HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1952-12-25, Page 6PoIsm Pen Letters
reckers Of Lives . p
It looks like any other letter
the postman chaps through your
letter -box. You open it and begin
1 read. You are shocked; your
blood runs cold . . and your
soled is poisoned with suspicions
/on never harboured before.
That is the anonymous poison-
pen letter, sometimes the slayer
of innocent lives, which curses
Our social life from time to time.
The Northamptonshire village of
l{rehester has, recently been hav-
ing a second close of it. Scurri-
lous, obscene, it descended on
fourteen people there --•• mostly
villagers dreaded the postman's
knock,
What makes people write such
'fetters? It may be insanity, a
perverted "moral" sense which
makes them see evil where none
exists, a bitter jealousy of some-
thing their own narrow lives
lack, a morbid desire for revenge
for some imagined hurt, even the
hope of renewing a broken as-
sociation writes Arnold Wareing
in Tit -Bits."
At Bristol Assizes, some years
ago, a married man was jailed
for three months after pleading
guilty to publishing defamatory
;libels concerning a single wo-
man whom the prosecuting conn-
ed described as "of quite un-
blemished character." Some of
the letters he had sent to her,
some to other people; and for
ra time she herself was even sus-
pected of having written them!
Occasional Kiss
The man's own counsel said
that he met her as a member of
a Methodist church, and they
became friendly. As no woman
other than his wife had ever
taken an interest in him before,
be was flattered. The friendship
never went beyond an occasion-
al kiss, but eventually his wife
forbade her the house. It was
with the perverted idea of get-
ting the young woman to re-
sume the friendship that he had
written these letters!
One was to a married woman,
snaking allegations concerning
her husband and the girl; an-
other to a church official telling
hire that she was saying she re-
ceived love letters from him.
imagine the shock to her, an
earnest church worker, when
she and others were questioned
by the pastor at a vestry meet-
ing. Fortunately, the man had
the courage to confess and apolo-
gize. But the irony is that his
conduct was likely to have the
reverse effect he desired on any
normal -minded young woman.
Poison-penners caused an im-
mense amount of unhappiness
during the war. The Bishop of
Sheffiild was moved to protest
that "many soldiers have had
their lives made miserable by
Wicked .letters, often from rela-
tives or jealous neighbours, mak-
ing allegations which we fre-
quently find unfounded."
A young lance - corporal shot
himself after receiving a letter
Mating that his twenty -year-old
bride was living with another
man, when actually she was stay-
ing with her father, planning a
new home for them. He left a
letter which read: "I have made
a great mistake. I think this is
tibe finest way to finish it. I can-
not live without the thing that
Natters. I don't think I'll funk
It, although I want to live. Good-
bye. Bill."
His stricken young wife said:
'Tye loved no one else but him.
Some cruel fiend wrote to him
—and Bill had no suspicions till
he, received it."
When an R.A.S.C. man station-
ed in Northern Ireland was
larged in a London police court
with murdering his young bride
whiles on leave, the Director of
Public Prosecutions said: "This
girl's death appears to have been
caused by anonymous letters.
She was a perfectly honest girl."
He had received, the soldier
stated, a number of letters mak-
ing accusations against her. When
he told her, she denied them.
The night before the tragedy his
mother told her she was "no
good," and there was a quarrel.
The next day, before returning
to his unit, he told his wife
he expected her to "play the
game" or he would shoot her.
She said she had always been
faithful to him and he would
never regret marrying her.
"I then picked up my rifle and
put five cartridges in it, I point-
ed the rifle at her side, and be-
fore I knew what I was doing
I fired a shot at her," he said.
Think of the tragedy wrought
in those two young lives by these
foul, smear -letters. The writer
of them should have been in the
dock rather than the haste, mis-
guided soldier.
The gloating vindictiveness of
some poison-penners is beyond
belief. A sixteen -year. olide girl
was driven from her Iwich
home by letters from , other
girls signing themselves "1"The
Gang." One said: "We are l going
to make your life a hell.. It will
be fun watching you."
What a distorted idea of "fun!"
In a Wiltshire case, letters to
a husband were written in illi-
terate language, deliberately cho-
sen, and in disguised handwriting
to convey the impression that
they were from a villager.
