The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 8

Tli Sydney Morning Herald. Dee. 28, 1957 8 pin Him iiii.niiMi WERE THE ANDRU MURDERS A HOAX WAS LANDRU, THt FRENCH 'JtlX'TtfOJ' UP TILL NOW REGARDED AS ONI OF THt MOST NOTORIOfpMORDHtRS OF ALL TIME, IN REALITY, INNOCENT? AND WAS HE IXICUTID, OR, IS HE STILL ALIVE? IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY JUST mPUZUSHED. CROCK. THE FAMOUS CLOWN, ASSERTS THAT THE OF LANDRU WAS A FAKE, CALCULATED TO DIVERT THE PUWCS 'ATTENTION FROM THE POL- 77CAI DIFFICULTIES '-viL yJ IpV? a1 to) mi Passat at the capstan.

Last Of The Windjammers OF THsVOAY, By Peter Woodruff Gambaii to. say she was and after wvu that there had been no news whatever. i 1 1 'he conclusion that it was the no, unusua case of a sj5er mar. ryjng rich man, and wanting to forget her family, But that meeting in the Rue Rochechouart stirred all the old and Mademoiselle Lacoste told a passing policeman. He went into the china shop, got Lucien Guillet's address, and passed it and the story on to Inspector Gafilot of the Paris Surete.

Next morning at 7 o'clock, as whs his custom. Guillet, shaved and bathed, strolled out to buy his morning newspaper. Guillet returned, but within a moment there was a knock at the door. As he opened it, four men rushed jn, quickly handcuffed him and bundled him into a wailing car. Strict Silence Once in the hands of the police, '1 but in the meantime, inquiries showed that he had passed under the name of Dupont, who had once lived at Gambais, but whose real name was Henri Desire Landru, a second-hand dealer.

Police from time to time had received many complaints that this same Landru had victimised many women who answered his matrimonial advertisements bv promising marriage, then making off with what little money they had, or else selling their furniture and pocketing the proceeds. Following further inquiries Guillet (or Landru as I shall now call him), was charged with the By GRAHAM BENNETT Lanclru in the dock at Versailles. The new that the barque Passat had made hrr last commercial voyage marks the end of the wonderful story of the "Flying 'P line of wind-ships, run by Laeisz of Hamburg. Although the Laeisz house-flag had not flown from a square-riggers' truck since 1939, the continued employment of Pamir and Passat by other owners delayed the turning of the final page for another 18 years. The crew of the were swift to see the opporlu nity.

The voyage from Europe, around Cape Horn to the wist cst and home again, lay tntough of trad wjn(jSa -j-ne countries of. South America needed Germaa machin- ery and other goods. Europe snips and the crews. But as in all good things there was a catch. Loading was a slow Crock, internationally famous clown.

murder? Exactly 57 not a great deal for a woman's life. 1 was over in Paris at the time I knew where 1 had seen that face before! "It was in a photograph of Landru the murderer, on the scaffold. Yes, he resembled andru. the man whose multiple murders were the talk of the world in the early twenties." Crock says he remarked quietly to the Chief of Police: "That man opposite is extraordinarily like you must know whom 1 mean?" To which he says. Ihe Chief of Police replied: "Yes, yes, of course.

You mean Landru Well, he IS Landru." Grock says the Chief of Police told him categorically that the multiple murders were a pure concoction, that the man who was guillotined and photographed was not Landru. who by that time was in Buenos Aires, and that the whole thing had been staged to distract public attention from certain political events of the day. Landru, he alleged, received, handsome pension from the French Government on condition he never returned home. refused the offer of Ihe customary brimming glass of rum, replying: "Thank you I do not require it. I die bravely." Three minutes later the knife fell on Ihe neck of the man whom thc police are certain had attracted nearly 300 women.

Now for Crock's glory He says that when he appeared for the second time in Buenos Aires, the Chief of Police invited him to supper with some friends "at one of the best restaurants." He continues "1 saw a man whose face 1 seemed to remember sitting straight opposite me, with an attractive young woman at his side Where Ihe devil could I have seen that face before? "There was a sideboard outside at which a waiter was cutting bread, using ont of those old-fashioned guillotine sort of affairs with a crescent-shaped blade that comes down and slices the loaf. At the sight of thc knife, the veil fell from my eyes; Business, in open roadsteads ex- ly No slackers hfe. As the posed to gales from the Pacific last item of cargo from any one and storms that swept down from hold went over the port side into the icy Andes to wreck a dozen a barge, so another barge to star-anchored ships in an hour. board sent up the first bag of nit- A 1 1 FOR one hundred years 1839 to 1939 the Laeisz flaa wai a svmbol of 'tateritt 8fin hiTn 15 "ft of fine ships well manned, of sound seamanship and a regu- larity that would do credit to a modern steamship line. other nations were scrapping their windjammer fleets as tin-' reliable, Herr Laeisz advertised the sailing dates of bis ships in the Hamburg press 18 months in advance, though each ship had two or three extended voyages to make in the meantime.

