1948-05-08 — Page 11

COMING MASSACRE

PATININ KRANES PALESTIKE INGRATITUDE

AND ROUSE

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1948.

WIN PALEST

COMMISSION HESITATES

AFTER YOU WITH THE SOAP, BUDDY

(Copyrigns In All Downtricas'

RALPH SHAW.

asks

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

BRIGADIER-General Percy Lyc-fallow

#norted. "A damnably sticky wicket, if you nak me, sir." Admiral Sir Geoffrey Bluffington- Blounder (pronounced Blunder) coughed his hearty approval.

"Nasty crease, and no mistake," continued the old war horse with another snort. The old sen dog added his hearty approval by blowing his nose loudly-a manly gesture to hide his grief.

"Damme." said the General, wiping his monocle on his heavy, tweed lapels, "don't know what the country's coming to." The Admiral or- dered two more and blew his nose, even mora fiercely.

"Wrong man in the saddle," said the old charger. "Can't take his fences properly, Probably a damned poor school. No sense of leadership. Got the wrong men at the wicket." The Navy changed linen and blew eight bells.

"It all comes of treating it as a game. We don't take things seriously enough in this coun try, sir, damnation take it all!" exploded the General as he cast his good eye over the headlines in The Times.

Have innocent people

been

by

•

hanged?

ERIC BENNETT

rents In the Cotswold

N the Commons debate which preceded the vote for the suspension of the death penalty for a period of collecting five years, Sir John Anderson, country,

former Permanent Under-

No body was found, but there was Secretary at the Home Office, legally ample justification for the said, with emphasis, that to the hangings because John Perry made best of his belief no innocent full confession that the murder mkn-or woman-hos been

was the work of his mother, his brother, and himself. hanged since the beginning of the century.

Mr Reginald Paget, K.C., M.P. for Northampton, retorted that he had a list of a dozen Innocent Britain.

In between these two there are eminent lawyers and criminologists who have considerable doubts about the guilt of a number of men and women who have been hanged.

Let us examine some of the his- toric cases. Away back in 1001 Mrs Joan Perry and her two sons, John und Richard, were hanged for the murder of man named William Harrison,

who vanished while

Both mother and brother protested their Innocence. John Perry eventu ally withdrew his confession, but all three went to the gallows.

No one, even after three centuries, has been able to explain why John Perry should have made the con- fession that sent his mother, brother, and himself to the gallows.

Ex-Chief Constable Wonsley, of Scotland Yard, wrote three years had struck without any intention of later: I was argued that Robinson killing, and that her death was due to accident. Perhaps this later view might have been accepted by the Jury, had it not been for Robinson's attempt to dispose of the body."

Disquiet over Norman Thorno:

Anderson said that there was no doubt of her gullt. Others, including famous lawyers present at the trial, do not agree.

were hanged for the murder of Mrs and her lover Frederick Bywaters In January 1923 Edith Thompson Thompson's husband.

But there it was, in black and white: a double-column heading that had the old sweeper of the seas doubled up in a paroxysm of coughing that lasted three minutes. "England threatened!" it screamed. "Our stand flouted."

THE

THE General ordered two more and snorted violently-so violently that his monocje dropped into his glass. He wiped it again and screwed it in his good eye, more firmly this time.

"When I was In Pakistan," the General continued, "I saw the re-

street one evening when they were punkah wallah straight in the eye.

Bywaters met the couple in the foreign eyes.

sults of our present policy in Couldn't look my returning home and stabbed Thomp- Most humiliating." son to death, while Mrs Thompson screamed out. "Don't, don't.

Bunch of

to

The Senior Service decided that The case against Bywaters was to use the

it was time to order two more and clear but Mrs Thompson

only dry corner of the Three years intér Harrison re-

was ac olfactory wiper to allow his six- eused of complicity in the murder. teen-Inch blasts people hanged in turned home. He suld that he had

Norman Thorne the Law The case against, her rested chiefly

his express Most of the cases, been waylaid by three horsemen,

Journal wrote: "His execution on the evidence of letters she had

approval. he admitted, happened a long carried to Deal and put in a ship. would leave a feeling of profound sent to her lover, some time before. time ago.

disquiet in the minds of many

"Prestige gone to the devil," said The ship was captured by Turkish people."

In these letiers

the General, by she indicated thorougly roused.

this pirates

time and Harrison sold into slavery to a Turkish doctor

clearly that she was attempting to tion. Should Thome was executed in 1925 for poison her husband, and that one pened." The Admiral surreptitious- "Shameful post- Smyrna;

near

never have hap- Harrison regained his freedom, and his Crowborough

after the doctor's death the murder of Elsie

Cameron at day the two lovers would be to-ly wiped his nose chicken after some adventures worked his Eisle was another neuroile

farm. gether.

on his Old type.

