THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3594, 30 January 1923, Page 59

THE SKETCHER.

TROY. The Allied officers and Turks who redraw the Neutral Zone at Chanak will trespass upon holy ground. Only a few miles aw ay, at the foot of the hills which fall away to *the low shore opposite Tenedos, stand the last relics of that noble city which lives for ever in the pages of Homer, lwo romances hang around the spot. One ’S the story of that most famous war of all time, the war that was waged for ten long years for the loveliest of women, e Other is of a different, of a rarer kind: it is a romance of scholarship. Exactly one hundred years ago a boy was bom in the small town ofNeu-Buckow, in Germany His father kept a small grocer’s shop, and the boy, after receiving fuch education as seemed necessary for this profession, entered into the duties of shop, preparing to continue the business after his father relinquished it. One night it happened that a commercial traveller, after doing his business, spent the evening with the family, and, being someth 3, of a classic, entertained them by declaim ing a passage froip the Iliad, the w meant 1 nothing to the boy, or to his parents; but the wonderful music of toe rolling lines produced on him an effec he had never experienced before. t eagerly questioned the traveller about the story which these lines related, and the places which they described. The former was easily supplied ; but the second question the traveller confessed to be unanswer able, either by himself or any other mam since the Iliad was merely fiction, and the people and scenes of the story had never rediv existed. . This answer of the traveller s was quite in accordance with the universal belief of the period. Even in ancient times the reality of the Iliad was in some doubt; >t is true that Alexander the Great, on his •way to the East, ran three times, naked, round the supposed tomb of his ancestor, Achilles, but then Alexander had personal reasons for believing in Achilles existence. Modern scholarship had solved all the improbabilities of the Homeric story by simply assuming free play for the writer’s imagination. But the explanation completely failed to satisfy the boy. He felt convinced, he knew not why, that somewhere there had truly stood those topless towers of Ilium from which Helen bad looked across the ringing plains toward the Grecian tents. And from that moment one sole ambition dominated him—to find the scenes of Homer’s story and to look upon Troy before he died. Tears passed. The young man had migrated when twenty-four to St. Petersburg, wheie he remained for seventeen years, devoting himself to the two tasks which must prepare toe realisation of his dreams. He must first master the language of Homer, and learn all he could from the poems themselves; and, secondly, he must acquire means sufficient to allow him to undertake his explorations. The urst was doubtless the easier task; and when, in 1800, he at last started for the East, he had already formed the convictions which guided him in his search. His proposals were ridiculed by scholars in all countries, and he was looked upon as a harmless madman, who in a few years would have expended liis slender resources in futoe search for another mythical El Dorado. For—so the learned men told him .—not only was the Iliad too absurd to be anything ' but fiction, but also everyone knew that no civilisation had ever existed in Greece and the Aegean archipelago prior to that of which toe records have come down to us. How could tnere be mighty cities in the barbarism of those earlier centuries? ' But Heinrich Scliliemann, the son of the frocer of Neu-Buckow, went on his way. n iB7O, having found at last a site which satisfied all conditions, he started his excavations at a point a few miles south-east of the western entrance to the Dardanelles. Within a few days his workmen came upon what appeared to be the relics of a great wall, bearing the marks of war, and buried now under toe- dust of unnumbered centuries. As the excavation proceeded, it became evident that this had been just such a city as the Troy of Homer. What can have been the emotions of Scliliemann at this moment ? His dream was realised; he, single-handed, by toe force of his conviction, had refuted the hitherto unquestioned belief of the world’s scholars. Butfhis crowning achievement was yet to come, and even when that was done Schliemann himself did not know the \ whole extent of his discovery. When the excavatiofi at Troy was completed Schliemann passed over to Greece, and, having located its position at Mycenae, laid barp the very tomb o’f Agamemnon, the Greek commander at Troy, slain by his faithless wife on the day of his triumphal return. And he found there armour and weapons corresponding in every- particular to those of Agmemnon, as described in ITomer. The proof was complete. Schliemann had been magnificently justified. But there was much more to do, and