Hamburg round the Horn to Valparaiso, deep laden with rail- way equipment, tovs, textiles and pianos, home again with nitrates for European farms; Cardiff to Saigon via Good Hope with coal, then home to Europe via Cape Horn with 5.000 tons of rice, to discharge, load and slip down the Elbe on the morning tide, out- a i. wara ppuna wunin an nour ot the sailing time advertised 12 inunins earner. A he Nitrate Trade rpHEIR organisation was out- standing. A big steel four-masted barque would come storming-into the open roadstead of a west coast port, with seamen clewing up the sails one by one to bring the ship to rest at exactly 'he chosen spot. Even before the anchor was down, the first hatch covers were off, the first barges were in place alongside to receive cargo, while the cook and 'he captain's steward stoked the donkey boiler to raise steam for winches.

iy dlOCKerS mere TAY and night they worked. ikk. nh mibi iim aunivi a UP- sail wa set and sn'P was a mjie out to sea a5 the last bags came aboard, leaving a tug to tow thc last empty barges back to port. Then south to the Horn it was ana home t0 Hamburg in 65 days. Bu here wefe he sni dri j( durance 1 VVl The records of the House of (he Mnle Mamen coming back for berths, voyage after voyage, of their skill and thejr ships, proud to serve under Laeisz officers.

square fcet and on drove fully loaded at speeds up .0 Zt.rf.,. UM imM Dower and carried LTsail throuThe Cane Horn The barque Passat. THOSE NEW YEAR RESOLUTIOHS Religion And Life By E. J. Davidson At the end of another year, when the jeverish' celebrations of Christmas are over and we suddenly realise that we are on the very threshold of new opportunities most of us plunge into an' orgy of resolutions.

WE begin by surveying the enough. But far worse is the 1. chillina despondency enveloping AS far as is known, the first Though small, their success was "ne was DU' up gain, ine oourne recorq ot, ou oays. in Laeisz vessel was a-wooden immediate and' rhe nitrate fleet The' peak of all wmdsbip de- elite Laeisz officers took com- 1868. brig of some 200 tons, built by Brew.

Herr Laeisz concentrated yelopment was reached when man) and the Flying began But World War II was' the Ferdinand Laeisz in 1839. Thc his interests in this trade. The Lneiz aunched his big re-build its former glory. New end. Priwall'lay idle in Val-Carl, as she was called, and a shps themselves became larger sen 1902.

ycussep was the hj fc prjwa 3 700 Para'so "41. when she was growing fleet of sister ships and by 1878 the family was only five-masted quickly became known through-building steel ships of 1.000 ever built. She was steel biul tons. hunched in fa)ew out the world's ports. 440ft long ami displaced 11,000 Padua, .3,100 tons, followed in up and sank.

Padua was handed tons. Her canvas lota lied 62.300 I92fi. Th hio fljet nf fnnr.mad. h. ioac.

murder ot at least four of his 011 anoincr assignment mr my victims. The Paris newspapers newspaper but 1 took the lapped up the story, and Landru chance offered by a good French was promptly nicknamed "Blue- journalist friend to spend a beard." morning in that stuffy court. Eventually the detectives, who It seemed incredibre to me that had sifted evidence of literally thc man who sat there: pale, bald, hundreds of women reported heavily bearded, could really be missing by their relatives since the Don Juan who had attracted Landru was known to have so many and so varied a harem, started his racket, discovered that Until one noticed his eyes, he had previously rented two cot- They were slightly hooded, and tages: one in the beautiful forest they were the most piercing I can of Rambouillet and the other a ever remember encountering, two-storied villa close to Mantes They had the same fascination us in the Valley of the Seine. the eyes of the cobra brood-' it was after exhaustive inquiries ing. mysterious, completely hid-and searches at both that actual ing the thoughts behind them, evidence came to light and finally The Surete were certain that Landru took his place in the dock Landru murdered seven women at the court of Versailles.