Osborne tie and ordered two more. passage home to England

a girl of moods, who tried to hold But Mrs Thompson Was дн Thome's affection by pretending Imaginative romantic.

"My turn."" sold the General, she was pregnant.

There was glaring fercely not the slightest evidence that she "What will the rest of the world at the headline. had ever attempted to poison her think of us? Appaling After a visit to his farm she dis- husband.

debacle, appeared and her dismembered

popinjays at the helm. body was found six

weeks later

Indeed, far from being the dan-Country's gone soft." The Admiral, buried beneath the chicken run, gerous woman she portrayed her-

in his agitatión, paced the deci Thorne's story was that the girl self in writing, she was too respect-nd, having nothing dry enough to arrived and announced that she was able over to leave home.

blow into, ordered two more: going to stop there unili he married her. There was n

"Damn In the Court of Criminal Appeal (pronounced

it all, quarrel and he

Blounder left her to see another girl. When it was suggested that Mrs Thomp-going to be the result? We're giving Blunder). what's a last-minute reprieve, he returned he found the

letters girl son's which at the time surprised and hanging.

were "melodramatic it away, lock, stock and barrel. nonsense and that they were not Con't stand up to Shocked the public, Willam Habron

evidence of her complicity in the used to."

attacks like we who at Manchesten in 1870 was con- The lawyers disagreed and the stabbing of her husband. The court eyed to

The Admiral, walery- victed of the murder of Police pathologists disagreed vehemently, ruled that the tetters were properly discomfort, the polni of extreme Constable Cock, would have been Sir Bernard Spilsbury found no admitted as evidence, and the appeal and picked up the chits by mistake. reached for his glace traces of rope marks. Dr Bronte, was dismissed. Dr Galt and Dr Nabarro did find

He dropped them quickly. With his brother John he had marks consistent with the hanging been arrested by Cock and charged story. with being drunk and creating a Dr Bronte belleved that the girl disturbance. As he left the court had attempted to stage a sham sui- after acquittal William Habron cide to frighten Thome. Dr Bronte sakt to Cock:

was never shaken in the belief that Thome was innocent of murder.

But Thorne hid the body, and was hanged.

-ABDULLAH-

The man with the Hall of Mirrors King Abdullah of Trans- jordan is mobilizing his forces to resevo Palestino" from the Jews.

THE MAN-Hei G8, rules a 64110 of 300,000 people. 34,700 mlies of terri tory. and cintma descent from the great Caliph All son-in-law of Mohammed.

He is the second son of ex-King Humein former ruler of the ledjaz, the Arab State by the Red Sea, us- Rein died in 1931, alx years after being driven from the Hedjaz by Ibn Saud, King of Arabla.

Abdullah Was educated at Constantinople.

11

of

father became Emir Mecca, and Abdullah at a Deputy for Mecca in the

Ottoman Parliament.

The Brilia, Government

put him in charge of the new State of Transjordan in 1923.

Domascus

There is

HIS HOME lavish magnificence at bla beautiful palace of Eden, noar Ammun. In the great holl are disterling mirrors, such as one sees at n side-. show at a fair. They were given algi by a big London alore. There he playa chess, and always carries a 200- year-old golden dagger.

UIS VIEWB-Abdullah has always been friendly to Britain but has never dis- guised nis opposition to Jewish Immigration into Palcalino.

But when other Arabs Just before the 100-45 war tried to persuade him to take siden in the Arab-few dispute be advised restraint.

Sentenced for another's crime

BUT for

hauged.

"I'll do for you vet-I'll shoct you before the night is out."

The threat was made at noon.. Before midnight Cock was shot dead. Both brothers were arrested charged with murder,

► and

Boot marks corresponding to those

Was Crippen really guilty?

of William's were found near the SIMILAR doubts exist about Dr

scene of the murder. 11 was proved

The case excited wide popular In- terest, and it is certainly possible that the sorild may have weighed

story of adultery with the jury more than the nice point as to" whether the neurotic woman could write so glibly of getting rid of her husband in fact had the nerve or the desire to lend him to his death by stabbing,

Confession

came too late

"GOT who

NOT to assert ourselves, nowe- days," bellowed the General In ones that reminded the Admiral of the rald on Zeebrugge, in which he did not take part, but which he criticised at the time in a letter to The Times.