Schliemann, unfortunately, never lived to poo fto oro-test of tbo discoveries which his enterprise had made possible. In his wa..e explorers flocked to Greece and Troy, and in all directions new finds rewarded them. At Hissarlik, the modern name of the site of Troy, no fewer than six cities were found super-imposed one upon the other. Five times had the fortress been stormed and razed to the ground, and five times it had been rebuilt; for in those ages it had been the stronghold of the robber kings who; levied toll upon the teeming trade of the Dardanelles, then, as now, the most important channel of water in the world. But all these excavators—in Greece, in the islands, and in Asia Minor—found themselves confronted • by the same problem. Neither Troy, nor Mycenae, nor any of these buried cities seemed to be the centre of this newly-discovered civilisation ; thev were provincial markets of some mighty lost metropolis. Years nassed before the accumulated evidence at last

pointed in one direction, and in the neglected island of Crete the key of the mystery was found. There were disclosed the glorious relics of a civilisation whose antiquity was equalled only by that of Egypt. Dates mean little to us, but their significance becomes startling when we realise that the great city of Cnossos (the capital of the mighty kings of Crete who ruled all the eastern Mediterranean), which was finally taken and destroyed about one thousand years before Christ, had then stood as long as Rome, the Eternal City, has stood to-day. “I’ve stood upon Achilles’ tomb,’’ wrote Byron, “and heard Troy doubted: time will doubt of Rome. ’ Not if we remember the name of Heinrich Schliemann!—C. M. Haines, in “The Spectator. ’’ “ ‘INDISCRETIONS’ OF LADY SUSAN.” Lady Susan Townley, wife of a distinguished British diplomat, and a brilliant and beautiful woman, has written her reminiscences, “ ‘lndiscretions’ of Lady Susan” (Thortnton Butterworth), and it is a book which is distinguished by good-humoured wit and good taste. The last chapter, - which gives the book its title, describes hoiv her husband decided to retire from the diplomatic service because he was informed that the cretions of Lady Susan’ had made it impossible to advance him further in the service.’’ The indiscretion hinted at wag that she, toe wife of the British Minister of_ The Hague, was present when toe ex-Kaiser crossed the Dutch frontier after his abdication. Lady Susan explains that she happened to be not a mile away from the station when she learned that the Kaiser was expected there. She determined to be present. She was wearing a thick veil, and hoped to be unnoticed in toe crowd that watched the train come in, but the news of her presence leaked - out with unhappy results. —With Wife and Bath.— Lady Susan tells an amusing story about an Italian Minister in Lisbon: “The Italian Minister, another of our colleagues, was supposed to be a confirmed bachelor and not very meticulous in his personal habits. Great excitement was created, therefore, when he once returned from leave in a cab on the top of which figured a shining new hip-bath, whilst insicle sat a lady, young and of high degree, whom he had "married during his visit home.” —The Empress Frederick. — The Empress Frederick of Germany (a daughter of Queen Victoria) was “British to her finger-tips, and made no secret of the superiority she attributed to her Mother country over any other. When Crown Princess,” says Lady Susan, ’she emphasised these feelings to a degree wanting perhaps in tact, and her German children retaliated by ‘drawing her’ whenever they could. “Thus, for instance, on one occasion at five o’clock tea, Walter (the author s husband) remembers the two Princesses, then girls of twelve and fifteen, dipping their cake into their tea-cups, with toe obvious intention of annonying her. The Crown Princess rose to the bait like a fish to a. fly. ‘Now stop that, Children!’ she cried. ‘None of your n*sty German habits at my table !’ ’ ) —A Dinner Party.— Another story of the Empress, at a dinner party: “King Edward, then Prince of Males, was present, and I sat next to him, opposite the Empress, who had Walter on one side of her and Count Seckendorff, her trusted friend and private secretary, on the other. The table was a narrow one, and toe conversation was general, as is the usual custom abroad, but on this occasion the Empress was very silent, and at last I saw her turn to Count Secicendorff and say something to him in a low tone, at toe same time pointing to me. Count Seckendorff leant towards me across the table and said, quite distinctly, so that all could hear. ‘The Empress wishes me to sav she regrets she cannot take much part in toe conversation to-night, for Her Majesty has spoilt her 6tomach. This literal translation of a German idiom (hat sich den Magen verdorben), which implied that the Empress was suffering from indigestion, s| amused the Frince of Wales that he gafle way to