but the actual total of his His first victims were a victims is probably far greater. Madame Cuchet, an attractive Just a further side to the extra-widow of 39, and her 18-ycar-old ordinary character of this man-son, on one occasion, only a few Then one her son acciden- hours before he poisoned another tally met Landru with another of woman, and then buried her in his "fiancees." He told his a wood, he actually knelt at her mother, and although Landru side in prayer in a little village laughed it off, he determined to church! kill them both. This he did by Do not forget that day after inducing them to drink poisoned day Tor two years he was brought wine, and later in the kitchen of before the examining magistrate his cottage he burnt both bodies hefore he finally faced his trial, with an oxy-acetylene lamp. And during the whole of that In the diary produced at his time, he was never once trapped trial, all the grim details of his into a confession. Indeed he murderous career were noted boasted: "You are making me down.

famous, among the women of Paris: they love a great lover!" Another Affair was the, small remains of human hrnue in iha nnlkmic nf IIERE is the generally i accepted story. it was April II, 1919: a pleas ant pre-spring day in Paris. Along the Rue de Rivoli walked a well-dressed, 'handsome with a spade-shaped beard and With him was a fashionably rircvr1 nll orwf.lrvrtkrtna vniino woman. '-The pair were Liicien Guillet nrL WLll Pf pretty dinner service. LiUle did the pair think that this purchase was to solve a num- her of baffling murder mysteries wnich had lett the best brains ot the famed Surete well For a chance passer-by, a Mademoiselle Lacoste, recognised in Lucien Ouillet as he looked in that shop window a man she had known as Andre.

Charcroix, a well-to-do manufacturer who had become engaged to her sister, a widow named Buisson with a small income, about a year Later the widow had written pylae holds the London. Id. Mel- is still busilv en- Sged tSg' Ruslian eaVen. Since 1939 no square rigger has flown the Laeisz. flag, The ships sold earlier suffered TZ and wi Probably never sail a8ain" Pekin8- sold Britain in 1931.

is now named Arcthusa and. lies in the Mcdway as a schoolship for children. Penang, uwiicu- uy ki iwKsuii, was iuiuc- Pamir and Passat were sod to German firm and have survived bankruptcy 10 struggle on as working school- ships. Orie must observe that the. loss of Pamir in Sept- tember smacks of inexperience on the part of her officers.

The Laeisz brand of officer has died out. The 'sturdy barque that stormed in great style around the Horn for 50 vears should have been quite safe in an Atlantic gaie. Now Passat is laid up and the Flying Line is no more. To During the evening he traces Thomas' development from childhood to his tragic, drunken death in New York three years ago," aged 39. Although he never actually met the poet, he has become friendly with Thomas' mother, who has seen his- performance, found it profoundly moving.

From April to Julv next year, Emlyn Williams will take his "other selves," Dickens and Dylan Thomas, to Australia for the first time and will tour all States following his New Zealand tour. At 52, the man' Australians will see in his Dickensian beard is, in reality, a neatly built, clean-shaven man a little below medium height, with a shock of unruly white hair, one lock of which is inclined to flop over nis forehead. His eyes are blue under heavy black eyebrows. Behind the actor's practised charm and self-possession, be appears to be a person of almost small-boy enthusiasms of which the longest-lasting has been his compilation of an extraordinary set of scrapbooks. As well as providing a complete record of the fortunes and careers of his family and himself since 1890, they include fascinating sidelights on world and theatrical history.

Photographs, newspaper clippings; letters, theatre programs anything and everything that interests him is preserved Usr i 1 I VV i oug hness. father and son 'ackled the problem. Jhev huilt trading depots ashore, staffed by their own men. They built up fleets of barges to nande cargoes. Most im- they developed a coast- trade so that if discharge and loading ports were 300 miles ana rt tUa chine um ctill Aarmnn and'" Jl' and not carrying useless In 1867, the first Laeisz nitra- ters wcre bouht wooden inc.

mrgesi ouu ions. JUST why the letter was ch0n 85 ascan "beTrad" a. present: tne custom began in the 1850s and, 60s with four lovely ships ln the 1 8g0s the line struck a handicap. For technical rea- sons tne limit osize for a full- rieced shin of three masts is about 1,500 tons and Laeisz could no, exceed this, although the uciiictnu iui nuiaics pUIIHCU IU it need for larger vessels. The problem, however, produced the answer.

Almost overnight the four-masted barque was developed and great steel hulls of 3,000 tons became the order of the day. Now the Flying Line came into its own. Their first four- masters were the massive Pisagua and Placilla and others soon fol- lowed, great steel barques of im- mense strength, speed and cargo capacity. Pergamon, Pitlochry, riiniidi, iiic name win uc Knuwn 111 Hammiig By generations still lo come 1 nese were me romanuc days mSde the master the mainspring ot' mercantile enterprise. He 2S 2 fownomS Kfeincff many a Vn alas, scattered with lovely fan- cies, fair, perished things we once dreamed of doing but, for some unaccountable reason, But in the true family tradition, 1 Then came the depression.

