A TRAGIC "FAKE."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 136, 8 June 1907, Page 9

A TRAGIC "FAKE."

The "faking" of pictures for b.oscope puvposss is by no means unattended with danger. Not long ago a stirring series of pictures depicting the escape of convicts from a French prison were taken at the expense of '.\ broken leg and badly damaged ribs to one of the men engaged to play the part of an escaping prisoner, and the other day a man was killed at' Stoats Xejst, on tbe London Brighton line, whilst posing as the hero in a. mock railway outrage. ' A certain film company wttnted to adel !o its store of bioscope excitements, and managed to persuade certain minor officials of the railway to assist them by placing a portion of the line and a local train at their disposal during a. slack hour on the railway. The idea of the film people was to produce on the bioscope a picture, based on the following plot:—A ganger discovers three men placing sleepers across the line to wreck- the train. He is struck down -and rendered unconscious. His faithful deg, seeing his master's danger, returns to the. home for assistance. Unable to get assistance the dog pulls the end of the signal and sets it at danger, thereby stopping the traiu. The ganger is rescued, and the passengers get out of the train and —that's the end. A man named Zeitz personated tlie. ganger, other employees of fc"ic film company the would-be wreckers, and Zeitz's wife and a Great Dane, also figured in the play. All went well until the arrival of the train, which, pounding alon" at ten miles an hour, failed to stop at the. appointed place, and dashing into the 1 sleepers threw them upon Zeitz's body, breaking nine of his ribs and inflietin" injuries that caused his death in a very short. spa,ce of time. Thus was that which was intended for mere sensationalism for bioscope purposes turned into terrible reality. The jury's verdict was one of accidental death with "no one to blame,"' but from the engine drivers evidence it seems tolerably clear that the details of the""plot"' had not been disclosed to him and that he was ignorant of the fact that a man's life might be iv jeopardy if he failed to pull up hj 3 engine at the appointed place*

"NEXT GENTLEMAN, FEEASE!" Is the razor to be a thing of the past? ' You remember the way Dan Leno used to shave, himself at the Pole. He simply clipped his whiskers in water, waited till they froze, and then broke them off. The newest style of shaving docs not exactly follow poor Dan"s ingenious plan, ! but is something like it. All you have i to do is to lathiT your face with a pa- ' tent preparation called '•Razo-lcss Shay- • injf Taste,'' and let it sink in for some i eicbt minutes until if assumes a grey and ' death-like pallor. Then you turn a spray I upon it, and taking up a piece of cardi board, a paper-knife, or even a comb, pass it over your face, and away comes 1 tbe paste with yesterday's stubble, lea V- - ing your chin and checks smooth as a - baby's. They demonstrated the virtues of the razorless shave, at Cannon-street Hotel - a few days ago. They removed navvies' '■ stubble that would not have disgraced a • scrubbing brush for stoutness as easily • as they took tbe incipient whiskers off a lad of seventeen, using all sorts of i queer shaving implements, from the end - of a shoe-horn to the edge of a small : tooth-comb. The new shaving process has many apparent virtues. You sim- ; ply can't cut yourself unless you delibi crately use the business edge of a knife or razor, which is quite unnectltesary; you ' can shave in the dark, and tlie fact that i you've stayed late at a smoking concert ' last night, or sat up with Johnny Walk- - er till the ''wee sma' oors" will not make the matutinal sbave any the less—or • more—pleasant. The only drawback to • the new style of shaving is the fact that ; you have to br-ar patiently for about l eight minutes the smell of a lather that 1 seems at some more or less remote peri- ; od to have been lodged in an acetylene -- gas holder, or to have rubbed shoulders : in its salad -days with H. 2 S. , Six beards were cut off at Cannon- • | street last Friday to make a ■ ; journalistic holiday. The men sat ; on a platform, arrayed in white ■ drapery. men with mutton-chop i side whiskers, with stvfobly chins, with ; shaggy moustaches, and one with a fairi ly full beard, grown for tbe occasion. The • inventor lathered them with the "paste," i ! and four Press photographers took a I snap-shot. Then the inventor sprayed ; the first man, and seized a bone paperi knife —there was a pause to allow the • photographers to press the button. The lather r*vas scraped, off,, aad tho man

was shaved —another photograph. And so--on with the remaining five.

But tbe biggest success of the afternoon was the besrdcu man who, after the operation, came down among the audience with one whisker on and the other off, and allowed his face to be stroked to s.-.e how smooth it was after the shave. Barbers tell ns that the paste shave is no new thing, and it is a fact that in Amsterdam you can see notices in barbbevs windows to the effect that shaving is done inside with paste. The r"_l question is Avhetlier men will be. content to "sit around" for eight long minutes with the far-off odour of H 2 is in their nostrils, rather than pay 2d or 3d for a decent shave, or undergo 3 minutes' torture at their own hands at home.