COUNT VON LUCKNER

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 69, 23 March 1938, Page 6

COUNT YON LUCKNER

Again last evening Count Felix yon Luckner spoke at the Grand Opera House to a large and very interested audience, which punctuated his long and interesting narrative with applause. The lecture was the second of three which are to be given in Wellington. In the first, he told how a windjammer was made ready for sea, and how, aided by heavy weather, darkness, and deception, she slipped through the triple blockade and into the Atlantic. Last night's lecture Concerned the adventures of the modern buccaneers from the passing of the blockade uttil the loss of the Sceadlcr on Mopelia, and the capture of her captain at Suva. His anecdotes of the methods used to capture shipping drew much laughter, as it was revealed that in many cases the raider was worse armed than the victim. Talcs of the five hundred "guests" aboard the small sailing vessel, and of the "Captains' Club" of 13 members, were also well told, and were popular. Although a little handicapped by the English language, he had no difficulty in holding his "audience through a two-hour lecture. The tenor of his discourse was that his task was to destroy nitrates and to save German lives; that he had done so without the cost of a single life; and that he was a member of the "brotherhood of the sea," without politics, and governed only by the laws of good-fellowship and the universal appeal of the SOS. The third and final lecture will be given at the Grand Opera Hsuse tomorrow evening. The Count will speak at the De Luxe Theatre, Lower Hutt, this evening, the Regent Theatre, Masterton, on Friday, and will open a season in Palmerston North, at' the Mayfair Theatre, next Saturday. Box plans for the final Wellington lecture are now open.