uncpntrolled laughter, in which toe gentle Empress shared in spite of toe fact that she was that evening so evidentiv far from well. -—The Boer War. — An incident in a cinema in Berlin during the Boer War at which an English girl was present with the author: — “The performance that night began with a show of toe portraits of all the leading generals in the Boer W ar. The Boers were received with cheers, the British with derisive hooting. Then followed the portrait of Queen Victoria, received with hisses and cat-calls. I saw my girl friend getting hotter and hotter, her eves blazing with indignation. At length, amid a scene of wild enthusiasm, toe picture of Kruger appeared on toe screen. Before I could stop her, mv little countrywoman pushed her way to the front of toe box, and, standing up there well in view of the astounded audience, she put two fingers in her mouth and, gallerv-bov fashion, emitted a series of shrill whistles. “We dragged her unceremoniously to toe back of toe box. and as soon as we could bundled her out of the theatre, for feeling ran high in those days, and we feared an unpleasant diplomatic incident as the result of her indiscretion. She was scolded, but no reprimand. I could see, could efface the fierce jov she had felt, in making her patriotic nrotest.” —ln China.— In Peking Lady Susan had some funny experiences with her Chinese servants. Chang San, toe butler, entered the room during a bridge party with a very 7 grave face and said: “ ‘Must send for daifoo (doctor), missy, he said, “belly sick, wan tehee medicine!’

“ ‘Oh! Chang San,” I ejaculated, shocked at his intruding upon my guests with this allusion to a stomach trouble, apparently contracted since lunch time, when he had seemed quite well. ‘Go to bed at once. I’ll send daifoo to you,’ and I gently pushed him towards the door. “But he held his ground. ‘My belly no belong sick,’ he insisted. ‘Wall belly all wrong inside!’ And he pointed to the electric bell, which I then realised was out of order and wanted re-charging!” —Chinese Ceremonial.— ‘The ceremonial form of Chinese conversation,” says “ Lady Susan, “always amused me. It abounded in flowery compliments and quaint self-deprecatory remarks, as shown by the following questions and answers which invariably passed between us, through the intermediary, of couse, of the interpreter : “I: ‘Distinguished and aged W T u, what is your honourable age V “He: ‘Alas, honourable lady, I have wasted fifty years!’ “I : ‘How many worthy young gentlemen sons have you?’ “He: ‘My Fate is beggarly; I have but one little bug.’ ‘ “I: ‘How is Your Excellency’s favoured wife ?’ “He: ‘Thank you, madam! , The foolish one of the family is well.’ A most amusing account is given of toe funeral ceremonies of Li-Hung-Chang. “In toe court-vard were arranged a whole menagerie of weird cardboard beasts, more than life-size, whose coats and plumage were represented by dried fir-twigs stuck 011 —I noticed an immense and most comically-shaped 'Pekingese' do~ among others. There were also a regiment of life-sized horses, constructed on light bamboo frames coveted with paper ,\ and coloured to imitate life. Each one was mounted by a cardboard Chinaman in correct official dress, with hat, Jpoots, and pigtail complete. These stuffed cavaliers, in their coloured paper garments, appeared so life-like . at a distance as almost to deceive. one. Looked at closely, however, it was imnossible not to laugh at the fixed expressions of man and beast. The comic side of them was still further accentuated when presently they were bodily hoisted un and carried away, topsy-turvy, with the horses’ legs sticking in toe air, to the place of their execution, for all were burnt in the evening in order that toe deceased statesman might have the use of them in the spirit world to which he was supposed to have retired. In toe same way were sent after him toe effigies of his "servants, Peking carts, family shrines, official chairs, and wives.” THE ILFORD MURDER. STORY OF THE CRIME. The Ilford murder trial, which resulted in the execution of the sentence of death on Frederick By waters and Edith Jessie Thompson, created an unusual amount of interest at Home towards the end of last year, and it will be remembered that a strenuous effort was made to secure a reprieve for the female prisoner. Mr 11. C. Bailey narrates and analyses the story of toe crime os' follows in the Daily Telegraph:— / A little after midnight, a woman was going home through the streets of Ilford. There were not many people afoot in those suburban solitudes. She had come to a dark part of her journey when another woman ran towards her, crying, ‘ My God my God, will you help me? My husband is ill and bleeding, will you fetch a doctor. She walked on and found a man lying on the pavement. She asked what had happened. “I don’t know,’’ the wife ai y* “Someone flew past, and as I turned to speak to him blood was pouring out of his mouth.” It occurred to the questioner