age, and with a frame impoverished by self-imposed privation, the task was beyond his powers.

He was found lying on some straw in a barn in the village of Nebikon, near Lucerne. He was in the last stages of exhaustion, and was starving.

The farmer and is assistants who found the man sent for a doctor, and Dangeli told his story to him. “My papers are correct,” he said, “you will find that I am wearing three suits of clothes. In each of the suits are pockets in which yo uwill find altogether £1.280 in notes and shares.

I saved almost every penny- of my earnings for my sister. I walked from France to Lucerne so that my sister, who is an old woman, and "unmarired, will benefit by every farthing of my savings. My life has been a purgatory.” A few minutes later the old shepherd was dead. The money was found on Dangeli, and will be given to his sister. She states that she long ago believed him to.be dead, as he had never written to her.

The doctor said Dangeli had died from starvation and exhaustion.