IT'S OUT: THE FINAL PORTRAIT OF A GENIUS
Northcliffe
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JULY 18; 1959,
THIS WAS A TITAN: AND OF ALL HIS
No murderer was safe
from
Oscar
Heinrich
QUALITIES I PUT KINDNESS FIRST AS rayond the little town of dial the ginger verts filter fares, Ingy van dested
AS S Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, lay dying in August, 1922, his doctor made a note of his last whispered utterance: "I wish to be laid as near mother as possible at North Finchley, and I do not wish any- thing erect from the ground or any words except my name, the year-I-was- born, and this year, upon the stone.
"In The Times I should like a page reviewing my life-work by someone who really knows and a leading article by the best man available on the night."
In those two sentences, quoted by Reginald Pound and Geoffrey Harmsworth in their enOTINOUS, aplendid and completely do
Anitive biography of North- cliffo, there is summed up the whole essence of Northcliffe's life, with one element left out.
There is his astonishing, adoring love for his mother; there is his egotism, and there is
his unerring craftsmanship as a journalist,
The missing element is hls kindness.
men
of
He must have been one the most, steadily and generally who ever generius rich lived-generous, that is, with his money not in chilly, specia- cular, much-publicised "dona tions to charity, but in hidden, private personal benefactions.
Courage
I came across an example of this aspect of his character some years ago when I was writ- Ing the
By JOHN CONNELL
味 shaken kopi în a "tent-that had beeri S the Portland-San Francisco express roared bottom of the trouser jeg. Nor accomplices were
tied with fishing cord that Super detection work like this matched, escape him. Creases that,
exactly the ahreda
man.
WOR
Siskiyou, Oregon, three men crawled over the car he deduced, were caused by is all too common in fiction. But found on Hightower's knife. roofs to the engineer's cab.. Their leader rammed Jamming the trouser legs into in real life it still astonishes. a shotgun in trainman Sidney Bates's back.
"Stop the train, Climb down. And keep your hands up"."
HelpIcarly, Engineer Batca
with his fireman and brakeman stood by the mountainside track and watched-the-men dynamite the 'locked door of the mail car.
Suddenly, and inexplicably, the robbors panicked. They abandoned the loot, wheeled on the three trainmen
and shot them down et point-blank range. And escaped.
screamed.
The
Passengers conductor dashed to the tunnel telephone. Eventually the deputy shorit rode up in a blaze of glory.
his life like an extreme kind of Elementary
.
by
DEE WELLS
Edward Oncar. Heinrich maw 10!
2
After a lengthy examination, Heinrich reported:
"The overallà you rent TTLE were worn by a left-handed
To Heinrich, it was element
lumberjack accustomed to work- fascination and It owed its mino, That pride was never I was thirteen when North its fame to the mother, beside
ing around fir trees. He is a
cliffe died. But
for twenty whom her first-born wished to
white man between 31 and 24 cars of age, not over St. 10in. tall, and weighs about 105lb. six years I worked in Carmelite lie after his death.
She was of tough, indomitable Jlouse, on the newspaper which
brown hair, Glory that soon faded. For the Ho har medium married a was the foundation-stone of his Ulster stock, who wealth, fame and profcassunti feckless, exhibitionist English-murdering bandits had left only fair complexion, light eyebrows,
small hands and feet, and and political power.
man, who behaved throughout one clue.
rather fastidious in lifs persona! When I first went there,
habits....." Carmelite House was steeped in stage Irishman. the sense of Northcliffe, and 2
The show - off qualities in came from his father was filled with men who had Alfred worked with the Chief, from (what would that flatulent, Tom George, the head printer, briefless barrister think of the wrote Harmsworth Scholarships which to Charlie Nash, who about boxing, and claimed that endow him with an undeserved the building (a remarkable Immortality?), but the practical example of late-Victorian archi capacity, the drive, the courage and the edge of harshness from tecture at its most florid Icost functional with, nowadays, his mother. its own quast chan) had been Birth? put up around him.
and
Fleet Street in my youth was dominated as much by the myth
And the genius? If the some- what improbable theory that old
Not much of a clue, just pair of greasy, grimy, uiterly anonymous workman's overalls. The type that are manufactured by the million and sold every where
ary.
Analysed, the grease was fir pitch. Dust from 2 pocket proved-under micmscope to be fine particles of Douglas fir needles.
Oscar Heinrich high boots-boots that are worn
He proved that Hightower's a real by lumberjacks.
Crima dotection was his handwriting tallied on imper- Left-handed Helartch had life's work. Ile perfected it as tant points with that on the found the dust in a right-hand a selence, bhd carned the two rensom note.
Hightower went to prison for pocket. Only
OF CRIME CHEMIST left-handed THE
Ilfo:
And-oh, yes-Hightower lumberjack would work with his (Carrell, 18%.).' right side to the tree.
