1955-01-22 — Page 5

~TTTTTTTYTYYTI

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1955.

"And I say there IS a pedestrian crossing here."

London Express Servico

HE HATED ALL UNIFORMS-SO HE BOUGHT ONE, SECOND- CLASSIC HOAX HAND, AND MARCHED STRAIGHT INTO A

The Little Man Who Made The World Laugh

T

very

with it.

C. D. T. BAKER-CARR

tells another of the World's Strangest Stories

under

"

"direct or. ders from the En peror." AI the Berila Circuit Railway Stution the bogus captain collected

PKOP

mer. 1428

Foot

HE world sat back guaresanen, acting

on Its heels and laughed until tears started in thousands of eyes.

An inconsiderable little man hnd thumbed his

se at the

founda. Tons of an empire and gol time fruit the

only Fourth The away people who choked back Guards regiment

A train was mpotent rage and growled. teaving. “Cuplain · "We are not amused," were Volgt barked on The men of Germany's crack other

the train stoppard Prussian Guard,

...the magle really working commandeered Arst-class carriage for himself and placed the ITH*T! further down the train.

The laugh that shook the world had its beginnings in The Berlin of 1906. Wilhelm Voigt, by tende a shoemaker. stepped out of prison a free * more having -pere 20 lbs 57 years be- hind bars for string of

tarpu ata,

All his life Voigt had re-

order

wan

i

Six miles up the Is at the Small town of Koepenick the party formed

the

plus-

eated authority as form

Itxert

vpitomises by the German bayonets under Jassum for uniform. He had the baleful store of

think the little imposter

Thea

itemty of time lu over this very Teutonie

pudent plan

in his mind.

year's

Wax

Early October, found the bent little maker at the counter of a second-hand shop in Berlin

Ie back-street.

cheap uniform of wanted a

thu Prussian Guard,

21

Voigt

and

[

with a refive

Wilhelm

bow

נו!

And there

Yount

the

judge, unfolded his life in a baggy, black white

$1 Crack-rout

Doi

بود.

tollar stand-up moloured cravat, the "Captain" looked but 21 Kepuck shadow of his former conquer - ing self, y

As a boy of 14 he first went 10 prison for theft At 18 he served 12 years' hard labour for forging postal orders, For the Following ten years he lived an hetest cobbler's life then he was caught trying to rob a safe al the Law Courts ins Gaesen This time it was 15 years' im- prisiorment.

Released in February 1906 be he tried to get a passport

In other could start afresh

His police record was a country.

wus mit ngainst him and he with a shake of the head by

Then he decided every official.

to try the military operation hr had planned some 30 years be- fore.

var The laugh of the day

court when Voigt assured the that he was a very honest thief, appropriated! because he only

WILS

official funds. What was true of the Law Courte raid al Gnesen THE "CAPTAIN OF KOEPENICK"

was also true of Koepenick! A contemporary curicature

But the "Captain" of Koepe- his nick

of found gulity and sword In a lavatory

interference with the uniform in a cardboard box at "serious

authority of the State and grave the railway station.

Meanwhile the worried off- forgery of official documents."

wire

He was sent to prison for four cala Koepentek sent a to Berlin: "Town Hall occupied years. by troops. Implore you to give reasons, to quiet eltizens."

Pussian

phenomenon during his marched his years in custody, and for troops It' the

itali almost 30

an in- Town

there posur maturing ***

sentry each

at

entrance alta orders to shoot I neeessary. The "Captain" and his escort murch-

the Isto

Mayor's flee. 1906, where Dr Langerhans was wit- shoe ting at the desk.

At the sight Guard captain, The soldiers and fixed bayonets the Burgo- master was frightened out fins wits and promptly forgot all he barrister's legal traning.