that this answer was inadequate. She “thought the wife agitated. She fetched a doctor. Medical examination by the light of a match showed that the husband had then been dead some minutes. “Why didn’t you come sooner and save him?” said the wife. The doctor sent for the police. To the constable, who saw her home, the wife remarked: “They will blame me for this-” When her husband s body was examined it was found to bear a number of wounds. There were four cuts upon the' body, one on the jaw, one on the right The back of the neck had been stabbed' twice and deeply, the injury which caused death being a stab on the right side of the throat. The divisional surgeon formed tile opinion that the man who inflicted these wounds must have been in front at first and afterwards delivered the blows from the back. Red tracks in the street showed that the victim had gOne on some little way after the first wounds were inflicted. A pool of blood beyond marked the place where the fatal blow was struck, but the wounded man still struggled on. He died, as the surgeon computed, some two minutes after the artery in his neck was pierced. Such were the facts which the police had to investigate. It was easy to discover who the murdered, man was and all about him. The murder was committed in the early morning of October 4. Before noon on "that day the wife had twice declared to police officers that she could not account for her husband’s wounds. She heard him say “Oh!” she told the divisional detective inspector, and he fell against her and blood came out of his mouth. Till that happened, she had been aware of nounusual. They were walking peacefully - home, they “were quite happy together.” She had not seen anyone about. THE ARRESTS. W 7 ith whatever emotional agitation such statements were made they could not convince. The police must have been satisfied within a very few hours of the murder that, whatever might be the truth about it, the widow was not telling the truth. They knew that she was a Mrs Thcmipson, with a home at, Ilford, and that her family also, the Graydons, were Ilford people. At her father’s house on the evening of October 4—and for that matter on several evenings before —was a young man called . By waters, a friend of Mrs Thompson and the Graydons of some years’ standing. About 7 o’clock on this evening after the murder Bywaters brought a paper into their house, and asked if Mr Graydon had seen it. “This is a terrible thing,” he

said, “if it is true.” A little later the police came and arrested him. On the next morning, when Mrs Thompson, it is to be assumed, knew of this arrest, the detective-inspector asked her if she could give any information of her husband’s assailant. She repeated in substantially the same terms the extraordinary account of the death which she had given before, and then added, “I cannot remember whether there was anyone there or not. I know there was no one there when he fell against me.” She acknowledged, of course, that she knew Bywaters. She admitted that in a quarrel between her and her husband Bywaters had “interfered on her behalf.” She had written to him and gone out with him without her husband’s knowledge. She had destroyed his letters to her. The inspector took her to the police station. There she saw By waters detained. She exclaimed. “Oh. God) Oh. God! What can 1 do? Y’hy did he do it? I did not want him to do it.” And almost immediately afterwards she said that she must tell the truth. She was, the inspector reports, hysterical. But after the usual caution about giving evidence against herself, she made another statement which, though it confessed she had been previously lying, seemed to show 7 signs of consideration. A man rushed out, she said, knocked her and pushed her away from her husband. She was dazed. W hen she recovered she saw her husband struggling with a man. Then she recognised Bvwuiters running aw'ay. She did not see his face, but lecognised his clothes. It seems a fair interpretation of this to consider it as meant to convey that the presence of Bywaters in that lonely, dark street was wholly unexpected bv Mrs Thompson, and that her husband was" killed in a fight. The statement, in fact, hysterical or not, takes the only ground upon which any defence could be made for the woman or the man. When Bywaters was told that Mrs Thompson and he would be charged together with murder his first concern was to exculpate her. She w 7 as not aware, he insisted, of his plans or liis movements. When ihusband and wife came to where he was waitlng for them, he pushed her aside, and saw no more of her. There was a fight, in which the dead man got the worst of it, and “Mrs Thompson must have been spellbound,” for after the meeting Bywaters saw no more of her. THE THOMPSON MENAGE. Fpon the facts of the man’s death and the statements of Mrs Thompson and Bywaters there was thus a prima facie case against them. But it is no less obvious that this case offers certain