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The Seaforth News, 1954-03-25, Page 6Famous Toys Almost Human When Louis XIV was a child e marvellous toy coach was made for hint, Drawn by two Horses, It contained the figure of a lady within, a footman and page be- hind, and when it was placed at the end of a table, the coachman cracked his whip and the horses set off. At the corner of the table the coach turned and proceeded un- til it reached the place where the boy king sat. Here it stopped the page descended, the lady alighted and curtsied, then re- entered the carriage. The page closed the door, resumed his position; the coachman whipped his horses and drove on. Another astonishing toy, made a century later in 1741, was the mechanical duck, which became famous throughout Europe. Com- pletely life -like, it executed the quick, jerky movements of a real bird, quacked realistically, and when corn was thrown before it, stretched out its neck, swallowed it, and digested it by means of a chemical solution inside, The making of mechanical toys reached its peak in the 17th and early 18th centuries, writes Lesley Gordon in a fascinating, lavishly illustrated history of toys, "Peep -show Into Paradise". Water, wind, mercury and clock- work were the only sources of power available, but driven by these, figures came to life. Some of the Nuremberg toys were moved by sand on the egg - timer principle. Sand made the crew of a ship row. and operated a marionette peepshow which found favour with the young Dauphin, later Louis XIII, and showed the taking of Jerusalem and the Crucifixion. The little prince was intensely interested, learning how to start and stop the sand propulsion. Clockwork dolls could walk, curtsy, bow, dance. Most won- derful was a figure called The Young Writer, which could write a letter of fifty words or so. Another that could draw was called The Designer. Fitted., with a sheet of paper and pencil, it is said to have drawn a por- trait of Marie Antoinette in her presence, and that of the King. The inventors of these, and a third called The Harpsichord, player, were Pierre Jacquet- Droz and his son. They made such skilful mechanical toys for the King of Spain that they were in denger of being condemned as sorcerers by the Inquisition! Two Swiss also made for him a sheep which bleated; and a bas- ket of fruit, watched by a dog Nice Work If You Can,Get It — Wally Horton is an ex -Marine with a job that Is probably the envy of the entire Marine Corps. He fits costumes on TV actresses, singers and chorus girls. His "chore," at the moment this picture was taken, was to fit Connie Russell, in Hollywood. that began barking when any of the fruit was taken and didn't cease until it was replaced. Toys from Paris advertised in "New York Fashions" in 1877 included a Saucy Milkmaid which could be propelled rapidly round the room, shaking her head, pat- ting her cow, while the cow munched oats and mooed con- tentedly; a Drunken Muleteer who swigged from a bottle with one hand, holding on to the mule with the other; a Murderous Zouave, who dashed round the room furiously, snapping a pistol to right and left; a Gymnast who walked on a rope with his head down and returned holding on by hands moving one over the other. Reading of these remarkable toys, one wonders what miracles the inventive genius of a century ago could have constructed had our modern source of power, electricity, been available. PERFECT MURDER? WELL ALMOST On a misty morning in Sep- tember, 1935, a girl on holiday from Edinburgh set out for a walk in the wild and lovely scenery of Annandale, in the Scottish Border country, She walked along the main road from Carlisle to Edinburgh, and paused awhile on a bridge over a ravine to admire the glory of the autumn foliage and the hills on the skyline. Apart from an occasional car, the locality was deserted. Sud- denly the girl, whose name was Susan Johnson, felt her nerves tingling. Her attention had been caught by a patch of white in the grey -brown background of leaves and rocks at the bottom of the ravine. It looked like flesh, and was protruding from a mass of brown paper. She hurried off to tell her brother. He quickly arrived at the gul- ly and clambered down. It was an arm, and there were other remains under the brown paper, wrapped In sheeting. The curtain had risen on a case which was very close to that im- p": able crime --the perfect mur- der. squad; of police arrived, and .escIi parties spread for miles over this difficult country. Time after time a mud -bespattered con- stable would clamber back to the road, bearing another grisly par- cel. Altogether thirty of them were found. The immense task