д
He objected
He took on every sort of case, teas by trade a baker, His weight? Again Heidelch When Father Heslin, parish had considered the height of priest in the small California. the suspender buckles. That town of Colina, was kidnapped and the fact that the overalls and murdered, Heinrich was the book reads an bizarrely as the
wore outsize determined their natural man to call in. owner's build.
Small handa habita?
sions.
Disappeared
Although Heinrich's
Sherlock Holmes,
Werd police
whodunit,
спус
called A
"Not I. Holmes acted on
it hunches. Hunches play ne part in my work..... My procedure
and
He scanned the ransom note, most contrived fastidious and said: "The man who wrote objected to being
wood this is a baker.” In among the
the Agnin shavings Heinrich had spotted a few. Angernall parings. Their astounded. But to Heinrich alze and the neataess with was obvious. which they had been clipped Ha had noted the florld is to reconstruct the crime by
the habits visualising last conclu capitals. That sexdpt was tought actions of the criminal. I do led him to these
in only mo school-the school
this by using the debris the where master bakers perfected criminal leaves behind.... No the art of cake decoration.
Later in the same case, Hein- rich asked to see a certain pen knife.
Heinrich pored over the knife in his slow, deliberate Under a microscope, he saw we criminologist of the century. tiny nicks in the blade. In each there was a shred of while he had figured in thousands of fluff. Magnifled thousand
cases, from arson to forgery to times, the fluff proved to be
rumi-running. His say-BQ had very long staple, cotton of a
convicted many ៦ criminal
had freed many and Innocent man.
This physical description was flashed up and down the West Coast, The hunt narrowed down to one Roy D'Autremont of Eugene, Oregon. He was all the things Heinrich had described, even to being a left handed lumberjack.
guess work is involved... .”
From the penollers boy with a flair for chemistry who had to aze of 12, go to work at the Heinrich rose gradually to world way fame
the outslanding
When he died in 1953, at 72,
And, strangely enought, Roy D'Autremont had disappeared. Dutifully the local police The single hair caught on
Four long years later, Roy special type,
This knife has cut white picked up the overalls. They button-it was medium brown. D'Autremont was found. In far- examined them closely. But Moreover, it was Caucasian hair off Ohio someone spotted his fishing cord," said Heinrich.
in can tell differing slightly
-cell picture on A WANTED The knife belonged to there isn't much you from a pair of overalls. The structure from Negro or Indian poster, and called the police. suspect named Hightower. hair. The hair's pith establish- Heinrich Was the police tossed them aside.
star the strength of two infinitesimal Then one of them had the ed the man's age.
After his cotton threads he was tried. prosecution witness. bright idea to send the overatis
felurich measured evidence was given, Roy For Heinrich's evidenco proved
his to a man named Heinrich. And from shoulder buckles the D'Autremoni and
two the kidnapped priest, had been
Height? biography of W. E Henley, the poet, who was an
as by the reality of Northcliffe. Harmsworth was the descendant ass about money matters and a
He was the first the Press bit of a sponger to boot.
lords, and I hope that it is not of a royal bastard were proved Alfred Harmsworth, who was imperilnent of me, writing in the true, it would reveal a quite
unexpected quality tracted by Henley'e courage and believe that as a journalist-be genes of the House of Hanover.
14 years his junior, was
of
craftsmanship, and In his last years settled a good many his debts.
After Henley dled in 1903, Harmsworth paid the rent of a flat overlooking Battersea Park for the poet's widew, and went in paying it until he himselt died 18 years later, and he was under no conceivable obligation to Mrs Henley,
His biography contains count There was a young writer on the Dally Mail named Twells Brex, who died untimely in 1920. Daring Brex's lust finess the Chief out with him day after day In his bedroom.
less similar stories.
'Devoted"
Evening Standard, to say that I
was by far the greatest.
He was not a nuncier; he was not a chartered accountant with ideas above his station; he was not halt as good a politician or diplomat as he fancied he was. Massive
But he was a superb news paperman, from his first childish effusions in his school magazine until he lay dying on the Duke of Devonshire's roof in Carllon Gardens.
This is one of the dominant aspects
of his complex and elusive character, and his magnificent and crowded career, which is very justly stressed in this biography.
It is a
massive, it belated,
After Brex's funeral North- monument, and it is worthy at cliffe sen! an instruction to its subject.
in the
Beyond saying that it is all about Northcliffe, from ancestry (Hampshire and that village off the Great West Road) and birth to death, I cannot possibly sum marise this truly
tremendous
book.
His only criticism of it woul have been that it is long-but not too long. Every page of it is intensely readable.
I happen myself to prefer the handsome, brave, bumptious and educated Ind who sketehily went off to the Midlands as editor of a bicycling journal, to the weighty potentate charming America, wrangling with Lloyd George and fussing more and more about his own health.
