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The Brussels Post, 1960-05-05, Page 5p4 .1.. ;, • ovt e • 010- z h"'": 1•A •A',N se, ee gee, eeee FIVE FIREMEN INJURED..— Fire, 'punctuated by explosions, raged out of control through e block-long industrial building. Clifton, Feb, 17, razing lib* fivetelory building and in- luring flee -firemen; Some 600 workers In three firms In the building were evacuated without injury when the fire broke *et, and the explosions later forced the evacuation of all buildings In the area. feeilefeZe., AtNtil BOW EsT t i .Ardine Plants. used record Airmen Cliteb fron 0iitth i P data tin the eXpilaelen of an atomic boMb In the Sahatee etreelereseei,„... ,eeeeeeleeetreere atop* Sandals Chi, To Killer Screaming with horror, Tavri, the duskily beautiful hetutegirl, dropped the breakfast tray end *tared aghast at the eight of Mn, Allen, her employer, His 'body brutally stabbed, way sprawled $ the foot of the bed When helpers arrived they went through the house Nfre Allen was found in the lunge flattered and stebbed, she lay spreadeagled On the thter. She must have triad to reach the 'phone to summon help when her husband's killer struck. Ocean Island, in the Gilbert and Ellice grenp„ whore this tragedy was enacted e n Apr il 28th, 1949, has a white popula, • tion only because of Its phos- phate, The phosphate company manager put a guard on the house and radioed Australia for expert assistance. Three experienced Brisbane detectives, Senior Sergeant T, Martin Sergeant C. Smith, and Detective Constable J, Hamilton, intercepted the phosphate corn- pany's steamer Edenbank Of the Queensland coast and travelled in the ship to Ocean Island. During the ten days before the detectives' arrival, Ocean. Island lived in a state of tension. Of the total population of 1,350 only 100 were Europeans. One man en the• island — white or dark- skinned — was a vicious killer. He could not escape. The near- est Island was Nauri, 170 miles away, No ships or 'planes called at Ocean Island, and every canoe was accounted for, At night the Europeans locked themselves into their homes and slept with revolvers under their pillows. Social life had come to a standstill and everybody was looking suspiciously at his neigh- bour. The Aliens Were buried on the island after a keen amateur photographer had taken dozens of shots of them and a thorough medical examination had been conducted by the island's doctor. When the Edenbank arrived, fenior Sergeant Martin ordered-- it to be anchored offshore, with constant guard to prevent the murderer boarding it and stow- ing away. Sergeant Smith, the finger- print expert, found the print of Of a left and right palm and thumb on the window-sill of the Aliens' bedroom, He deduced that they had been made by the murderer climbing into the room. The only other clue was the imprint of a rope sandal in dirt spilled from a flower-pbt near where the body of Mrs. Allen was found. Gilbert Islanders wore rope sandals. Convinced that the prints would identify the killer, Sen- ior Sergeant Martin ordered that every person on the island over the age of fourteen must have his fingerprints taken. This was the first time in history that an entire population had been checked in this way. The job took a week and in the end the police had 18,432 im- pressions. After days of sorting and indexing, Sergeant Smith found prints to match those on the window-sill. They were those of a Chinese coolie, Tai Shek, aged twenty-eight, a for- mer houseboy of the Aliens. Tai Shek said that if the prints, were his they were old ones. M he had worked in the house he Certainly had a point, But Tauri, the house girl, disproved this atoriy. She said that she had wiped the sill clean only a few hours before the party Of April 25tTte police then took Tai $hek's hut to pieces and subject- ed every item In It to scientific test, Of everybody on that island, the Chinese suspect was the ealmest, He was so philosophical and unworried that, Ipany of the Europeans said that he eQUid not be a murderei, A pair of clean socks in Tai Sheit's but showed traces of hu- man' blood, but be said that he had had cuts in his legs, al- though a medical examination found no traces of any cut, Then, through clever question- ing, Senior Sergeant Martin diS- covered that Tat. Shek sometimes wore rope sandals. He had not worn them since the murders, The coolie was charged with the offence, A magistrate from Nauru found that he had a case to answer and ordered him to stand trial at the next sitting of the Criminal Court on Ocean Island. Authority, realizing that the proceedings could drag on indefinitely, ordered that Tat Sshek be taken to Fiji for trial before the Supreme Court. In one way this was a good move, because life on Ocean Island could not return to nor- mal until Tel Shek was tried. The Fiji judge, however, ruled that all the preliminary