WRECKING TRAINS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 96, 20 October 1931, Page 7

WRECKING TRAINS

MERCHANT'S MENTALITY

THEORY OF ALIENISTS

VIENNA, 19th October. / The confession of Sylvester Matuschka, the Hungarian merchant, who has admitted the wrecking of three express trains, places him among the-most depraved criminals of modern times. Leading detectives of Germany, Austria, and Hungary sat in, his cell at a Vienna police station throughout Friday night in a desporate effort-to extort the confession, fearing that other deathdealing schemes might ,be in course of preparation. i • ' Matuschka ia tall and handsome. He is an excellent business man, a kindhearted father and husband, and apparently deeply religious, but: he is really a devil in disguise. While his wife was visiting her parents in Germany he indulged in the wildest orgies, associating with the vilest criminals. ' , . The climax came when he bought a factory for the preparation of dangerous explosives. He engineered v train wrecking, which seemed to have a fascination for him. He would be away from home for weeks, afterwards, returning haggard and depressed. When the blowing up of a train was. arranged he hid near the scene, and, when the shrieks of the victims told of a successful result, ho left his hiding place and miuglcd with the.passengers, pretending that he himself had had a narrow escape. Curiously; Matuschka's last business deal was to buy a tombstone factory. Dr.' Robert Jokl, the well-known alieuist of Vienna, explains: "In buying tombstones Matuschka unconsciously was visualising the end of his j victims. It is a caso of sadism comparable to .Nero's burning of Rome. Criminals of his type conceal their bad aspect under a mask of exaggerated correctness." , In his statement to the police Matuschka claimed that he was divinely appointed to punish the world for its materialism, thus confirming tho opinion of exports that he is a religious maniac. . .