But who, in that boy in the eighties, could have seen the foreshadow of the Northclife of the 1914-10 war?
Carmelite House: "Will you Every British newspaper to Vanished soud Mrs Brex cheque for day, from The Times, which
£1,000, and please also see that he bought and saved from a Il is a wonderful story, No:- her late husband's salary is paid, sad ignoble end, to the Daily cliffe's. It will never be re til the end of the year," Mirror, which his brother, pented in the newspaper world She and her smail son stayed Harold, took over from him, and to which he gave so much. He at his country house Dr hla
the Daily Worker (I wonder was the child of his age and his guests for six weeks, and his, what he would have thought of class, and they are vanished telegram of greeting was wait that), bears Northelle's stamp In all my years of day-to-day ing for them when they arrived. refashioned, I will sumit, by
A letter followed which, sald
the hand of Beaverbrook. Mrs Brex, "broke down all my self-control"
I only hope that Lord
Beaverbrook will not have to wait close on forty years for n blographer, or blographers, to do him justice.
Northcliffe is that rarity, an excellent book written by a pair
journalism I wished that I had krown the Chief, who had exerted so profound and lasting an influence on my life and that of all my comrades.
Now that I have withdrawn, my wish has been fulfilled-by Mr Found and Mr Harmsworth. Don't, please, Mr Jones, Mr
Was it in knowledge of this particular episode or in con sideration of his continuous and overwhelming generosity L general that H. W. Wilson, the leader writer of the Daily Mail, of collaborators. Mr Pound, I Brown and Mr Robinson of wrote to him: "Who could help auspect, supplied the profession- Finchley, or Totteridge, or High being devoted to you? Who l skill, experience and intui Barnet, jet your clever son cannot but be proud to serve tion; Mr Harmoworth, the into Journalism. But, if he in- under you?"
unique family knowledge, which sists, give him-at once--North- is of the utmost importance, for eilffe; he will leafn much about
and himself newspapers, Northcliffo-though
• NORTHCLIFFE. By Reginald childless-was a member of a about the stuff of human great- Pound and Geoffrey Harms closely Inked and fascinating pess. worth, Cassell, 425,
dynasty.
new!
cven
go
more
-London Express` Stevica).
JACKYS DIARY
BY
JACKY MENDELSOHN AGE 32
tb
Last Night We went & Ate Supper in AreAL Resturant.
188
After You Sit down iN A RESTuran, they give you a Big Card That Tells WhATS COOK ing in The Kitchen, & Also how muCH THE Price costs.
MENU
Lamp CHOPS...$3.00 Veal Cuĭlass.....2,35 CLAMP Chowder..504 Stuffed Peasant... (Accordian To Size)
Formy Supper ordered 2 Razz-Berry Sunday with LOTS of Nuts Sprinklers
& WHIP GREAM.
On
Oscar Heinrich's life is four- star reading for anyone who likes occasionally to re-prove that crine-truth is still stranger than crime-Action.
---{London Express Service)..
AS Soon AS WE WENT in, a lady who
was Hiding in The CLOTHES CLOSET ShEAked our Stoled An other man's
COAT & HAT.
Mommy asked The Man for a TOMATO SUPrize.
BOOD
Daddy Wanted A Sudden Fried ChickEN
Only when it CAMe it DiDhT do Nothing, but just Laid There
No
NOISE.
7 Transistors Portable LIX75T $165-
PHILIPS
• Seven translators, ons germanium diode
• Full:medium wave reception
• Efficient 2” loudspeaker.
• Connection for headphones
• Complete and efficient internal antenna system
⚫ Distinguished design in 3 different colours
Circular clock-dial
6 Fully tropic proof.
{With Jìuther case, and earphone.
PHILIPS
VALUE FOR MONEY,
Law, Crawford, Ltd, and
alt leading radio: deofers.
Central Radio &. Bectric. TÍA, Habarʼkid KAMNI TAL 80014
***Then for Dessert, HaD A Hamburger with CATCH-UP FRENCH FrighT POTATOES
Later on Saw THE MAN Who's Coat For STOLE, & HE WAS Buying an other onE FROM THE Lady. And it fitted Him Perfect,
The Bad Part about Eating in a ResturanT is You gotta HAVE Good Table Männers
••• Which is the noise You Don't Make WHEN YOU EAT SOUP..
Daddy Don'T KNOW IT, BUT THE REST TABLE
He Left & WHOLE
154 on
(254
ADD VICE FOR CHILDREN.
If You NEED a New coal, go of buy one in a REST urant.». THEY SELL Them
I'm gonna Give Him it for /
Picked IT UP & next Year There for A3⁄41⁄2 a piece. A Birthday PRESENT
6-14
Your
hend,
TACKY