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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1958-09-17, Page 7TINFAIIM FRONT :101er1,110khed :Suicide., Plot The man in the dock was, fors -gotten for the moment, The eyes of the- count were on the duel bee tween the witness-box end , the counsel desks et Lewes.Muses. They were watching the star , witness for the defence slowly but surely bring the eheclow of the gallows ever nearer to the prisoner. They were watching a, futile attempt be the witness to ells- 'credit the evidence of one of the most famous court person- alities of the day — Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the eminent patholo- gist. The witness was Dr, Robert Bronte, who was later tie be- -come famous for his bitter clashes in court with Sir Bern- ard. But this was his first mur- -oer trial, the ease of Norman 'Thorne charged with the murder of a young woman on his chicken farm in. Sussex. Bronte had been called to dis- prove Sir Bernard's evidence that it was a clear case of mur- tier. The defence hoped the doc- tor would bolster up their 'theory, that the woman bad com- mitted suicide and that Thorne Tice panicked. But Thorne, a Sunday school 'teacher, a member of the Band 01 Hone and a boys' club leader, did not look the sort who panick- ,ed. In the dock he was cool and self-assured, Just, the prosecu- tion alleged, as he had been on the night of the murder. The crime was a brutal one, Els!e, Cameron, plump and un- attractive, had called on Thorne to isstie an ultimatum that he should marry her, or pay her a large sum of money, as she was exeeeting a baby, But Thorne was in no position to do either, His chicken farm was not nroseerine; his parents were subsidizing him. And he hod fallen in loGe with another woman, He and Elsie-had a bitter row on the chicken farm. He told the woman he was going out to see his new sweetheart. When he came back he found Elsie hat-wing from a roof beam in the farm house, he told the police. He admitted cutting her down. Then, he insisted, panic over- came him. He dismembered the bong,' and buried it in various parts-of the chicken farm. It was a fairly plausible story. And. Mr. John Cassels, defending, made the most of it. Prosecuting was the many-chinned wonder of the day, Sir Henry Curtis- Bennett. Tried in March, 1925, the whole case revolved around whether Elsie Cameron had committed suicide in a fit of depression and Thorne, panicking, had bur- ied her body. If that was so, clearly there was no case of murder against him, But Sir Bernard Spilsbury had gone a long way towards shat- tering the defence case. The beam from which Thorne claim- ed he had found her hanging had been produced in court. And there was no trace of rope or cord marks. Sir Bernard gave the jury a pictu"e of what could have hap- pened. In the heat of the argu- ment Thorne had struck the wo- man time and again. Suddenly he had found her dead. And he had cut her into small pieces in the hope of avoiding detection. The defence, however, insisted that there was no struggle. And they called Dr. Bronte to give weight to their argument. He was an Irish/tan, flam- boyant,_ forceful, uncouth and often careless in his statements. He was a pathologist at Harrow Hospital. His qualifications were not impressive, but over the 'years he was called time and Drive With Care before slaughter, had Pfl-flavoUri, in the meat when cooked, 4, . Officials also •.conelUded from the tests that weed seeds other than stinkweed may cause odours in meat. Ou5y Yeggs Franeols Boret is a. Plump and smiling former acrobat who long ago decided that show bust- fess was slow business, Instead of tumbling before the ,crowd, he followed circuses around the 'French provinces and tumbled into empty homes while the per- formance was on. The Paris police knew all that, for they had a record of nine burglary convictions against Boren But back in 1951 he gave his guards the slip at Paris's Fresnes 'penitentiary, hid in the prison for 48 hours until the search was over, then simply Walked out among the daily stream of visitors, Fugitive Boret, now 58, and so gentle - mannered that he is known as Pepere (Grampa), joined forces last June with three oddly assorted characters —Bernard Cappe, who kept 60 canaries in his Paris apartment; Robert Rudel, who lived a re- spectable family life by day and prowled by night, and an Egyp- tian who was known around Montmartre bars only as "Nas- ser." Last month, after being picked up in a routine check of "suspicious characters," Beret and his gang were in jail oa an eye-opening collection of charges. Grampa tallied freely about the textile store they had bro- ken into Aug. 6. That netted $6,000 worth of material. Then there was 'a delicatessen that yielded $2,000 worth of hams. On and on went the list—stores, apartments, even gypsy trailers Boret wearily said: "T just can't remember them all." "Why don't you look up the list of all the complaints In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Ar- rondissements?" Cappe suggest- ed helpfully. When police finished drawing up the charges against Grampa's gang, the burglaries totalled 115 — an average