Morning! I can't say that I have run into your particular problem. I upgraded CPAN.pm with no problems on RedHat 7.3 perl -v 5.6.1. Might I suggest re-installing HTTP::Request?

Not sure if you tried that already :-).

Also, here is line 62 from HTTP::Request:

sub new
{
    my($class, $method, $uri, $header, $content) = @_;
    my $self = $class->SUPER::new($header, $content);  # L. 62
    $self->method($method);
    $self->uri($uri);
    $self;
}
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-- Can't never could do anything, so give me and inch, I'll make it a mile.