You are my proner by the crack First Foot Guards. Retsers orders and you will be

Berlin, helmet No spiked

taken to was immediately

buked the "captain"

n" with available, but a peaked cap

Besutish f his drawn sword. would suffice; the trousers

"I beg... began the slam- were a little baggy at the mering Dr Langerhans. knees, but the jucket carried "You have nothing to beg

replied Voigt. "I have already the insignia of a captain.

of fold you

you arc my Carrying this bundle

prisoner. deception under his Arm Dr Langerhans was escorted Wilhelm Voigt tramped to a carriage, and with an armed back to his married sister's guardsman in the box triven to house in Rixdorf, a suburb the New Prison, Berlin. of Berlin.

The

And so it was that on the

morning

the

that

the

nut

Just

Army

had

сола

months 20

later the Kaiser personally ordered Voigt's release, but not until King Edward VII had municated with him and the Wilhelm Volgt was

While the rotary-general of the Church twice petitioned free for long. world laughed the police were from England for the shoc

The Kaiser himself

to be freed. searching. etchered that ail Information maker

A committee was formed to Genialer Kerl abou!

ensure for the old man a happy ("Amiable Scoundrel") be sent to him at once. Even a Kaiser and profitable retirement. Over 130 women from all over the world, including two young girls Voigt was · arrested

by the in America and cne English pollee at

lodgings while widow, offered to marry him. drinking coffee

About £2,000 was October 26. He remarked non- to a fund for him. chalantly that he would like to

But the "Captain of Koepc- finish his breakfast, Perhaps

nick

put on his uniform again, the "captain's" valce sill had this time to take to the music- That Ungo of authority.

The hall stages of Germany's lead- police officers nequleseed,

can nugh.

his

at 8 a.m.

מb

subscribed

ing towns. The police hounded

At the central police station him from Berlin and Vienna, he was given a bottle of port by and on the orders of the Ger Wilhelm Voigt's next coll was of October 16

man Foreign Town Treasurer, who the inspector and promptly be-

Offles

they pre- on the Wilhelm Voigt, in

came very talkative.

vented him from appearing on to be less frightened proved uniform of a Captain of than the Mayor. Hurriedly at

Ho handed back the equivo the stage at Budapest. the Guard, walted in the the shoemaker's bidding he pro- tent of £100--all that was left duced his cash books. The leap of his daring coup, and gaily re told Police Commissioner Wehn:

THE OLD SONG HIGHLIGHTS A NEW PROBLEM: AS DONALD LUDLOW INVESTIGATES THE SUNSHINE ISLES

YES, WE HAVE NO

BANANAS TODAY

I

Kingston, Jamaica. HAVE been trying to buy A banana in Jamaica. Crazy? I'M true. By banana i mean the kind you get big, yellow, luscious.

still takes his cut and Jamaica's efforta

So are cukie Inoney stays away.

the

But I cannot go along with the business their view of the migration or officials on me and their optimistle belief that it har

reached its peak trocause money for travel is bound to run out

The only ones you can soon, buy here are export rejects, stali, hard, and green. They've got to be cooked before you can eat them,

His costs

Lake so much of Jamaica's TALK to a taxi driver, a clerit, a sugar worker, a man at a the beat goUS for bench or in a factory, Talk to export, the worst stays at a labourer who gets from six to

produce

home and is dear at that.

Sail a You'll never

p

Kingston."

Jamaican wryły:

seven shillings a day. Talk about LIVING COSTS,

A lat af bread onsta 19.; 0 of unster lived milk 18.; NET

anybody quart

1lb. of thik Cacodian salt cod- Benatia skin

mush ta ki, moat 25. a 16.; 116. of yams or potatoes 15; fent for f2It.-square room in Kingston where a whole family will live, 30% month,

la an odd way, that lack of hauna skins

Sums up part of the vast Jamaican problem.

is!

Tropics or no tropics that is real poverty.

I submit, and These

pot a

And what a problem it spiral of adventure, are the real

reasons why ships are being All- ed and why the present general vlection is being held in the most tumbre and serious mood ever.

