A PRUSSIAN IN PERU

Evening Star, Issue 18533, 16 January 1924, Page 10

A PRUSSIAN IN PERU

POLITICIAN SHOOTS GERMAN. JUNGLE LAW. Mr Roland Green, M.H.R., lor the Richmond, who beat Mr Massy-Greeno at tho last Federal Elections, has seen a great deal of Australia (sa.yS the Sydney ‘ Sun ’), and ho knew Europe both before and during the war, in which he lost a log. Ho has explored in West Africa, has run up against earthquakes in Valparaiso (1906), Messina (1908), and Japan. He is no stranger to North America, or to China, or to other parts of Asia. But he killed his first German long before the war. This, the most dramatic incident of his career, took place fifteen years ago in South America. lie had knocked about South America a good deal, and had noticed how the Chilian uses the knife at close quarters, and how the Argentine is often an expert at throwing the knife. In 1905 he and another young Australian went into the rubber business in the upper Amtfzon country of Peru, seventy miles from Iquitos. Tho plantations were worked by gangs of Indians. For the rest, it was the law of tho jungle. Every man looked out for himself, and the weakest wont to tho wall. The chief recruiter of the Indian labor, by the way, was a woman of mixed Spanish and Indian blood. THE GORILLA GRIP. The next plantation, three miles away, was held by a German named Schwarts, who had lived for many years in tho country. He was over six feet -in height; hut his vast breadth of shoulder amd bis bulk ■ made him look short. His great arms were of unusual length. Amongst tho indentured Indians on Schwarts’s plantation was an Indian chief of an unusually high type, both physically and mentally, who claimed descent from the ancient Inca rulers of Peru. Brutally treated by Schwartz, this Indian fled to Green’s partner, Teddy, visited him one Green’s plantation, where ho lay hidden. Schwartz got wind of this, and when evening he attacked him about it. Teddy protested that he knew nothing of it, on which the furious German seized him by tho shoulder. So terrible was his grip that he dislocated the collarbone. He had not meant to do this, but hardly know his own strength. After growling out some sort of apology, he gave Teddy a drink of whisky, and allowed him to be carried home with the message that he would get Green for bis part of the business. It was no idle threat. A day or two later Green heard a shot in the Indian compound. A little later a terrified Indian rushed into the house to sav that Schwartz had shot the runaway chief, and was now coming to seek Grcyi. BEHIND THE RHODODENDRON. Knowing that it was h(i.or Schwartz for it, Green, with a loaded Winchester, took np a stategic position behind a rhododendron bush that grew near the verandah and commanded the path to the house. Presently Schwartz, fresh from the murder of the Indian, appeared hastening to the house to seek another victim. In his rage and fury he threw caution to the winds, and made an easy target of himself. One shot through the rhododendron bush, and it was all over. Sohwartz dropped in his tracks, and went to his account without a word. The Indians feared him dead as much as they had dreaded him in life. Finally the overseers forced them to pick up the body of the gorilla man and throw it into the river, where the alligators soon made an end of it. Such was the end of Schwartz, who had carried Prussianism into the Amazonian jungle, hut discovered at last the truth of the saying that he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword, or at least by the Winchester. No inquiry of any sort was ever made as to his death. His Indian slaves bolted as soon as they learnt of his death, and (ho Amazonian jungle, in which trees grow up almost overnight, resumed possession of his clearings.