of almost three a day. Although police were still trying to compute the exact amount stolen, the production- line gang complained that it once netted as little as 15 francs (3 cents). "We weren't lucky every day," remarked Grampa philosophic-- ally. "That's why we had to keep at the job." Ry nese 4, Barclay Warren 84,, ,Justice 113 Economic Life Exodus 24;1$; AMPS 4-1; James :14; 1 Peter 4:10-11 Memory Selection: lie that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and ho that is unjust in, the least it unjust also in much. Luke 16:10. This lesson begins with the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal." From the other portions of Scripture we, see that there are various ways of steal,. ing. Amos rebukes the' merchants who make the ephali small and the shekel great. The ephan was a dry measure which held about eight gallons. By making the measure a little smaller than standard the buyer was getting less than he expected, The riser - theist made the sebekel great by falsifying the balance To illus- trate: to make the balance regis- ter 20 ounces of gold the pur- chaser would have to put on 21 ounces. Thus the buyer was cheated both ways. He was pay- ing more money than he ought and, getting less wheat than he expected. Inflation has the same effect as making the shekel great. A dollar saved in 1938 has much less value today. Amos reproved the greedy merchants w h o could scarcely wait until the Sabbath was past so that they might sell "the re- fuse of the wheat." One needs to be very wary in buying sub- standard merchandise. S ome times it is alright but most of us have learned that some of the so-called bargains are deer at any price. One buying a used ear needs the advice of a friend who is an expert. James has dire warning for the rich who by fraud have heaped up treasure for the last days. The rust of their gold and silver shall eat their flesh as If it were fire. God is on the side' of the oppressed. Today, in addition to the wealthy individuals there is Of- ten a concentration of wealth in the coffers of a labor union. This is a trust. A leader who mis- appropriates these funds accu- mulated from the hire of labour- ers is as much of a thief as the employer who withholds the hire of those who labour for him. We have good laws. We need more good people. People are made good when they repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They experi- ence the miracle of the new birth. Their delight is to do the whole, will of God. A very talkative woman but- tonholed an angler who was minding his own business and said: "Aren't you ashamed of yourself? A big fellow like you might be better occupied than in cruelly_catching little fish." "Maybe you're right, madam." said the angler, "but if this fish had had the sense to.. keep his mouth shut he wouldn't be here." Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking OM EMBANK= nmegimmo%moom ownum—mon-ou mum mom muu mum mon mom mon mumonnu, - mumum =mom maxim ODE HMO DOM MUM MEM ©EE 00EW WM ciii EEO MW ooW©M MEMEMUE MUM k4 IM MED 14. 6 40 4 2 3 5 6 3 9 ID II . 13 12 15 16- d. 19 20 26 21 31' 38 3T 52. 56 24 29 30 32 33 34 -1U 47 48 a18 4 41 43 7 18 2 49 53 IIINSC1100 LESSON Na, eneteesensw btAb etNitErt Known ae a good place to illilit rottlesribkeS, these barren butt es in South ,Dakota eithv eolitedri the §eogrophicol teritetof the United States, boniinoted by two to Peak, center bockgraurid, the-area lies about 20 miles eaSf of the' point Where' the South baked, ,Mdtifahti and Wyoming borders meet. Infathida tourteS doubt that the plitilicity will turn the Spot into a teurist resort. .AdstoSs Singleton 4.. Spri ng 7 coolcs SloWly In Witter . 12: TtpliVIdtial halthigtlith $4, Vtraglierlan character 1 .,) Above 15, Implore 17: Flange or knovIlorlge is ile„ toffee. 10.t.Mv gra d e barge 21. Not tnarisk 2 5 .100. Pohl , 23. Bev:11110i' 24. And tint 25. Biel Inatie7l 23. Organ of hearing 27. Scolder • 23. Ensnare. 21 , 34. TANItIcal 311 V.egottil)16. '27. SfOncl er as. Wine caslc 40-, no to one , Side. 41, neat 41. Bale 41. 1-Turl 94, At holm,' • 9 5. Cotiiwa:3 e tn. Ticadr,1,,ed 41. Behold 40 rite • 51, Veri*:7ito.it Nasal 51 Sheen. 35, Ptit with DOWN 1, Dutch x, Indies Islands 2, Windlass 3. Engliali letter 4. SviierVe 5 Swine S. Article 7: Merganser STOCKPILING — Tommy Atkinson, 7,,gets in all the fishing and dreaming possible before the count-down on vacation touches off the school bell, to launch him into an orbit far from his favorite haunts. , again to challenge medical 'evi, Bence for the Crown.. And every time he was proved wrong! This time he swaggered into the box, He cast a scornful eye error the jury, snorted in the di- ne-ill:en of the prosecution and 'pared to say his piece. 