hearings were irregular. He said that ac- cording to the law lie could only discharge Tel Shek, The Chinese wandered free about Suva, the capital of Fiji, He made a few attempts to escape secretly, but the Fiji police pre- vented him, Tai -Melt never knew it, but he was the victim of planned pas- sive persecution. The police wanted him to take the course that he ultimately did. He asked to be returned to Ocean Island, This was a bad mistake. Another Phosphate Commission ship, Astona, was diverted to Suva and took Tat Shek to Ocean Island, As he stepped ashore the thorough Queensland police re-arrested him. This automatically erased legal technicalities and the trial could now proceed. Back in Suva he stood trial before five assessors, the form of jury system in practice in Fiji, The Queensland police proved that Tat Shek had entered the house naked, committed the mur- ders, then walked into the surf to wash off the blood that had spurted on him. Oddly enough, he had forgotten to take off his socks and sandals, The police claimed that Tat Shek harboured a vague resent- ment aginst Mr. Allen for re- placing him with another house- boy. He intended to attack Allen only, but, when. Mrs. Allen woke up and tried to raise the alarm he killed her, too. All that the defence could do was to try to prove that the crime was not premeditated, that Tai Shek had been of unsound mind when he committed the crime. But every resident of Ocean Island• could testify that Tai Shek was the sanest person in the little community during the tension .of those weeks, He was hanged in Suva. The cost of the investigation was $35,000; the trial coat an- other$15,000. To bring their man to justice the Brisbane detectives had travelled 15,000 miles and spent three months on the case, which in years to come is likely to be famous in the annals of crime. On Ocean Island the affair will be remembered for as long as Europeans remain there. They call it the "time of terror." Drama Of Princess And Footman At a staff ball at Buckingham Palace a footman danced with Princess Margaret and shyly con- fessed his admiration for her. In- deed, he admitted, he had writ- ten poems in her honour .. . and " then and there he recited a line or two he knew by heart. The Princes gravely thanked him and the chanting incident was closed, Yet when Princess Margaret's grandmother, Queen Mary, heard the story she re- called a similar incident of her youth that had disastrous con- sequences. • In those days all the German courts of central Europe were so stiff and pompous that the men seemed like starched dum- mies in their uniforms — and the women kept their hearts well encased in whalebone cor- setry, No court was maintained with more formal rigour than the prince-dom of New Strelitz in north-east Germany. It was only when lovely Princess May — later our Queen Mary — arrived for a visit to her cousins that the courtiers would unbend and become rather more than a set of stiff clockwork figures. In her grand palace, amid this rigid etiquette, the hereditary Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Streltitz played patience and lit- tle dreamed that her lovely eighteen-year-old daughter, Princess Marie, was dancing ro- mantically with a young foot- man . . . alone in the dusk. The footman opened the ciYs- tal-thandled doors in the Palace when guests of exalted rank call- ed on the Duchess, Frank Hecht had served the Duchess Eliza- beth faithfully for seven years, yet she could not have recog- nized him out of livery and did not even know his name. But the handsome fellow had a very different effect on her daughter,' Princess Marie. He occasionally brought the after- noon, tea when she was sitting with her governess and the petite, inexeperineced princess gazed at him with fascination. Among other duties the royal footmen also carried the freshly- lit oil-lamps into every room at dusk. It would have been wiser if the maidihad undertaken this chore in the bedrooms. 'Yet it- seemed untninkable that a lowly maid should be allowed to bring light to a princess. Besides, white-whiskered Mane Elchutzer had known Princess Marie and her younger sister, Princess Jutta, from babyhood. When the princesses were in bed and he came to their rooms to remove the lamps, to prevent danger of fire, he resembled Santa Claus as he bade them good-night. When old. Hans retired, young Franz. Hecht took over as a mat- ter of course. The princesses paid him no more attention than if he were lighting the lamps in the streets butaide. Then one evening he accident- ally discovered Princess Marie in dishabille and she could not understand' the blush she felt mantling her cheeks, She was so Innocent that she babies that storks brought babies and.eo she was rather afraid of the storks She saw perched On Geririan Chinuley. tops.