VON VONTHEIM'S TRAGEDY.

Bush Advocate, Volume XX, Issue 1001, 13 April 1908, Page 6

VON VONTHEIM'S TRAGEDY.

AN UNWANTED MAN. . A striking article on Von Veltheiin, "who was sentenced to twenty years' penal. -servitude" for threatening Mr Joel, was written . by .Mr H. : Hamilton jFyfe in tlie Daily Mail. "Twenty years' ; penaj ! It is hard— -it is impossible— to> ? re'al■V Ise what .'it meps..; . A just sent-eiice beyond doubt-; for the offence :of which Yon Veltheini • was convicted . is the gravest next to murder that can be conimitted. Yet the first thought which came into niy mind when I heard it was, "What a "-: waste!" "Von Veltheini'slife is practically over. Nest December he will., be : fifty years old. "When his sentence is completed lie will be close on seventy.. The '' tall, r straight figure wiUs be bent '"•aMs-s*fiil. v thick, dark hair will be thin and grey. The ©yes. whjch, surveyed the Court with gaze w3ll be rh.eiimy and dim. A lnan ofspieiidid physiq^xxe and what 3Mr Gill called, . 'extraordinary ability' has rubbed out the fair prospects with which he started, has robbed the world of the energy which ought to have been turned to xiseful ends, has thrown his iife away. • . HIS PASSKXtf FOB ADVENTURE. . "Perhaps ybu will say. ' 'Why squander- words = oh 'such- a vulgar criminal, a blackmailer, a bigamist? He has got what he richly deserved, and there's an end to it:' But does tha^r-ep.r.esent£quite aU-gtjhjege^is to be said] 1 This man was not an ordiji■*:v."**y criminal, t His very -appearance told one"that% -He has had a-strange,^ eventful history. He was. an 'adven-?-. turer,' yes ; but he was the; ...kind, of irtLv€rit\irer.;wh;olmitnt liave^-made a v l name, andiended. -Ms days in. lionpr ] instead of disappearing down -fs& steps of the Old Bailey dock to penpl ■..- servitude for twenty- years. ! . ; - "The ttrutlr about Von >Veltheim jis that he was a type of man for whom ■.■: the world of to-day lias no' iisiK He >.' . !...wa.5.' born with ; a^passion for" adveja- -. >4ure. ? :'lf -he - had -lived in the* six-. „ .teerith centuiy he "would have joined; - Raleigh or Frobisher, and been a bite--caheer. In the seventeenth century lie would have "'trailed the pike' Sn th© Low Countries, and sought the ad^en^iraus'nfe^vJie«^^OHer:cetiaiiLes wanted for foreignjvyars. "f \ . ■^ "It wap as a mercenary- that^he began tlie" career of restless wandering ;K^ich.%As^poitfe^so>bruEttly%fctf>aii end. He served for a time both in the Ger- _ iinajn, Army ; and: the. German Navy.Biii lie. saw no service, and when he w4fcv27 he rushed off and enlisted as a volunteer (like Bernard Shad's Soldier' in j. 'Arms and the' man) on the side of Bulgaria '" in the war of 1885. He fouglit against the Servian, troops in 'two t)akles,,jMifl acu\ii|AexL him|elf j\|ell. IF HEAADlieifeA^irlNil^V: "Unfortunately this active employment of -his 'energies could not. last' y an<| there- wa^jno other war for : ■;-■ Bim tot take?. p*art in? when that one was over. However , the next most

l 'a~S^elifurtJ"tfS - Secupation ' ?to fighting* is exploration,. Accordingly we desQryjhim%iekt Walking across^ Australia through the terrible deserts of the Never-Never-Land. By tlie time this journey ,- was over the Stanley expedition for--. the relief of Emm Pasha was about starting. Von Veltheim felt that this was just the kind of job for him. He hurriedly took ship from Perth, Western Australia (where he has just been married), hoping to catch Stanley at Zanzibar. But he reached there too late. The expedition had set oixt. He was at_ a ioose end again. "That was the tiirning point in his career. If he had caught Stanley and been taken on, his life would have been-altogether-different. Now for several years-ihe drifted— and deteriorated, longing for adventures all the time. "What a waste!"