The wa falaI- Laci ships, like others, lay idle. Cap- i. ,1 7. baTes for aboUt A4'000 and ran them with scratch crews, Pamir, Passat Pommern, Pen ang. the lovely three-master, all wen, lo Mariehamn lOl) 1 I- .1 rij.ii.gr um, raaua ana rn- wan, coin aimosi new.

Oftner, (jlOfV IN 1933 came a spark of the 1 former glory. The nitrate trade was in the doldrums and these last two ships ran to Aus- tralia instead for grain. To- gether they sailed, together they arrived, 65 days Hamburg to spencer 01111, sighting each other six times on the way. By comparison, the clipper Ihermo- Read failed to acocmplish. coming year.

We are sure -it The fortunate few, like the will. time there will be Village Blacksmith, may boast no wretched failure, no stumbling of something attempted, some- hesitancy, no ignoble shuffling, thing done and, like that rural worthy, feci the have earned a rpHIS is an altogether admir-night's repose or at least Ihe 1 able mood. It suggests at right to meet the coming year 0nce the invincible temper, the with confidence. firm stand, the iron will. So THIS dignified composure is far.

so good. Any psychologist denied the vast majority of has not completely suc us. Our dismal record stares us "imbed to the notion that free-in the face. Those beckoning dwn to choose is mans grandest horizons are not a bit closer. Our 'lluslon us lhat 'nere cm no escape from moral endeavour to battle with pirates, storms.

bankers and Government officials and face them al with compel- ence and equanimity. 1 1 buv, piuvivu, wwii Ferdinand was a hard man but just. He cnose his, othcers care luny ana oacKeo incir ruagmeni 10 tne limn. At this stage, the middle nine teenth century, the population of Europe was growing rapidly. The great drift from farm to fac- lory had begun and it was be- coming essential for those re- maining on the land to produce more food from the same acre- age.

And so there came about on iiiuii.a:,iiiis uciuctiiu 1 111 ouuui American nitrates. Ferdinand and his son Carl At the same time as he was his former home in Gambais that paying his infamous attentions to really sealed Landru's fate, poor Madame Cuchet, Landru Specialists were certain they were was carrying on another affair from three different bodies, with a widow from Brazil named His actual trial lasted 22 days. Madame Labord-Line. Within a Six thousand documents were few days he had persuaded her produced. The jury were absent to allow him to sell her furni- only half an hour they found ture for her, and the day after, him guilty but, to thc amazement invited her for a weekend to of the world, actually Lodge." mended him to mercy.

She was never seen again. The On February 25, 1922, Landru amount Landru netted for the walked to the guillotine. He had fife iFvitl cf! A Welsh Boy Will From Anthea Goddard in London It was a dreary, wet Sunday afternoon in London, and Brook and Alan Williams teere bored and restless. ln an effort to amuse them, their father, Emyln Williams, to read aloud to them from Dickens. 4t 1 hc" we "call those splendid nviae witn clenched and set teetn time last yCar alui carried wj).

he different with the if re.al'y wanl do "nd be belter. We must gird latent resources of power it pre- sumably places at our disposal. The trouble with most of us is that this power is seldom as potent as we could wish. There are times when it is, for all practical purposes, non-existent or so feeble that we are tempted to agree with those' hard-bitten cynics who delight in felling 11s that we are not really masters of our fate, still less captains of our soul. NOBODY, of course, knows the truth of this better than the drug addict or the alcoholic.

Their particular path to hell is paved not only with good intentions but scores of broken resolutions. Nor is there much comfort to be derived from Dr Johnson's spirited defence, of sincerity whether or not it produces- re-suits. "Sir." he once retorted to an incautious critic, "are you so ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles without having good practice?" What most of us want is not approbation of our principles to much as- some indication how best to put them into practice. If any prayer passes our lips on New Year's Eve it will surely echo John Drinkwater's "Give us to build above the deep intent, the deed, the deed!" WHAT we are most likely to HUcnvr i. that all children of our age in giving pride of place to the human intellect.

