DRAMA IN REAL LIFE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 53, 26 November 1928, Page 12

DRAMA IN REAL LIFE

STORY OUTRIVALLING FICTION murder of music-hall ARTIST (Australian Press Association.) (Rec. November 25, 5.5 p.m.) London, November 24. Behind a drama in the Gold Coast Colony, where Dr. Benjamin Knowles is to-day under death sentence for the murder of Mrs. Harriett Knowles, formerly Madge Clifton, a prominent English music-hall artist and pantomime favourite, at their bungalow in a native town twenty-five miles from Kuniasi, the capital of Ashanti, is a story outrivalling fiction. The British Colonial Office learns that the murdered woman is not Knowles’s wife, but Mrs. Harriett Street, wife of George Street, formerly a* successful actor manager and now a theatre proprietor In England. During the time the woman was living- on the Gold Coast as the wife of Knowles, her husband and relatives in Englund understood that she was on a musichall tour in Australia, and they were amazed to learn-that she Was living on the Gold Coast. Her husband received frequent affectionate letters, telling, of her experiences iu Australia. The letters were not posted abroad, but always bore a London date stamp. The letters were enclosed in an envelope addressed to a third party in London and reposted to the husband for the purpose of concealing the fact that the writer was living on the Gold Coast. Mrs. Street spoke of hard times on her theatrical tour, "and expressed a longing to return to her husband and England. Street, who was deeply attached to his wife, is going immediately to the Gold Coast to ascertain the story of his wife’s amazing double life. He states: “I am horrified to hear that Madge Clifton has been murdered. We were married in London several years ago, and were together in the profession for a while. Then hard times came and she told me she had been offered a contract for a. single act in Australia. I advised her to accept the offer if she wished. She went towards the eud of last year, but returned to London and told of her experiences abroad. We lived together happily till early this year, when she told me she had another contract in Australia and China. She sailed again. I had not the slightest knowledge of Knowles, or how Madge met him. I was not worried by the fact that the letters were addressed through a third person. Madge was so Bohemian, happy-go-lucky and casual, that I could easily Imagine her enclosing a letter to me in one addressed to one of her many women friends. Whatever happened Ox. the Gold Coast, I am not blaming my wife. She was the best woman in the world. We were the truest and best pals in goo 1 times and in bad times.” Street then broke down and sobbed. Knowles’s mother and sister are tragic figures, sitting at their fireside at Aberdeen waiting for news. When they learned the ver.dict from a newspaper representative, the mother said: “I cannot believe my son guilty. You may be assured I shall spare no effort to save him. I shall lodge an appeal, if that has not been done.” '