The Brussels Post, 1950-4-12, Page 3Knolton'
Case
By Richard fitll Wilkinson
1Cnultnu'., act was the result of
two year's of planning. There was
little chance that enything would
go wrong. Ile had served as clerk
at the lumber camp for iwo long
years. And from the, moment he
first saw the payroll left unguarded
in the office while the bank guard
went ant and a camp paymastel•
canoe in—from that moment 'Knot -
ton knew that some day he'd steal
that payroll and mala a gttaway.
'.Che day that Knolton had chosen
for the robbery was not unlike a
thousand others. At exactly noon
the payroll ear drove up. A guard
stepped into the office and depos•
ited the heavy bag by Knolton's
chair. Knolton greeted hila care-
lessly, nodded at the bag and bent
to his work, The guard went out.
The moment the door closed
Knniton's head carte up.' Ile lis-
tened intently. Outside he could
hear the beak guard in conversa-
tion with Raymond, the camp pay-
roaster. There wasn't a moment to
lose.
Quickly Knolton lifted up the
cover of his desk, removed from
inside a hag almost identical to the
one on the floor and equally as
heavy. IIe made the transfer deft-
ly, unhurriedly.
The door opened and Raymond
carte inside. He nodded briefly to
Knolton, picked up the decoy hag
and went out again.
Knolton stepped outside and
walked leisurely toward the river,
Unobserved he climbed into the
canoe which was hidden there, and
pushed off.
B y mid-afternoon Knolton
reached a tributary and turned off
the main stream. He paddled tip
this smaller waterway for more
than 0 mile.
He set the canoe adrift and
headed inland, swinging southward,
By dusk he had conte to a virgin
stand of timber, nighty monarchs
of the forest as yet unscathed by
the ltunberman's axe. His steps led
him to a huge pine, larger than the
rest with thick undergrowth at
By now he had grown se
beard.
the base. lie parted the growth,
pulled at a tuft of dirt, The tuft
came away revealing a, shallow
hole. Knolton had dug the hole
months before, allowed the under
growth -to grow over it so that no
trace of his recent visit would be
in evidence,
He deposited the bag in the hole,
and carefully replaced the dirt,
It was a month before Knolton-
reached his destination;- a tiny
village hundreds of miles south of
the lumber camp. Here he paused
to rest with a friend. By now he
had grows• a beard. The friend pro-
vided dye, and Knolton changed
the color of his hair from light
brown to blade.
Six months later Knolton, now
known as Carl Redman, with no
trace of tine one-time clerk showing
beneath his perfect disguise, rode
leisurely back toward the scene. of
his crime,
The lumbermen gave hint no
more than a passing glance.
Satisfied that be had not been
recognized, Knolton followed the
river 10001i1 to the tlibntary.
With pounding. heart he mounted
the ridge and paused to look. It was
as if a Band had suddenly reached'
'out and was squeezing hint in a
powerful grip, Ilse stood rooted,
mouth ajar, staring in stupified
incredulity. at the country below",
'With a sense of horror he realixed
what had happened.'. The entire
area had been logged by the lum-
ber company, swept baro of every
standingtree r ea and piece of timber,
Every tree stump looked alike;
none was larger or differenet from
its neighbor. He surmounted great
piles of slash, tearing at tinetn fran-
tically, hunting for the stuutp, the
stump of the great pine tree.
Thus tannin dfld -of his direction
be Carole again to he river bank,
And when at length he reached the
top of another hill Ile paused to
rest, overcome by fatigue, Too
late he felt the slash pile beneath
bmf slipping 'away. Coo late he
realized that lite 0111011 had 10e1
thrown on the 'brink of a precipice •
overhanging the river.
1Enollon, with a pitiful cry on hie
lips. went over the brink, Far, far
below he lay, a broken human
body on tine jagged rocks.