Admittedly its achievement sm 1. ha a dog circling the earth: it threat ens 10 ois-uro ine cold peace of the moon. But what the intellect has not 1 far mrhivA- the disciplining of those impulses atu U1NI give IO hate and war and fntru-iU There are vast realms where we are powerless and must needs lean upon a Power outside and beyond ourselves. And it may well expose the reason for failure and make us humble enough to let God take Laeisz methods and so com pi' eaulnment that PnuC fiv J.hi pcment of only 45 hands. ta.V-., fj I yJiuzvvn umvu l-l tlx K1 11 tne t-iying line, in 1913 she was rammed by a steamer in the Channel.

Un- manageable, she drove ashore off Dover in a gale and became a total loss. She remains to this day the finest windship ever built, World War I shattered the Laeisz fleet. Many ships lay idle in neutral ports, only to be cieu ny ine Miles in iyiv. Others, captured earlier in the war, naa nccn sunn ny u-noais. mum the Seventeenth Williams' flat EMfy UZJ EMM "I want to travel through ihe outback, doing country audiences as possible" of reality and the bright promise of the year, like the promise of the year hetore remains unrin- filled.

All this js depressing standi lo as many any more resounding triumph he had from such plays as his "Night Must Fall" (which was also filmed) and his sensational creation of the role of Sir Robert Morton in Rattigan's 'The Wins-low Boy." Williams belongs to the intellectual school of actors to whom Ihe upholding of theatrical ideals, quality and integrity means infinitely more than personal prestige or financial gain. To him, one of the advantages of his Dickens entertainment is that it requires virtually no props. A book, a beard, a wig are the mere essentials. This means he can perform In small towns and villages where normally the inhabitants, for lack of a suitable stage, seldom see live theatre. "I am hoping to do this in Australia," he "I want to travel through the outback, doing one-night stands to as many country audiences as possible." Happily married, his two sons, now in their early twenties, were horrified when he recently turned down a 5,000 sterling television date in America because it clashed with another engagement: to play to prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs gaol for nothing! A PRIVATE reading from a man generally considered among.

England's finest actors by no means appealed to his two sons then aged 12 and 9. "Dickens school stuff!" they muttered. But Williams persisted probably as much for his own entertainment as theirs and opened "Bleak House." As he read, he became absorbed by the drama of Dickens' language and excited by the possibility of extending a reading into a full-scale stage entertainment, It took him two years to map out a suitable program and, after nne or two trial runs in charity shows, he presented his first solo performance, in the character of Dickens, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1951. Following closely the scheme Dickens himself used when he gave public readings of his own work, he included extracts from "Pickwick Papers," 'Tale of Two Cities," "Our Mutual Friend," and "Bleak House." He had brilliant success and lince then has taken the program to America, Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia, Switzerland, Holland, and Germany. Two years ago he extended his repertoire, adding another solo performance he calls "A Boy Growing Up," which he describes as "an entertainment from the stories of Dylan.

Thomas." His room's contrasts give an indication of Williams' own varied interests, and the talents that have made him one of the most stimulating characters in British theatre. Son of a village innkeeper in North Wales, he spoke only Welsh until he was 8, and began to learn English at school. He still speaks his native tongue fluently, and takes every opportunity to do so. But there is now no trace' of Welsh lilt in his cultivated English speaking-voice. At 10, he won a scholarship to the Holywell County School, and there met the woman whose influence has threaded through his entire life.

She was his schoolmistress, Miss Sarah Grace Cooke, who, at 72, now lives in Leeds, He still writes to her regularly. It was his memories of her sympathy, and encouragement 'in his early acting and writing ambitions on which he based his most successful play, 'The Corn Is Green." In 'its' West End production in 1938, Emlyn played himself, and Dame Sybil Thorndike was Miss Cooke. As one turns the scrap-book's pages, his youth unfolds; her it an early photograph of Miss Cooke, there the first page of his first novel, written at 14 in a schoolboy hand, and titled "The Mists of programs from Ihe years he was at Oxford (where he graduated Master of Arts), and acted with Ihe Oxford University Dramatic Society. And so to his first West End show. "And So To Bed." with wTiich he later went to America.

After that, his acting career was one of increasing success. Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere, modern comedy, tragedy, murder-mystery Williams played all. At the same time, he wrote constantly, often finding his greatest success in dramatising his Welsh background, as in "The Corn is Green" and 'The Last Days of Dolwyn." In London now he Is casting latest play, "Beth," to be reduced before he leaves for New Zealand and Australia. Though set in London, it has, he says, a "Welsh One'- feels, on meeting him, he derives as much satisfaction from his quietly Dickens and Thomas entertainments, as from Enilyn Williams and Ray Lawler of have an after-dinner cup of coffee at a nana in snaping our New Year..