One read: "She comes down to
village got up that ridiculous
and vulgar with er posh dress
and nakedness for orl the men
to talk dirty talk about her,
which doant surprise nobody
knowin what she is." Another:
"Sir, whole vilage pities you but
ols you in great contempt to al-
low a low creature like the old
bit do say she wore fool to
marry you as you be not nearly
so rich as she did think."
What sort of mind could labori-
ously concoct such letters to
harm the union of a man and
woman?
At Every Social Level
When a sixty -year-old baronet
was charged at Nairobi with hav-
ing shot dead. at the wheel of
his car Lord Erroll, member of
the Kenya Legislature and High
Constable of Scotland—a charge,
vehemently denied, on which he
was acquitted he was alleged
to have stated to the police that
he received three anonymous let-
ters at the Muthaiga Club.
"Do you know your wife and
Lord Erroll have been staying
at Carberry's house at Nyeri to-
gether?" Another, received per-
haps only the day before: "There
is no fool like an old fool. What
are you going to do about it?"
So even the outskirts of Empire
are not immune from the pest
which afflicts every social level
at home, from society to subur-
bia and village.
It is rampant in foreign coun-
tries too. Last year a series of
poison -letters drove Mme, Yyon-
Chevalier to kill her husband,
Dr. Pierre Chevallier, a member
of the French Government. At
O r l e a n s, scandalmongers had
hinted to her that his long ab-
sences from home were not due,
as he claimed, to political en-
gagements, but to intrigues with
another woman. At home with
her two children, she ignored
them.. Then the insidious letters
began to arrive.
"Find out what your husband
does when he is not sleeping at
Faster Than Sound—Artist's sketch, above, is the first published
rrepresentation of the Convair F-102, which, upon completion,
is expected to be the U.S. Air Force's first truly supersonic inter -
(ceptor. According to Air Force Magazine, in which the drawing
first appeared, the delta -wing, single -seat, all-weather interceptor
will be under almost entirely automatic control. The pilot's chief
+duty will be to act as a monitor for the electronic flight and fire -
control equipment.
Safeguard for Charters—The huge combination elevator -safe,
above, is being installed at the National Archives Building in
Washington, D.C.; to protect the nation's most precious documents„
The Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, sealed in air -tight transparent envelopes will rest
in a helium -filled case on the table of the elevator. The table
can be lowered from viewing position in approximately one
minute, and sealed behind the massive five -ton doors of the
50 -ton bomb, fire, burglary and water resistant safe.
his Paris flat," they urged her.
On returning from the seaside
she tried to telephone him; but
a secretary said he was en-
gaged. She took the next train
to Paris and stayed in their
flat all night, hoping he would
return. But he never came. Back
home, exhausted and nervous,
she told her maid: "He was with
another woman—I know it now!"
Next day she bought the re-
volver which killed him. The
poison -letters had done their
work — and some at least, the
police thought, might have been
sent by political opponents.
There is only one thing to do
with poison -letters; ignore their
contents, take them at once to
anyone else implicated, and to the
police. Don't let their evil insinu-
ations rankle and fester in the
mind. If they are of any worth,
why is the writer ashamed to
disclose his or her identity?
The police usually spare no
pains to trace and trap the writer
and bring the scandal to an end.
Onlv when the poison is allowed
to do its diabolical work secretly
is tragedy likely to result.
Where Are Those Missing Crown Jewels?
Perhaps Mine -Detectors Will Find Them!
Will the approaching Corona-
tion of Queen Elizabeth be pre-
ceded by another quest for the
lost Crown Jewels? Shortly be-
fore the last Coronation, in 1937,
antiquarians reported, that they
were hot on the trail of part of
the regalia of King Charles I, '
and, although the treasure hunt
failed then, many: experts be.
Iieve that . a further intensive'
search might succees to -day.
The startling story began in
1646, when Charles 'I was being
taken to London as a prisoner.
During the journey from New-
castle the unhappy sovereign was
lodged for a time in the old man-
or house at Knaresborough, a
Yorkshire market town.
Here he was required 'to draw
up a list of his regalia, so that
the items might be checked when
he handed them over.
And historians have since
made the intriguing discovery
that the list omitted various valu-
able objects known to have been
among the Crown Jewels at that
time.
Coronation Relics
So the question arises — what
did King Charles do with them?
For nearly 300 years a tradition
has persisted that they were
taken away secretly by some of
his most trusted followers to wait
his expected release and return
to popularity.