"We need men like old Wother- spoon or Teemingway-Lecher," con- inued the old soldier. "Fine fellows, Good schools." The Admiral bor- MORE than a century after the rowed ✡ handkerchief from the

case of John Perry an Oxford-General,

Crippen, hunged for the murder that he had bought cartridges. Ils of his wife in 1910. alibi was disproved.

Sir Edward Marshall Hall, K. C.. shire innkeeper, Jouathan Bradford, believed that Crippen had not was found standing over the body "AHI" exclaimed the old war John was acquitted, William found deliberately killed his wife, but had of a rich guest named Hayes, with horse, here's the Telegraph. Let's guilty. Mr Justice Lindley ex- been administering drugs to her as a bloodstained knife in his hand. pressed his entire agreement with a sedative died from an overdose, an inn-servant named Johns con-edge of the bar, which he clutched see what's happening." Screwing in the verdict and sentenced him to

After Bradford had been executed his monocle, he opened the journal When

and blanched! death.

Reeling to the he disposed of the body and led to fessed to the murder. Americo with his mistress, and to Three years later Charles Peace, protect the woman he loved from

for support, he shakily passed the The writer of the Newgate Calen- offending sheet over to the Admiral. the notorious burglar, under sen- implication he made practically no dar wrote of Bradford's death: "The "Read

it, old tence of death

boy." he said, for a murder at defence to the charge of murder. fate of this man may serve as an delectedly. "We're finished." Sheffield confessed to killing Cock,

Such tost-minute confessions are lawyer,

of the eminent additional lesson to Jurumen to be Is tho used to

defend extremely guarded in receiving cir

Picking up his maleca stick, he suspect, but Peace gave facts which Crippen, because the doctor would cumstantial evidence,

staggered out with the assistance led to a new investigation, proving not conform to his line of pleading. So, running like scarlet thread picture of sorrow

of two faithful, old servitors, 0 character through the story

that brought of the hang- sympathetic and given of Crippen, who was a most unlikely man's rope, there is a lingering window cleaners. "Cer, lummeo," gasps from two murderer.

feeling of doubt and suspicion be said one of them, "he ain't 'alf 'nd hind many executions,

a load."

WOR

rolensed

who

that he was in fact the murderer. It is consistent with the Habron £800 compensation.

The man who panicked

John Robinson WIR

The

The case of Oscar Slater IN 1927

THEN there was, of course, the executed for what is called the case of Oscar Slater, who died

Charing Cross trunk murder.

a few weeks ago.

of the

not

General

was

Sat up after she was hanged

TWIE Admiral, alone and friendless, Tuspension

death TE

.rend the news" the penalty will save those who are could

face. unlikely to have the good fortune true, Keeping

It victim was Mrs Minnie Bonati. Slater, wrongly Identified Со д

a stiff upper lip, Robinson admitted that he had pul man who had been at the Glasgow of Margaret Dixon, found guilty in he ploughed into

1728 of the murder of her illegiti doggedly as flat of 82-year-old Marion Glichrist,

mate child. It is almost certain that through the wavOS.

destroyer cuts

The endlinen did not le. There While her body was being taken it was in black and white. There home to Musselburgh, the

the body in the trunk and left it found brutally murdered was son-

In Charing Cross Station cloakroom, tenced to death, reprieved, and spent the child was stillborn, but Margaret

But did he kill her? His defence more than 18 years in guol before Dixon was hanged at Edinburgh.. was that he struck her a blow and he was vindicated und released. left her Medical witnesses sald His compensation was £6,000.

that the woman might have suffo-,

eated while lying unconscious on a rucked-up carpet.

Doubts about

Edith Thompson

stopped for "drink,

for escort Was cause

coffin

tho

column

the General's collapse. "Australia wing by ah When they came out the

Innings and 400 rung!"

they lid moved, and Margaret sat up. Slowly, the Admiral sank back into serennied. This WDS the end. If Robinson had not panicked

She was bied, revived. and the the easy chair, blew when he returned to his office on

next morning walked home,.

his nose into the General's linen the following day, found the woman

and ordered As she was officially THE name which caused the most remarried THE

dead she one more. dead, and put the body in a trunk, dramatic moment in the Com- for 25 years, and the King's advo- to come in England this year,

her husband, and lived there would probably have been a mens during the recent debate was cate filed a bill against the sheriff feel that

As a prophetic sitetch of things | verdiet of manslaughter.

Uret of Edith Thompson. Sir John for neglecting to fulfil tho' law,

It's reasonably

near the

mark. What do you think?

SOL

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