of identify- ing the remains began, All were in an advanced state of decom- position, for they had been de- liberately thrown into streams or marshy ground. The police requested the help of the leading experts of the anatomical depart- ment of Edinburgh University, world -famed as a medical re- search centre. The men who directed the work on the most frightful jig- saw puzzle it can ever have been the lot of man to attempt were Professor G 1 a i s t e r, Professor James Brash. and Professor Sid- ney Smith. With a sense of horror they soon realized that the murderer was a member of their own pro- fession. Amputations had been carried out with a skill only a doctor could show. With per- verted brilliance he had care- fully removed birthmarks and recognizable features. The teeth had been extracted to prevent the identification by a dentist Of fillings or jaw formation. The faces and eyes were unidentifi- able, and no fingers or thumbs had been found. Despite the bewildering jum- ble of material, the pathologists were able to satisfy themselves that the victims were two in number and both were female. While the anatomical depart- ment of Edinburgh University was dealing with the remains, scientific experts of the Home office and the local police began investigating the various wrap- pings in which the remains had been found. One parcel had an inner wrapping of a sheet of newspaper. Though it was blood- stained and torn, the print was partially readable, It had come from the issue of a Sunday paper for September 15th, 1935, exactly a fortnight before Miss Johnson's discovery. In the editor's office in Man- chester detectives asked whether the page could tell a more defin- ite story. They were lucky, for the murderer had been careless, though his carelessness could be explained. He could not knew that most national papers pub- lish a slip page. One page varies according to the area where it will circulate. Of all the 32 pages in that Sunday issue the killer had chosen the slip page. "This page, gentlemen, was circulated only in the Lancaster area," said the editor. "It would have been impossible to purchase it anywhere else." Several days before, one of the most popular and flourishing doe - tors in Lancaster, Dr. Buck Rux- ton, had arrived at the police station and asked the police to help find his wife, who had left him. Discreet, routine inquiries re. vealed that the doctor's real name was Bukhtyar Rustamji Hakim, but the change had been formally made and was an under- standable simplification for )Sng- lish people. Patients had noth- ing but good to say about the 36 -year-old Parsee's care and skill, but neighbours' gossip gave rather disturbing news. They agreed that Mrs. Ruxton had dis- appeared, but they also believed that their children's nurse, Mary Rogerson, had disappeared, too, At the local newsagents a de- tective -constable asked what Sunday newspaper 'was deliver- ed to the Ruxton household. It was the same one as that from which the slip edition sheet had been found in the ravine. It was ail very well to suspect that the disappearance of two women from Lancaster was con- nected with the discovery of hu- man remains a fortnight later and more than a hundred miles away. To turn suspicion into certainty the remains would have to be identified. When the police put this t0 the experts there began a recon- struction which has been des- cribed to every detective during his training since that time, both in Great Britain and abroad. Piece by piece the bodies were reconstructed. The missing gaps were filled with moulding clay, every curve and size being care- fully calculated from anatomical tables. After weeks of work they had two complete bodies. These bodies were photographed and the prints were enlargedto life- size. To make absulutely sure that the enlargements were of the correct size, Mrs. Ruxton's tiara was used for comparison. Po lice were able to provide a snap- shot in which Mrs, Ruxton was wearing that self -same tiara, and this photograph, also enlarged to life-size, matched exactly the photograph of the manufactured life-size body. When Dr. Ruxton was arrested careful examination was made of his house, for it was the po- lice theory that he had murdered the two women on the Sunday, drained the blood from them, dismembered the bodies, and parcelled them up. Here the brilliance of the kil- ler thwarted the skill of science. There had been many visitors to the house on the Sunday, and every day afterwards. Apart from some vague details about a bloodstained carpet and an un- usually fierce fire on a mild day in early autumn, they had seen nothing suspicious, and the po- lice had great difficulty in