Neither the .King nor his sup-
porters anticipated that he would
lose his head on the. execution
block, and belief is given to the
Knaresborough tradition by the
knowledge that. some articles
from the regalia d,d mysteriously
survive the Commonwealth.
Though Parliament ordered the
complete destruction of t h e
Crown Jewels, certain objects
were spirited eway.
The Ampulla, a vessel for hold-
ing holy oil at coronations, was
somehow surreptitiously carried
off before it could be broken up,
and was brought out again when
Charles II was crowned. It is the
oldest piece of the present Coro-
nation plate and will be used in
the ceremony at Westminster Ab-
bey next June
Many • single s t o n e s from
Charles I's regalia were also ac-
quired by ardent Royalists and
later incorporated into the new
regalia. So what is more likely,
ask antiquarians, than that the
Martyred Monarch arranged for
part of his Crown Jewels to be
hidden until the arrival of the
more propitious time; which he
expected? He was an astute
sovereign in some ways, and 11
is hardly likely that he relin-
quished the whole of his'regalia.
Parchment Map
But this is only the first chap-
ter in the story. In. 1936 some
members of the Yorkshire Arch-
aeological Society made the start-
ling announcement that there ex-
isted an old map showing where
a number of the glittering arti-
cles were hidden! Drawn on
parchment, it was said to have
been found among a collection of
oddments bought for a few shil-
;liragsat a sale in Knaresborough
'market place fifty years earlier.
It showed a rough outline of
Knaresborough: Castle, and ac-
cording to thi' remarkable docu-
ment the vanished items had
been put down the castle well.
The castle was made uninhabit-
able by the Roundheads, how-
ever, and they did the job so
thoroughly that the site of the
well was completely obliterated.
The search for the map reveal-
ing its location thus became vi-
tal, and sixteen years ago the
quest was taken up in earnest.
The original finder had made no
use of it, had merely shown it
to some of his friends, and after
his death it had disappeared.
Nevertheless, the trail was fol-
lowed with the help of relatives
of the finder, among whom his
effects had been distributed. The
trail led from Yorkshire to other
parts of the country- before
petering out in Manchester.
Some of the experts who un-
dertook the search are now dead.
But they were so certain of the
authenticity of the map that they
spent many hours and not a lit-
tle money on the treasure hunt.
st Who invented
• The Automobile?
The scholar can go back any
distance he pleases in the search
(for the first automibie). Few
reach farther into history than
Homer's Iliad. To quote the Pope
translation:
That day no common task his
(Vulcan) labour claim'd;
Full twenty tripods for his
hall he framed,
That, placed on living wheels
of massy gold,
(Wondrous to tell) instinct
with spirit roll'd.
From place to place, around
the blest abodes,
Self -moved, obedient to the
beck of gods.
Unfortunately Homer does
not tell us how Vulacn's tricycles
were powered, but it is safe to
assume that they, too, ran on
steam. Leonardo da Vinci had
plans for a sort of automobile in
the fifteenth century, It was cere
tainly not designed to run on
gasoline. The Dutch saw a wind
carriage running at The Hague
in 1600, a two -master with
square sails and a passenger
capacity of 28—under which
load it did about 20 miles per
hour. A Frenchman named Du
Qu.et designed a windmill car in
1714, and a Swiss clergyman. J.
H. Genevois, had a similar
scheme on paper in 1760... .
But if we restrict ourselves,
as we must, to an internal-com-
bustion engine powering a road-.
able passenger -carrying vehicle
then the Frenchman Etienne Le-
noir must be conceded a place
of honor, for he built such a
vehicle in the year of 1862 and
ran it from Paris to Joinville-
le-Pont. . He did not use a
liquid fuel. although his car was
in other essentials entirely
qualified.
The earliest roadable vehicle
powered by an internal-com-
bustion engine running on pet-
roleum fuel electrically ignited
appears to have been that first
run by the German-born Aus-
trian, Siegfried Marcus, in 1865,
and if one man can be consi-
dered the absolute inventor of
the gasoline automobile, Marcus
is probably the man. His claim
suffers in one particular when
compared with those of Benz and
Daimler: Marcus was little in-
terested in the automobile, and
although his experiments with
it extended over a period of more
than ten years, he never pressed
onward, and was in fact almost
totally indifferent, if not hos-
tile, to suggestions that he mar-
ket the car.