'sri amazing story It was.'fie insisted that sleet's, was due to self-strangulation! - "My experience' of people in- tending to die by -one means or another is vest," he thundered. The court was shocked into silence, Was this the best the defence could offer self- strangulation? The faces of the jury were blank, but there was little doubt what they must be thinking., Everybody looked at the doc- tor. Unabashed, he went on to say that he had brought the 'records of nearly 500 cases of un- usual deaths. But the judge said curtly: "There are limits as to hew far this can go." In many ways it, was a warn- ing to Bronte. Defence counsel saw it. Realizing the damage the witness was doing to the prisoner's fate, they brought the examination .ttn a hurried end. But not before Bronte, well in his stride, had rambled on about many things not connected with the case. When he started dis- cussing chickens loud sniggers came from the public seats. Finally, Curtis -Bennett, rose to object. In his awe-inspiring voice he roared: "I do not know how we are to stop this sort of tiling!" The judge agreed and ordered Bronte to confirm himself to events nearer the case. But by then he had said enough. Norman Thorne must have felt the hangman's steps getting closer, But when he went into the witness-box he showed no trace of his fears. He blund- ered through cross-examination. Then came the question of the bruises. " For a moment Thorne made no reply. Then in a calm voice he said: "I'm sure there. were none!" An incredible reply, consider- ing that he had admitted dis- membering the body and could not have failed to see the bruises. Considering his counsel had said they were caused by self- strangulation, as s tated by Bronte. After that Thorne's fate was sealed. It took the juiy just 20 minutes to find him guilty. He was hanged on the very day that would have been Elsie Cameron's 27th birthday, largely condemn- ed by Dr. Bronte's fantastic testi- mony under cross-examination. BULLS AND BEARS When Casey Stengel was managing the Dodgers — that fellow sure has been around— the players lost interest in ball playing and began devoting all their time to the stock market. Even the clubhouse attendant became Wall Street conscious. As the club sank lower and lower in the standings, , Casey finally took the bull—and the .bear—by the horns. After a 14-2 loss, he rushed .into the clubhouse and excitedly shout- ed, "Hold everything, I just got a tip on a hot stock—New York Central Railroad!" The players quickly crowded around him. "Honestly, Casey? Is that a fact? You're not kid- ding?" "Darn tootin'! I'm serious. By the time I get finished shipping all you clowns back to the bushes, the New York Cen- tral will be able to declare an extra dividend!" A new M.P. flung down sev- eral typewritten sheets before his secretary. "Don't use such long words in my speeches," he said. "I want to know what I'm talking about." 8.. Halt score 0. Powerful deity 10, drown girls 11. Dwarf 13. Black 17 Horny tissue 20. Drapery 21. Tr' favor of 22. Egyptian deity 211. Witness 24, or a nephew 25 Wager 27, Tribunal 23. Twitching' 30. Batter 32. Senigglea 33 Held a session 35. IlellgionS Sister ., 37 Thin crisp fabric 38 Pine cloth 40. Tardy 42, Poverty 43 Cavern 45. Equality 48. Chop 40 Strange 50. Aoeontpl lth 51, Concerning 1 12. Sun god " Endurance Tests After being entombed for IQ days in a pit on the banks of the. River slurring, New Delhi, a 20.- ear-old -Hindu holy man was dug out alive, but unconscious, the other day. He had sealed himself in the five-foot-deep pit to meditate and pray for world peace, he said. This was just one of the many strange endurance tests that bane been reported recently. For a principle a 51-year-old Irishman staged a six-day hun- ger striker he claimed he was victimized by the Irish Repub- lic's post office, which sacked him. After six days on nothing but cigarettes and water, he was admitted to hospital. It was for a, fifty-cent bet that, three Oxford undergradu- ates walked from the Cafe de Paris in Oxford to the Cafe de Paris in London. They covered the 55 miles in less than 20 hours, so beating the record set up by three rival students, Some more students, this time from Isleworth teachers' training college, spent five days and nights talking their heads off to set up a world talking record recently. A 21-year-old history student, Gwynn Edwards, reckoned it would take him 12 hours to say all he had on his mind. Fantastic endurance tests are also being carried, out in the dancing world. Last year a male jive expert kept at it for 24 hours non-stop at a night-spot in Soho, London. He had numer- ous partners. And in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, blonde Miss Hirim Rud- man lopped for four hours,bare- foot in a "bop till drop" com- petition. She finished with huge blisters, yet took only secon,1 BOWL OF BERRIES — Looking as delectable as the bucket of ber- ries she carries is Kay Hunter, 1958 Huckleberry Queen. prize. Out of 18 couples who started, only 10 remained after three' hours. Two orchestras played continuously. Back in 1922, Albert Kemp, of Catford, played the piano 150 hours non - step to claim the world record. After six sleep- less days, he finished fresh enough to dance and drink champagne. "Others claim to have played longer," he says, "but they've done it with one hand, and some have even stopped to eat meals." Recently, Mr. Kemp said he had been training secretly for a new achievement — to play the piano and violin simultaneously. Many endurance records have been set up on the roads, but n one 'of the most curious