Ice That Drives
Strong Men Mad
The roof of the world Is perm-
anently clad In lee. The 111 Cap of
Greenland, in place, 9,000 feet thick.
coveri11 a bigger arta than Western
Europe and i$ continually spewing
gittl'iers into the frozen sea—ice-
bergs by the thousand. Snitzbergen
and the Craters of Arctic Siberia acid
to Ibis profusion of ice, much of
which drifts into the North At-
lantic.
Mid -October sec,; an Icy pulp
farming on the fjords of Northern
Siberia. 'rhea, suddenly; the mere•
ury drops to 70 below and—bang1
—an icy covering is whisked across
the ocean, It thickens every see•
oud until, in half an hour, it is a
foot deep. Where currents are
strong, the movement of the water
defeats the cold, But not for long.
1' he channels of open water formed
by the cements gradually narrow
and disappear.
Roar Like 1,000 Guns
Inside 14 hours, the Ire is four
feet thick. And when the tide lie.
gins to rise, a roar like a thousand
guns boosts across the Arctic. Such,
at least, is the case in the New Si-
berian Islands, off Northern Siberia.
Here the tide rises and falls as
1110111 as 40 feet, and when it rises
after the "freeze-up" the world
scelnS to go mad,
The sea presses beneath the ice
which resists at first—then suddenly
gives way. With a tremendous
thunderclap, the air compressed be.
tween the sea and its icy crust
bursts out, flinging into the air
blocks of ice the ize of a house.
Jets of sea water follow the escap-
ing air, pouring across the surface
of the icr, adding feet to its thick-
ness.
Once again, the tide falls and
rises, As it drops, the ice is left
suspended across the fjords until,
unable to support itself, it crashes
into the sea which, exposed to the
air, freezes again—the old ice and
the new forming a contorted mass
perhaps 20 feet thick. Then the
tide begins to rise again, pressing
upwards harder and harder until
cote again it bursts through, fling-
ing immense blocks of ice on to
the shore with the uproar of a vol-
canic eruption.
"I've seen men go diad at such
t'mes," says Jan Wetzel, a trader
who lives in the New Sigerians.
"Seen them run along the shore
waving their arms and yelling with
fear until they fall from exhaust-
ion."
For seven months the sun is but
a memory, But with the return of
spring, its warmth melts the ice
sufficiently for tide, current and
wind to break it up. -
Late last century, explorers •de -
clad that the currents that carry
the floes of Siberia, Spitzbergen
and Greenland into the North At-
lantic could be used to carry a ship
very close to the Pole. The Amer-
ican explorer, Commander G. de
Long, was the first to test .this
theory. For two years, his ship, the
feanette, drifted towards the North
Pole, at times with pack -ice piled
against her to the level of the decks,
But the pack crushed her, leaving
her crew to die on the frozen sea
150 miles from the New Siberian
islands,,.
But the icy fate of the Jeannette
did not dissuade others from fol-
lowing in her track, In 1894 the •
Norwegian, Nausen, allowed his
ship, the Frani, to be frozen -in not
far from where tine Jeannette had
perished.
Day after day, the Fram drifted
towards the North Pole, When she
had reached the most northerly
limit of the current, Neilsen low-
ered sledges and dogs on to the
floes and set out with a companion,
Johanssen. He was a brave • ntan. •
He knew he could not hope to find
his ship again, for she•was drifting
in an unknown direction. He knew
he would have to make his way to
land as hest he could.
Ships Lifted Forty Feet - -
When finally forced to turn
back, . he headed -for Franz Tosef'"
The Manassa Mauler Shows 'Em How—Jack Dempsey, former world's heavyweight boxing
champion, is keenly interested in all welfare work. During his recent visit to Toronto he called
at Variety Village, vocational training school for crippled children. The School is operated
by the Toronto Variety Club; the work is one of the activities of the Onfario Society for
Crippled Children which is conducting it annual Easter Seals campaign for funds March 13 -
April 9. The boys with Dempsey are, front left: Wilfred Dombroskie, Renfrew; Bob Ken-
nedy, Toronto; Donald Brennan, Ottawa and Donald Orr, Sault Ste. Marie, Donations may be
sent to Timmy, Toronto.
