AGAINST HANGING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 139, 14 June 1935, Page 8

AGAINST HANGING.

WOMAN CAMPAIGNER.

SPENDING THOUSANDS A WEEK

A PICTURESQUE ECCENTRIC,

LOXDOX, May 2.

Mj - s. Violet van der Elst, a widow, of Kensington, London, docs not believe in hanging murderers. She lias started a campaign to abolish the death penalty in England. At present ehe is spending £4000 a week trying to alter this law. "And I shall carry on until I die," she declares.' A few months ago no one had heard of this stocky, plump little woman, who is less than sft high and whose chief distinction consists of an enormous bank roll. To-day she has become news. An army of publicity men in her pay see to this. Whenever a murderer is "to be executed, Mrs. van der Elst is outside \ the prison gates, dressed in deep mourn? ing, to cry her protests. Cameras clieJf as she etepe from her great cream and black Rolls-Royce. Hundreds go to see the show. with van der Elst pilots burn van der Elst petrol as they drone over the prison streaming banners inscribed, "Abolish the death penalty." Her loud-speaker vane broadj cast the hymn, 'Abide With Me." Women are worked up'to weeping pitch, and the publicity men .murmur, "This is a great show to-day." Mrs. van der Elst is 44 years of age, yet her hair remains bright gold. Her energy is such tnat she says she only • sleejie two houre a night. She has been • twice widowed, and is head of ten bis chemical laboratories controlling over a thousand men. She is said to be a millionairess, and owns two mansions,'one in the country, the other in London. The contents of her town house, Addison Lodge, Kensington, are insured for £150,000. Married a New Zealander. This strange little woman was born at Richmond, Surrey, a daughter of the late Mr. John Gundry, a London shipowner, who used to sail his own windjammer. After being educated at Windsor, Berkshire, she married Mr. Henry ' Lathon, a wealthy New Zealander who settled in England, Mr. Lathon was a big racehorse owner. He died ten years ago, and shortly afterwards his. widow became the bride of Jean Julien Romain (John) van der Elst, a Belgium artist, and a descendant of Rjeter van der Elst, Flcmieh painter of the 17th century. With her second husband she assumed Belgium nationality, but afterwards both became naturalised Britons. In August of last year Mr. van der Elst died suddenly at Ostend.

"What is left for me," sighed Mrs. van dor EM, who declared that the war had killed her husband, a hero with ten medals for bravery. So the widow went into battle—against capital punishment, with an army of loudspeaker vans, a hundred and fifty sandwichmen and a mint of money. Her demonstrations make the names of little known killers front page news. The crowds go to watch the fun and only At the moment of execution remember the man inside the wallsk"Will the gentlemen please remove their hats?" cries Mrs. van der Elst. They do. Then a monster petition goes round for signatures. Defies the Police. '« At her last demonstration, when Percy Charles Anderson, a 21 -year-old Brighton man was being hanged for shooting his sweetheart and throwing her in a tank, the police held up Mrs. van der Elst's procession of vans and sandwichmen. Her chauffeur would not proceed in view of the police orders to stop. Mrs. van der Elst took.jthe wheel. "They cannot stop me," she cried and drove at speed to the prison. Police swarmed round the.car. One was knocked down. But Mrs. van der Elst reached the prison gates. "I have driven racing ears and flown aeroplanes —they cannot stop me," she declared, Had she got a license? Of course ehe had not. she told the police. She was told that she would be summoned for dangerous driving and not havinsr a license, and she said to the police, "Well, why don't you arrest me?"

But the police do not want to arrest Mrs. van der Elst. It would make a martyr of her. As it is the crowds look upon her rather as a crank.

She has already spent thousands of pounds in her campaign. She has thousands more to spend. Her fur coats alone are worth thousands, her Alsatian dogs are valued at £200 each. When she went to live at Addison Lodge, it took her three weeks to move her collection of Chinese and Eastern antiques. She has toured the world collecting and lias a library of 3000 books on witchcraft and black magic. She is an authority on these subjects. In the mansion is one room known as the Chinese room. It is decorated with 303 lacquer panels, said to be thousands of years old. which were part of the furnishings of a Chinese mandarin's palace at Pekinft. The ceiling is painted to represent a Chinese sky while Chinese dragons snorting fire arc on the walls. Gambling is Her Hobby. Gambling is Mrs. van def Elst'e hobby. "I have gambled at all the prenteet casinos," she said. "I seldom win." At a recent Sundeflancl house party she lost £2500 at baccarat: at Cai'lton House Terrace she lost £1700. Mrs. van dor Elst says that she is one of the loneliest women in the world. In the small hours of the morning she often summons her chauffeur to drive her along the Thames Embank* incut to distribute money to the down-and-outs. One of her financial interests is in shaving cream. She writes her own advertisements for fun.

Only recently she announced that she would stand for Parliament at the next general election. Many people look upon this strange woman as a joke, just as they regard Mr. Hore-Belislia, the traffic dictator, as laughable in himself. Vet both persons make the public talk and think, and while she can keep capital punishment in the limelight, Mrs. van der Elst does not mind being laughed at. Meanwhile, despite loudspeakers and hymns, aeroplanes and pamphlets, hanging by the neck remains the almost inevitable penalty ill England for murder.— (X.A.X.A.)