Gottlieb Daimler and Karl
Benz are most frequently credit-
ed with the first production
o f internal -combustion -engined
automobiles basically as we
know them today... .
And what of America? Henry
Ford did riot, then; who after
all invent • the automibile? No.
Mr. Ford did not invent it, al-
though his contribution was mas-
sive and earth -shaking: Henry
Ford saw, before anyone else
came close to seeing it, that the
Subterranean Passage
Since that time further discov-
eries have been made which lend
additional colour to the tradition
of Knaresborough Castle. Exca-
vations have revealed hitherto
unknown features of the fortress.
For instance, archaeologists
have found a subterranean pas-
sage leading under the former
courtyard. This has raised hopes
that the well may ultimately be
located, even without the help
of the missing map.
Now it has been suggested that
electrical detector devices, like
those used in probing mine-
fields during the war, might help
to wrest the royal treasure from
its secret place in this Yorkshire
stronghold.
It might be a fitting sequel to
a 300 -year-old mystery if the lost
Crown Jewels were found before
the Coronation next year.
automobile should logically he
developed in the direction of
mass transportation. . . Many
others made great contributions:.
King, Alexander, Winton, James
Packard, Elwood Haynes, the
Apperson brothers.
But in the matter of the very
first American gasoline automo-
bile the Duryea brothers, Charlet
and Frank, have the soundest
claim.—From "The Kings of the
Road," by Iden W, Purdy.
They Got Tough With
The Drunk Drivers
A ;federal judge in the Mid-
west, former Gov. Luther W.
Youngdahl of Minnesota this
week called the American wha,
drives ?his automobile while ha
is under the influence of alco-
hol "as great a menace to
gidnity of human life as com-
munism."
Judge Youngdahl went fur-
ther, stating that the nation'at
traffic safety record could be
"revolutionized overnight" with
the saving of thousands of hu,.
man lives if sufficiently stiff pen-
alties, including license revoca-
tion, were assessed against the
drunken driver and his compan-
ion -menaces to life and limb, the
reckless driver and the speeder,
Length of the revocation period
would vary according to the
seriousness of the offense.
There is no doubt that Judge
Youngdahl's suggestion makes
sense. The only question is
whether the suggested program
goes far enough, or whether a
mandatory jail term should be
included.
Every Utahn remembers the
furor a couple of years back
stirred by a Salt Lake City
judge's policy of jailing all per-
sons found driving without an
unexpired Utah driver's license.
There was a veritable tempest
of argument over the justice of
meting out a five-day jail sen-
tence for what was considered a
comparatively " minor" offense
by some people. That question
aside, however, there was no ar-
gument at all over the EFFEC-
TIVENESS of the program.
More people came into the
state drivers' license bureaus in
a week or two than had appeared
in"a period of years. Many peo-
ple who had knowingly driven
for months or years without a
drivers' license, confident that
they could "get by," rushed in
to take the prescribed test and
obtain a proper license.
H. L. Leathern, head of the
drivers license division,. was
moved to speculate on the effect
of a similar program, with ap-
propriately stiffer penalties, dir-
ected at the Most dangerous .of
motoring sins—drunken and
reckless driving, speeding and to
"Too many .people can pay a
fine without it hurtingtoo
much," he said. "Young people,
who are some of •our worst of-
fenders, are not touched by a
fine: their .parents , pay it, But
a jail sentence—a jail sentence
without . the option of a fine --
means something' to everyone..I
think our drivers who get• care-
less about their driving habits or
about mixing alcohol and driv-
ing would take a different at-'
titude if they KNEW a jail sen-
tence would face them if they
were caught."
There was considerable differ-
ence of opiniion over putting
people in jail for failure to have
a license, but there should be
none over the question of jail- •
ing the drivers who endanger-
ing the lives of everyone on the
highway. If such a program
were thoroughly and consistent-
ly enforced, it would surely be
effective, and with the • lives -of
our citizens at stake, it is surely
worth a try.—Deseret News and -
Telegram (Salt Lake)
t irali'PgA�i 3�Jf1p�}yc'
Icing Ike's Cake—Dabbing finishing touches to his five -by -three -foot -square modelof the United,
States Capitol Building, French Riviera pastry specialist, Gino Bastard:, of Nice, France, gets it
ready to present to President -Elect Dwight Eisenhower. Bastardi began work on the cake two
months ago. He has made edible models of other structures including the Eiffel Tower.