Island, a sledge -journey which only
one of his huskies survived. There,
he and his companion also would
have died if they had not met mem-
bers of a British expedition, Back
in Norway again, Nansen learned
that the Frani had survived. She
was lucky, for the power of the
floes is such that they have lifted
a ship 40 feet out of the v.ater.
Such was the experience of the
Intrepid, one of the ships that
searched for Sir John Franklin's
Erebus and Terror. The ice, con-
verging on het• hull, piled beneath
her until she was 39 feet "above
sea level." Huge loose blocks top-
pled to her decks. Her crew
thought the end had come—when
the pressure suddenly relaxed and
the ice fell away, all but two pil-
lars, one under her bow, the other
ander the stern.
Then her skipper, Capt. Caton',
did something that uo seaman had
cone before—or will do again.
Swinging over Ids ship's side, lee
walked the length of the ship under
the keel, Ten minutes later, he
clambered aboard again to report
that she had suffered little damage,
just before the two ice pillars col-
lapsed and the ship fell into her
natural element!
Every Man Perished
The Erebus and the Terror (in
which Franklin tried to find the
North-West Passage) had sides 17
inches thick, Even so, when ice
trapped them in a fjord in the ex-
treme north of Canada, it crushed
them. Every man on board—there
were 105—perished, but the two
ships were yet to stake another
journey. When 'ultimately the ice
broke up, it carried them nearly
3,000 miles along the north coast of
Canada, down into the North At-
lantic. • There they were seen by
the company of the Renovation,
heeled over, on the pack ice, their
sides gaping.
Similar tales have conte out of
the Arctic during recent years,
The Russians lost six ships in
six months before the last war. A
Norwegian sealer, caught in the
spitzbergee floes, was carried right
round the island before, after 10
months in the grip of the pack, she
foundered with all hands, Last
spring, six sealers were crushed
while sealing off Labrador, New-
foundland and Greenland,
During one period of 10 years,
70 ships—Russian, Norwegian, Ca-
nadian, Antericatl--were destroyed
inthe eind _ of pack -ice or in col-
lision with 'bergs,
Friendship Wins—Minnie the .unotltet cat who lives at the
railroad yards, evidently triumphed over her baser' instlnete in
adopting this fearless mouse into her household. Shortly -after
Minnie gave birth to a Sitter. of kittens, the wee mouse turned
ttp and made itself at Monne.
Wayward "Oscar" -- Aircraft
worker, Bruce Kierman, 20, is
the holder of an. "Oscar," but
he didn't win it for acting.
Kierman found the . coveted
statuette about nine years ago.
Despite demands of the Aca-
demy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences to surrender the
statuette, Kiernan held onto it,
and every year around Aca-
demy Award time he wonders
who lost or threw away his
"Oscar."
Life Amongst
A Million Seals
Charles Mulvey, a Canadian ex -
barrister who itas travelled 'widely
in North West Canada recently
gave a BBC talk on his experiences
on the Pribolofs, a group of islands
in the far North Pacific. These
islands are the only mating grounds
of the great fur bearing seal herd.
They are almost fogbound in sum-
mer and one morning as Mulvey
groped along the bare, boulder
strewn shore Ile heard a deep -
throated roar and through the fog
saw a giant seal, six feet long and
weighing about seven hundred
pounds, lumbering by. From a safe
distance he watched the great creat-
ure swing Inc head to and fro,
growling and snarling vindictively •
and threatening any nearby seals.