• In fact, when she heard that her English cousin, May, Was married and had „a baby, she thought it "very odd" because krieW there were rio storks in Eriglatidr Encased like pearls in the gilt and 'crystal of the court, both princesses Were 'utterly ignotent Of life — and Franz Hecht fell Overwhelmingly lit dove With Princess Marie. Circtinistandet tighteeed the chain of ardour. Perhaps his respectful "Good-night" was cap- ped by venturing a little joke and a few moments of friendly conversation changed through the summer to tender affection. Perhaps when he turned down the lamp, the Princess gaily pre- tended to be afraid of the dark. He touched her hand and then, with thudding heart, he took the Princess in his arms. She felt powerless as he gazed at her with burning eyes. Later, when the German Kaiser tried to explain the scandal, there was a theory that Princess Marie had been hypnotized. However it happened, the foot- man and the princess were pri- soners of love. Sometimes the two would steal out of the pal- ace and rapturously enjoy the laughter and music of a wine- garden, No one recognized the Prin- cess, for it was unthinkable that she should be there at all, '. Yet gradually an insidious Whisper spread. The Grand Duchess' Elizabeth gazed at her daughter in the Palace one mor- ning in puzzlement. The fashions of the day were unrevealing but at last the Duchess could dis- guise the truth from herself no longer. Her unmarried daughter was about to have a child, White-faced and trembling now that the truth was out, Franz Hect confessed to his guilt. The stricken Grand Duke de- vised the only plan that he thought could repair the shatter- ed pomp of the palace. The Prin- cess could marry the footman if she were afterwards stripped of her titles. This would at least save the family name, but then Hecht made an appalling admission. It was impossible to marry the Princess, he explained, because he was married already, And in one of the cobbled back-streets of Strelitz court officials found his wife and two children, Hecht was summarily dismiss- ed without a character. Good- looking and adaptable, he promptly applied for a post with - another household and his pros- pective employees wrote to the Master of the Household to ask why he had left. They were told he had been dismissed for stealing. In a fury Hecht took the next train to Ber- lin and consulted a lawyer, That 'gentleman astutely suggested proceedings for slander , . . and next day the Strelits /mends! was front page news. Riding home from her Dia- mond Jubilee procession, even Queen Victoria heard hints of the scandal from her daughter. "You speak of something dread- ful and then refuse to say any- thing but go on and on," eh* complained bitterly in a letter.• When she ,at last heard the story, Queen Victoria was con- vinCed that Marie had been drugged, Only drugs, the Queen declared, could explain away such incredible royal. behaviour. Yet more incredible still was the parental behaviour of the Grand Duke and Duchess of New Strelitz. Like the betrayed cot,, tage, girl of melodrama, they turned their daughter out of the house. Marie was distraught and only one good angel came to her Aid. This was none other than our OW1i good'Queen Mary, She invited Marie to stay with het' iii Menton, Was to he seen driving'with her daily, boldly re- fused :invitations tuiless her cousin was' included and atiotaaa. fully ea* her rehabiliteted In seeiety. In duo course Marie made a ,Happy marriage and beedite Princess of ,Lippe Bieeteefeid, Today one of the eoutiger mete, here of her faintly is known to us all , , the 011'10, smiling. Frieda Betel-teed of the Netherlands. .0011# Dust, In A Utah • Creek The. first wagon train which entered the valley in the follow ing spring (1850) was a note- worthy little .caravan,, ;;,caving. !Salt Wee in April they fented fresh pasturage along. the. ,baalts of the. Humboldt River, .and. their eattle suffered little, .though the y .canvaptappod . wagons Were 0440 elowly over an untried, track, es the ,beaten trail was flooded by the swollen river. The party were nearly all Mormons, led by Thomas Qrr, still living •(Mie, a hale, clear- eyed old man,. at 'Duncan's Mills, Sonoma. County, California. They y ter a an orderly if .somewhat stolid company, obeying orders without questioning why, draw- ing up their =pas at night- fall in a circle, and sleeping tin, der the eye of their 'watchman as composedly. as sheep about their shepherd. At the sink of the Humboldt, in sight of the snow-capped Si- ems, the wall of the promised land, .even this cool tempered, wellefed caravan began to has- ten their steps, Some of the youngest and best mounted men rode forward rapidly to make the first trial of the mountain passes, and the main body fol- lowed by crossing the 40-Mile desert and ascending the valley of the Carson, • On the 15th day of May they halted for a few hours, at noon, beside a little creek flowing down from the range of