Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1886 — An Autographic-Colleeting Hermit. [ARTICLE]

An Autographic-Colleeting Hermit.

One of our walks in the Island of Capri will take us to a very high point, on which are some ruins of the Villa of Tiberius, the Homan Emperor. This gentleman, having involved himself in a deal of trouble at home, concluded to retire to this rocky island, where he would be safe from his enemies, and here he lived until Lis death, in the year 37 A. D. Capri must have been a very different place then, as far as the manners and customs of its inhabitants are concerned. The Emperor built no less than twelve handsome jvillas m various parts of the island, and made all necessary arrangements to enjoy himself as much as possible. The villa which we are visiting was one of the largest, and the lemains of vaulted chambers and corridors show that it must have been a very fine building. A short distance be'ow it| is the top of a precipice, from which, tradition says, Tiberius used to have those persons whom he had condemned to death thrown down into the sea. This was not an unusual method of execution with the Romans, and his victims must have met lvith a certain death. If any of us really desire to see a hermit, we can now be gratified, for one of that profess on has his dwelling here. He probably does liye here all alone, but he does not look like our ordinary ideal of a hermit. He will be glad to receive some coppers, and also to have us write our autographs in a book which he keeps for that purpose. A hermit autograph-collector in the ruined villa of a ifoman Emperor, on the top of a mountainous island in the Mediterranean, is something we did not expect to meet with on our travels. Fpank It. Stockton, in St. Nicholas.