LOVE AND TRAGEDY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 13 February 1925, Page 2

LOVE AND TRAGEDY.

CROWBOROUGH SENSATION. LIFE OF ELSIE CAMERON. (Sun Special). LONDON, Jan. 18. The police continued digging_ in the poultry-yard on Norman Thorn’s farm at Crowborough. where they had previously found the dismembered body of Miss Elsie Cameron, the London typist' who disappeared live weeks, ago. The police found a gold curb bangle, a wristlet watch and a gold brooch. It- is an open secret, says the New of the World, that the Court story will reveal, one of the most remarkable lovetragedies for years, originating in youthful calf-love at the Sunday school, of which Thorn’s father was superintendent. Miss Cameron was reared in an atmosphere of the greatest religious severity, hounded by the most gloomy piety. Later Thorn enlisted, and the friendship lapsed. It was renewed after the war, culminating in Miss Cameron excitedly displaying Thorn’s photograph signed “Yours till death.” It is hinted that the girl took the courtship more seriously than Thorn. She partook of few ordinary girl’s amusements. She had never been to a dance or any place of amusement, and she dressed severely, often saying that attractive clothes were sinful. She was constantly reading the Bible and Methodit literature, hut she secretly devoured the hooks of Ethel M. Dell.

Miss Cameron spent week-ends at Crowborough, sometimes unchaperoned, and later, it is said, she confided her anxiety to her friends. Her last visit, to Crowborough was made for the purpose of hastening her marriage. She left a note to her parents: —“I am arriving at Crowborough in the dark. I do not want to he recognised.” Owing to the families’ lifelong friendship- and their attendance at the same Wesleyan church, Mrs, Blumfield, the dead girl’s sister, visited Thorn’s mother to'express the family’s sympathy. She found her grief-stricken, and ignorant that miss Cameron’s body had bee dismembered. Her husband had not allowed her to read the newspapers. A hacksaw has been discovered on the farm. '

Prior to the finding of Miss Cameron’s remains Thorn gave the Star newspaper an amazing letter. It read newspaper an amazing letter. It read : —- •‘Mv dear Elsie, —If you are alive, no matter where and no matter what- has happened, please write just one line to remove the dreadful suspense and intolerable agony. Don’t be afraid to tell, me anything. I want to know all. and am willing to forgive anything and everything. You must realise, -dear, that it was love for you that sent- me from a crowded, happy London to seek a home and fortune by poultry-farming at Crowborough. It was love that sustained me in the wilderness and isolated country existence. How many young, healthy and strong men would have clone as much? Often I have been nearlv driven riiad with the loneliness of living in a little wooden hut, at the end of a narrow lane, with only fowls, clogs and oats’ companionship. T have been a ‘Robinson Crusoe’ in England. Cheerfully I have continued the poultry-farming enterprise, always working and striving to get a home worthy of you, and now this has happened. Here I am alone, hut everybody is thinking me worst of all. Dear, I know what they are thinking. They come down to the lane stealthily, and peer through the gate, as though the hut was occupied by some vile outcast. There is a look of morbid curiosity on their faces. Won’t you save me from this torture, Elsie, dear?—Yours, Norman.”