hills Which bounded the valley on the east, The cattle were turned loose to graze among the sage brush and the women of the party prepared the simple din- ner of bacon and potatoes, William Prouse, a young Mer-. mon, meanwhile picked up a tin milk-pane and going down to the edge of the c.r e elt began washing the surface dirt. ,After a few minutes he returned and showed his companions a few glittering specks on the bottom of the. pan. The specks were. gold dust, worth intrinsically only a few cents, thrown care- lessly aside ..a few moments la- ter, but they were then trans- his troupe were booked for a long return engagement at Tres- tles. — From NEWSWEEK .ferreed inks 04444 entl 444,' NI seed, for this pinch, of .44* was positive evidence of **log! istence of 6914e in the deserts Pt. Western Utah, end that 0.604 point once etiVen, the exploratlot end development of the mine*, resources of the land were Awed, The visionary 9 et P o s t 0.e would '10140 turn htsback the Itnown riches of the Oat, ferniest plains to wander ,over the alkaline sloughs. and 01,4t7' plairi, of the unknown territ4r$1 the wilderness north, stesti.sontlif and west would be searched With greedy eyes, and the threads Of. gold would be traced up 00, Canon water-courses until the fountainheads were reached and the hidden treasures of th mountains were brought to light, -- From "Comstock Mining and Miners," by Eliot Lord. A reprint of the 180 edition, Intro"- duction by David F. Myrick. Ghosts Walk. Where Gloom Is Deepest? If ghosts, ghouls, and were- wolves have a spiritual home, it is most likely to be among the gorse and sedgernarsh of gloomy Lunebtire Heath, in rain-,soaked North Germany. gore, since the Dark Ages, quaking peasant§ have been terrorized by every aberration in demonology; there too, the Nazis established d; Beim concentration camp, where 70,000 persons were foul- ly done to death, Last month, the townsfolk of Luneburg, a trading centre oft the heath since it was found- ed in 956, were convinced that one of their ghosts had returned to disturb their peace, Night after night, they were kept awake by fear of a Feuerteufel (fire-devil), Eleven times since last October, incendiary fires itt Luneburg's Gothic, Renaissance, and baroque buildings had caused nearly $1 million worth of damage, The only suspect was one Her.. bert Rademacher, a wild-eyed youngster caught carrying a gas pistol, but police admitted that he might not be their man, "If another fire breaks out," one of the officers said, "we'll, have to go beck to chasing ghosts," Peering out of their windows across the hagriddets heathLuneburg's residents shier. ered — and waited. Good Act But Slipped At Finish To the guards at Tresnes pris- on, 7 miles south of Paris, 38- year-old Jean-Louis Andries seemed a model prisoner. They knew that a string of armed holdups had led to his ten-year term at Fresnes. But whenever the night-shift jailers passed his ground-floor Cell No, 37 they saw Andries lying peacefully in bed, occasionally stirring in his sleep. Or that's what they thought they saw. In fact, Andries, a bit- part actor before he took up crime, was staging an elaborate hoax. He had molded a plaster cast of his own head, darkened it with charcoal, wigged it with his own hair, and attached to it a torso-like heap of old clothes. To achieve those-realistic stir- rings, be had bored holes in the ceiling of his cell and passed up a series of threads to three con- federates, who gave the dummy an occassional twitch, Mean- while, Andries himself had cut through the floor to the cellar of the jail and was digging his way to freedom, In two months, Andries tun- neled 40 feet to a point beyond the prison wall. Then, at 3 o'clock on the morning of Feb. 5, he and four other convicts wriggled out of the tunnel and vanished. Then, the hunt was on. Police caught Alain. Chopin, 21, hiding under a bed at his grandmother's house. Another, Jean-Claude Drouet, 35, headed for his parents' apartment. A policeman spotted him coming out of the subway, and grabbed him. But Jean-Louis Andries and his buddy, Andre Bazin, 26, led the cops a merrier dance. They stole a car, robbed two stores and stocked up on such long-lost treasures as a pistol, cham- pagne, and even tickets for the French national lottery. Before . making his escape, Andries had hinted that, as an actor: "I know how to disguise myself as a wo- man." But he and Bazin were still in men's clothes when a suburban innkeeper recognized them and called police, And so, with only one fugi- tive still at large, the curtain' came down on Jean-Louis An- dras, little melodrama. He and GRIEF IN THE STREETS A San Francisco holds Joyce. Pearce as she kneels over her husband,• Jack, victim of a highway accident. ATOMIC BLOCKHOUSE — This Is the concrete station In Reggane, Algeria, where observers watched the first French atomic bomb tent in the Sahara,