In the second week of May hund-
reds of bull seals conte to the is-
lands and each adopts a territory
which becdrnes his harem during
the mating season, The best posi-
tions, nearest to the water, are
the property of tine fiercest fighters
.and when the fog lifted, Mulvey
watched many of these awesome
territorial battles. A seal would
-take up a position, another would
fancy it and charge with a roaring
challenge, to be met by the first
seal with teeth bared and powerful
neck thrust out, Mulvey described
these fights as the most vicious he
had ever' seen and at times he
turned away in horror praying that
something might intervene to stop
them. But the end comes only with
complete victory for the stronger
seal. .
During the battle period the fe-
males have been coming from the
South Pacific, where they bask
happily during the winter. In May
they feel an irrestihle urge to go
back to mate on the islands where
they were born• The sea is dotted
for miles with their heads as these
lovely little seals, only two and a
half to three feet long and weighing
about .eighty pounds, conte gently
to what Mulvey described as "two
months of the most hellish form
cf domesticity that the female of
any species has ever experienced."
As the females swim in the bulls
are ranged along the shore to meet
them, cooing to attract them. A fe-
male approaches the bull of her
choice and is picked up as though
she were a kitten and carried to
the harem. She is left there while
her husband goes to collect other
wives, for although the young bull
seal takes only one or two, the ..
mature bull may take a hundred.
Bull seals attain maturity at seven .
but hate from the age of four, -
;when they develop a mane of light
yellowish hair. For the twc and a
half months of orating season they
never eat and seldom sleep, They
spend their entire time in their
harems and when they leave the
islands are emaciated wrecks, com-
pared with the lusty giants they
were in mid-May, Young bachelor
seals live away from the harems
and cautiously snake their way to
the sea through special lanes be-
tween them, for trespassers are torn
to pieces, Mulvey spent a great
deal of time in these neutral lanes,
studying the seals and watching
the mothers caring for their babies,
for within a very short time of
landing the females give birth to
the young conceived in the pre-
vious year. He watched the young
bachelors playing together in the
sea with an amiability that leaves
them when they become mature and
grow into "thugs, wife -beaters and
all round domestic tyrants."
These seals' pelts are unlike any
others and are thick, soft and lus-
trous with great commercial value,
In the middle of the last centuiy,
when the herd slumbered between
three and five million, the seals
were slaughtered with hidous fero-
city and in fifty years their numbers
yverc reduced to about two hundred
and fifty thousand. Now the islands
are controlled by the United States,
coastguard cutters escort the herd
on Migration and when it is in
residence patrol the surrounding
waters. No one is allowed to land
on the islands without permission
from Washington and no ships are
permitted to call. Only •t certain
Iluluber of seals arc killed each
year and these are all three year
old bachelors, for old bulls' skims
ere scarred by lighting and feutales
are kept for breeding.
Industry
A woman visiting Norway was
amazed at the enormous rocks in
the valley where she was staying,
"Wherever do they all come
front?" site asked it local inhabi-
tant.
"The glacier brought theme
down," ito explained,
"But whores the glarieIr
"Gone back for more rocks," was
the reply.
5
`fable Manners In
The Middle Ages
Yorke were unknown until the
time of Elisabeth and even then
were regarded as foreign and ef-
feminate, . , . The problem of wash-
ing up was largely solved by having
no plates. Instead, a thick slice (a
tranche) of bread was laid before
each guest, On this the meat was
placed and the gravy soaked down
into the bread. The charitable, and
the well-fed took care to leave at
least a little of this bread at the
end of the meal. It was then scram-
bled for by the scullions and what
they did not eat was given to the
poor at the gate... .
The medieval cook had quite an
array of tools. As early as the sec-
ond half of the twelfth century the
find Alexander Neckham, enumer-
ating, in addition to pots with their
trivets or tripods and their pot -
sticks and pot -hooks, a mortar and
pestle, a frying pan, a grid -iron, a
posnet or saucepan, a saucer (that
is a'ressel for mixing sauce), a hand -
mill, a pepper -mill, and an instru-
ment for producing breadcrunbs,
He also mentions a special table
for chopping and mixing herbs and
vegetables. It is plain that even
at this reinote period the culinary
art was capable of many elabora-
tions. .