Adventure

THE verse of the banana s the volish. The hard-up Jamaican cais

toleray at 1 cod. it comes from Canada, though the seas around Jamalez teem with fish. The tiny Jurman- can fishing fleet can't go out for enough to make big bals

So 1 have Vonte, 0121 Jamaican travels, to one state- mni of the ishund's problem, which is this

The problem facing Jomala Is not migration but MARKETS

have been told with Umplutis, for example, that migration is not really 2 Algol Itom poverty at all, but really The adven- furdus Jamaican spirit,

10 expression

Ana Jamaicalis me adven- turous. They helped to build the Panama Canal, start a frutt Industry in the United States, even helped set up the Cubun sugar industry, their biggest rival.

Lov UMT

21

i have been told migration is not a symptom of

but depression

of undoubte devolopment that has gone here in the past few years. Otherwise, how could Jomaicun. And money to spend more than £1,000,000 year tu leave the island?

Mortgaging of honies and innd, sale of cows and pigs- these facts were brushed aside.

Good Jobs

ONE after

unother business men complained; "The people who are going are so ne of our best men. They're walk- ing out on good jobs."

And again: All this talk of deceptive. unemployment There are big estates up-country tikat can't 像 workers. A moan Jamaican-particularly a with a plot of land-has his own ideas about work. If he can make

to live with three enough four days work, then that's oil he'll do."

ог

AND FINALLY: "The real Jure is Britain's higher standard of living. We can never have such a standard here, not unless we can get markets.

"Thero's ao limit to Jamaica's of the prospects one-third island is still unexploited--but where can we sell what this land would produce?"

Then inevitably GATT (tho General - Agreement on Tariffs and Trado) and MARKETS come in...

Preference

wealth

sugar

agreement,

rondway not far from tain" was disappointed-there barracks. A detachment of was only a matter of 4,000 marks Why, if I'd run across you at went to London where he did a

Two years later the little man HAPPY with the Common- guardsmen swung into view (just over £200) in the safe. Koepenick Town Hall I'd have brisk trade in coloured signed which at last gives the Jamaican ng they marched back from He ordered the money be handled you in the same way!" postcards of himself the crop a guaranteed price, business officially He was led away in chains to "Conqueror of Koeponick." Then me was similar agreements the rifle range at Tegel. placed in a bag and

sealed, while he rernwled anwalt his trial.

in Jume 1912 came a report that for bananas, for canned eitrus The old man straightened nature in the receipt book, Berlin learned the news in hoat died in a London trulbs, tobacco, onder, cocon, hig drooping shoulders, Then it was Treasurer's turn special editions of the news- hospital, All the German papers Get rid of GATT and give us hitched up his long sword to be bundled into a ceach and papers given away free. Every carried long and glowing obit Imperial Preference is, the de- and barked an order. The to in his superior in body was and that such a master usay notices but Wilhelm Volgt mad. Why buy from foreigners

Berlin

days was still very much alive al and leave the In strategist should end his detachment, halled

.. and

Volg had taken the precau in

Luscha in

Thuringian“). It is a fair question nyvaited his next command, tion of immobilising the post On December 1 his trial Forest and duly appreciative of And them comes another cry

the pics things. they had to Zárkák - The corporal in charge offles telephone lines at Koepe opened before a humouries all

British bis troops it Judge and a crowd consisting of maid about bim.

CAPITAL, Jucalca ghete - tax stepped forward and was sick. Laving brusquely told:

To the Chorge of the town Voigt swag indies of fashion, nontar milliary But in Juary 19 conecasions, to attract, new in gorod back to the station. and offcern and the leaders of the patient careiad more obituary dustries, and that is how she ha railway station,'

boarded a train for Berlin, artistle, theatrical and literary notices under hondlines Uke built up her tourist trudo,

back into world. Admittance was by ticket "Hoopenick Hory Dead,” This Off the marched the "eap- There he changed

But on the money, carmed by clothes, leaving his only,

time it was true, tain the corporal; and, errem elvillen

Reitish companies, ..... não

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