Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1910 — LONDON'S OLDEST NEWSBOY. [ARTICLE]

LONDON'S OLDEST NEWSBOY.

“Old Bn” m Familiar Fleur* on a Battling Tboroaglitare. , Eighty years of age, yet hearty, Ben Witherden, one of the familiar characters of London, claims to be the old- ; est “newsy” in. the world, Henri Che- . valier _ says in the Cincinnati En'quirer. I For forty years his pile of papers , have been arranged every morning in the Edgware road, just north of the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park, and Witherden declares he feels fit for a centenarian record. ~ All sorts and conditions of men *afe among his customers. Lords and ladles, doctors and lawyers, nurses and policemen, all take a kindly interest in the' picturesque figure whose absence from the pavement would create a noticeable vacancy. No London "cop” would allow the old peddler of papers to suffer by undue competition along that stretch of sidewalk. But modern conditions are developing contrary to the desires of the anJlent “newsy.” When he-started selling papers there was no rush like there is now. If he served people with their papers by lunch time they were quite content. But nowadays If he doesn’t let them have their news before breakfast time there is no end of a row, and he soon would get passed up as a “has been.” But he doesn’t let them catch him like that. Summer and winter, rain, hall or shine, he is out at his work. Lots of good luck comes his way from time to time. A nearby shopkeeper gave him a chair and stores it tor him over night. Charitably disposed customers see that his clothes are warm and plentiful. The respectable silk hat he sports adorned the bead of some West End notable not so long ago. When it is wet tfie doorway behind him offers deep shelter, from which the proprietor refrains from driving him. Altogether “Old Bsn” is as merry a newsboy as the youngest member of that noisy tribe. Everything is noisier to-day than wlifan he first began to sell papers. Lumbering omnibuses and horsed vehicles were all the traffic that disturbed the route to the heights of Criqklewood and Hendon. Now Bnortlng motorbuses thunder along with loads of suburban residents from villas erected on the green fields. The world grows BWifter and more strenuous, while Old Ben Witherden would have it resume Its olden pace, more in keeping with his advancing years.