These pomp's were naturally con-
fined to the houses of the aristoc-
racy, but the burghers whogrew
wealthy towards the end of the
medieval period, if they lacked
something of knightly ceremony,
certainly knew how to furnish their
tables. In the Cent nouvelles Nou-
velles (which -may be taken to re-
flect manners common to both
England and France) we read of
the widow of a merchant setting
before a single guest a dinner con-
sisting of soup, bacon, tripe, and a
roasted ox -tongue, followed by a
piece of salt beef and some choice
mutton. As her guest devoured all
these she called for a ham, and
when this had vanished, for cheese
and a dish of tarts and apples. To
our modern "rationed" appetites this
would seem to constitute a • very
handsome repast.
It was customary to wash before
beginning a meal, and favoured
guests had a ewer of water, a bowl,
and a towel brought to thein by two
servants. Less important people
were expected to wash before sitting
down and for this purpose lavours
or lavatories were provided some-
times, -in the hall itself, sometimes
"outside. A few of these lavatories
have survived in the cloisters of
-.-cathedrals. When the guests were
seated the servants spread cloths
over the tables, placed on thein the
salt -cellars and, in later times, the
knives. Spoons were also provided
when the nature of tate food seemed
to render them necessary,
One very curious feature of me-
dieval table -manners is mentioned so
often in the metrical romances that
there can be little doubt of its being
a universal custom. Guests were
seated at the tables in pairs with
only one plate between tltent out
of which they were both expected
to eat. . . The placing of guests
trust also Have offered considerable
opportunity for the exercise of tact
by the lady of the house,—From
"The Character -of England," edited
by Ernest Barker,, ;
All From Seaweed
Proal the days ^e'hen It was dis-
covered that Iodine could be en -
Meted from burnt seaweed, scien-
tists have been putting this humble
plant under a thousand and one
tests to find out what outer uses it
has for mankind.
Latest discovery is of irenlen-
dans benefit—that a soluble woo/
eat, be made front seaweed for
use In dentistry. Haemorrhage after
an extraction was one of those
things you hoped you never had;
but this new soluble wool itis vie.
tually overcame the possibility of
this.
The inventive genius behind this
discovery is Frank Bounisicen, who
is still trying to find other applica-
tions for seaweed. "I want to cone
centrate on bloodless surgery," he
says.
He has been at the seaweed game
for twenty years, and in that time
Ile has converted seaweed into hair -
cream as well as into ice-cream
powder. Aritifieal wool has also
been made from the plant; silly has
been copied, and to -day you may
have your food wrapper' in a certain
type of transparent wrapping paper
that originally was a green, blistery
plant at the bottom of the sea.
Couldn't Be Heaven
The sick 01511 had been delirious
with fever for days, but now Mt
regained consciousness and became
aware of his comfortable bed and
the gentle assurance of cool, loving
hands. "Where am I?" he asked
weakly. "In Heaven "
"No, dear," said his wife sooth-
ingly, "I'm still with you."
Belgium's Ruler? •— Prince
Baudouin, 19, above, son of
King Leopold III, would be-
come Icing of Belg'utn if the
suggestion of former Premier
Paul -Henri Speak, leader of
the powerful Socialist Patty, i<
followed. Speak urged the king
in an open letter to turn over
the throne to the prince to
restore order and unity. Acting
Premier Gaston Eyskens, Soci-
al Christians' leader, reportedly
favors the plan.
Royal Snack Bar—To aid her family's fading fortunes, Lady
'fees (pouring), wife of Sir john Lees, third baronet, of Poole,
1`ngland, has opened this snarl: bar outside the lodge gates a
lier South T,ytcltett Manor hone, The. customer is Lady Lees
daughter -in -lair, Mrs. Faith Lee. Financial stress also forced
the 41ainily to trove into a cottage on the. grounds and rent the
nlan0P house as a 11011001,
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