finding sufficient proof. Yet, like all murderers, he un- derestimated the forces of the law. Ile spent hours on elimin- ating every mark of identifica- tion, and science stili produced two complete and life -like em- gies. He chose a lonely area to hide the remains, but he used a piece of newspaper which might as well have had his address on it. He went to the gallows. After- wards a confession was publish- ed in which he admitted killing the nurse because she had seen him murder his wife, whom he suspected of infidelity. Varied Fare For Theatre Patrons After the run of the Emlyn Williams' drama, THE LIGHT OF HEART, the Crest Theatre in Toronto turns again to lighter fare. Despite its title, LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S "CRIME," which will be soon for the first time in Canada (on February 18th), is a comedy. It is adapted from the short story of the same name by Oscar Wilde and the play deals with an earnest young man, Lord Arthur Cavile, who, as he has been told by a hand -reader that he will. com- mit murder, decides that -he had better get it over with quickly before he gets married and set- tles down. Accordingly, ;he in- vites all his potential victims — (his relatives, needless t0 say) to tea -- and this is the setting of the play. The part will be play- ed by Murray Davis and the part of his twin brother who aids and abets him, by Donald Davis. This will be the first time that these two Canadian actor -manager brothers who are operating the Crest Theatre will have played as brothers on the stage. Heading the ladies will be Mary Laura Wood and Betty Leighton. Also making his first appearance in the company as an actor is John Blatchley, the director of RICHARD Off' BOR- DEATJX and PHILADELPHIA STORY. Blatehley, who off- stage sports an impressive black beard, persuaded his co-director, Pierre Lefevre, to let him play the part of Herr Winklehoff, "a bearded German anarchist" so the Biatchley board Is safe for the m0inent, In the following presentation these two young men switch places once again. Blatehley di- rects and Lefevre becomes an actor. This is in the Crest pre- sentation of Strindberg's, MISS JULIE, which will open on March 2nd, MISS JULIE will be played by Barbara Chilcott and this will be a field day for the ladies of the company for the play is to. be proceeded by, SORRY WRONG NUMBER, the famous, "telephone thriller" in which Betty Leighton will play the Agnes Moorhead part. The combination of these°two power- ful plays will, it Is hoped, also provide a field -day for those who like 'strong neat' for their theatre fare. The following play will again be a comedy. ESCAPADE, by Roger McDougall, a play which flopped in New York but is One of London's biggest comedy hits -- it has been running for near- ly two years. McDougall is one of England's most important young playwrights. A Scot, with a style not unlike that of the late James Bridle, he has had several successes, including, "TO DOROTHY A SON" AND "TH)9 GENTLE GUNMAN," and also the Alec Guiness film, "THIE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT." "ESCAPE" is in a similar vein, a rollicking comedy with a lot of serious thought behind the laughs. The leading part, which is played in London by film star, Nigel Patrick, goes at the Crest to Max Helpmann. Drive With � e Care aaa+ 'Here, Honey, we can cite it all in one operation:" Trying It For Size — With Vice President Nixon an interested spec- tator, Mrs. Richard Nixon tries on the sarong given to her by Elizabeth Choy, only woman member of the Singapore legislative council. 'AND YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT TRAFFIC PROBLEMS' Construction of roads in Kenya's Royal National Park has one main problem. The animals In the park don't assist in road de- velopment and some seem to re- sent human interference, as shown in these pictures taken for the International Road Fe- deration. Zebras and 'giraffes have been known to cross the roads in herds, and hold up all traffic for hours. Then there is the lioness who seems to have grown very fond of highways, creating a hazard should any motorist decide to leave his car. Park officials believe the ani- mals block traffic because of a natural .tendency to block any- thing that is offensive to them. The scent of tires, gas and oil presumably brings the animals to the roads, Heedless of any traffic in the vicinity, these zebras casually cross the road. There's no telling who you'll meet while driving In the Royal National Park, so it's better to take it easy and go slow, With a lioness stalking the road, motorists would be wise to stay In their note&'r1 - •ohat sign in background cautions them.