was that of Dr. Stanley, 35-year-old maths teacher at the Imperial College, who walked the 280 miles from Newcastle to London to test im- proved leather soles for the Leather Institute. But he had a reward — 20 $10 bills, The worst part of the journey was shortly after the Start, when it rained almost continuously for a fortnight. Bill Ballantyne, 20-year-old Cambridge undergraduate chose a'child's scooter when he raced two pals the 80 miles from Cam- bridge to Oxford recently. His two comnanions felle out of the race — 21-year-old John Scully, when the wooden wheel of his roller skate wore down to the axle, and 20-year-old Pe- ter Turner, when the child's bi-, cycle he Wag riding broke down 30 miles from Oxford: Another new world record was set up recently by Swedish rope s walker Allan Lundberg, Who sat ill a chair on ,a rope for 50 hours and• five inihutee. Was it teeny worth it? A. Mild-looking Men walked into an income tax office and beamed at the collector, "What can do for yeti?" ask- ed the tax Official. "Nothing, thank you," replied the little man. "I just wanted to Meet the people I'M waking for," Agricultural scientists a r e ' trying to fatten Alberta's sugar- beet yields through lengthening the limited growing season en- joyed by that province. * * Their promising efforts, ex- tended this year to 200 acres of average farmlands, could revo- lutionize sugar-beet growing in Alberta and sweeten the profits for farmers by millions of dol- lars annually. * * • In the new approach toward' increasing'per-acre yields, at the beginning of April sugar beets are started in hot beds heated by electric cables. Then early in May the tiny plants are seet out in fields at 12-inch intervals. in the regular rows. * * While adding more than a full month to the growing season for sugar beets in Alberta, this sys- tem also offers several other major advantages, including the elimination of the tedious opera- tion of beet thinning necessary when the seed is planted in fields with beet drills in the usual manner. * * * Though the new approach was— attempted on an experimental basis for the first time in Al- berta only last year, agricultural scientists and farmers already are excited over its possibilities for that province but also for Canada's other sugar-beet-grow- ing provinces — Manitoba, On- tario, and Quebec. * * • In last year's modest experi- ments, sugar - beet seedlings started in hot beds and seed were both planted on May 6. When the results were harvested in the fall, the field-seeded crop averaged a hefty 20.68 tons of sugar beets to the acre. Although there was no increase in the sugar content, the crop grown from transplanted seedlings av- eraged 28.9 tons an acre. * 4,- * And with beets fetching Al- berta farmers around $15 a ton, the transplanting method repre- sented additional profits of some $100 an acre. )1{ According to agricultural offi- cials, Alberta's beet yields under normal farming conditions can be increased consistently by more than seven tans an acre through the transplanting method. While sugar beets have been grown commercially in southetn Alberta since 1903, the prov- ince's relatively short growing season has presented difficulties that resulted in Alberta's beet yields generally being fat short of those harvested in Most sec- tions fo the United States, A number of beef carcasses are condemned in meat packing plants every year because Of undesirable odours. 4, * What causes this waste? * * Tests have shown that weed seeds, such as stinkweed, fed in refuse screenings right up to slaughter, May leave ati objee- tionable Odour or flavour, * Thousands of toils of ecreeri- ings are available each year from terminal grain elenntors, flour mills, and seed-cleaning piants. Most of it is fed to cat- tle, sheep and other livestock. * TWO Canada Denartnient of Agriculture experiments were' tondtteted to detetrilirie 'whether feeding screenings eon, ,initig 4-; high proportion of ethiliWeed seeds to fattening beef cattle would result in objectionable odours or off-flavours in the meat. * One test was made at Van- couver, B.C., and the other at the Lethbridge Experimental Farm. Involved were 44 year- ling steers. Nine of 12 steers slaughtered, immediately off screenings, had a slight too strong odour in their carcasses. * - There were no objectionable odours in the carcasses of ani- mals that were off screenings 24, 48, or 96 hours before slaugh- ter. Since cattle are off feed for at least 24 hours in normal com- mercial slaughtering, chances of objectionable odours or off- flavours occurring are slim. * * Two animals slaughtered, im- mediately off screenings, and one held off screenings for' 48 hours TUNNEL "MOON"—What looks like a time-lapse picture of the moon against background of blurry stars is actually a steel sphere and the patterns formed as water flows around it in- side a new water tunnel at the Westinghouse Research Labors- tories, Pa. The tunnel, containing 13 tons of water moving at 8,000 gallons a minute, is used to study similar flow patterns past more complicated structures, such as the turbine blade of a jet engine. CROSSWORD PUZZLE AriSWtit alsetk,flo 'on this page"