problems. “Why did he do it?” The woman’s crv. sincere or insincere, states one of them. What premeditation was there? Y 7 hich of the two who stood charged together was the directing will? It is not to be expected that in every crime motives can be discovered which seem to the normal mind sufficient to account for the deed. If we were all normal in our emotions, our feelings, our desires, even if we were all rational in conduct, the labours of the criminal courts" would be sensibly lightened. An examination of the evidence given at the trial will suggest what manner of people were these two who were found guilty of the murder of Percy Thompson. But we must not, as the judge was careful to remind the jury, begin with toe assumption that a crime of passion is in itself ell titled to leniency. Murder is none the less murder because it is preceded and prompted by adultery. Since David set Uriah in the forefront of the battle there have been many such cases. The judge who defined the murder as a “vulgar and common crime” is a better guide than those who have sought to confuse the issue by sentimental rhetoric. Consider the characters as they emerge from the records of the trial. Jn January, 1915, Percy Thompson married Edith Jessie Graydon. He was then 25 and she was 21. He was a clerk in a shipping office, earning enough to keep up a small suburban home. No children were born. Mrs Thompson also went into a city, office, and became- a bookkeeper and manageress. W’e have, therefore, no question of a wife dependent on her husband. At the time of the murder his salary and hers were of about the same amount, some £6 per week each. She would have been able to support herself if she had separated from him. Nothing is known of any quarrel between them for some years after marriage. Mrs Thompson sajd under cross-examination that she thought,.she took an aversion to her husband in 1918! In June, 1921, Frederick By waters, a lad who was then 19, and who had known Mrs Thompson’s brothers at school, and had remained intimate with the Graydon family, went for a short holiday with Mr and ,Mrs Thompson and her sister. On their return he stayed with the Thompsons on, as he says, the husband’s invitation. Then “there was a quarrel between Mr Thompson and his wife over a very trivial matter. Mr Thompson started to knock his wife about. He threw her across the room, and she overturned a chair.” Such is Bywat.ers’s story. He interfered, and “at Thompson’s request and his own inclination” he then left the house. Another witness testified that after this quarrel Mrs Thompson’s arm was "black from shoulder to elbow.” On the day of the quarrel, according to Bywaters, Thompson told his wife to get a separation, and she replied that she wanted one, but her husband would “only whine back and retract his statements.” Why, if she wanted a separation, she did not leave him neither she nor Bywaters has explained. In the witness-box she said that she pretended to be happy “to satisfy her husband more than anything.” THE LETTERS. Bywaters, who was employed as a clerk on a P. and O. liner, went back to hU ship. “Just before that” Mrs Thompson and he “fell in love,” and so when he was gone they wrote one another love letters. He had a week or two in London in November, 1921, seeing Mrs Thompson "practically every day.” When He sailed again the letters were resumed. Long extracts from hers were read at the trial. They show considerable fluency of expression. They are in the style of the novelette. The judge called them the putpourings of a silly, wicked affection. There is no doiibt about their vigour or the violence of the colours with which they are charged. Blit when Mrs Thompson’s counsel talked of their “beautiful language of love” he was speaking to his brief. Bywaters was a sounder critic when he remarked that the woman who wrote them was “a woman who lived in melodrama,” lived and thought and wrote in a world of extravagant passions, a world where everything is bigger, more violently coloured, lighter, and darker than realities. The language of the letters is not of love, a word which is not to be used in this case, but of forced passion and brooding sensuality.

Hie judge stumbled over a passage about the husband having the right bv law to all that the lover has a right to “by nature and love.” It may be taken as the text, the old text, of many another squalid correspondence on which Mrs Thompson voluminously discoursed. Self-indulgence, according to this philosophy, is an excuse for everything. It was the excuse in this case for elaborate discussion about the ways and means of poisoning the husband. Four or five methods at the least were considered, the use of hyoscine, of ground glass, of something which gave tea a bitter taste, of gas fumes, and of bichloride of mercury, to say nothing of the tactics of Mr Hichens’s heroine, Bella Donna. The woman discussed it all backwards and forwards, and boasted if words mean anything, of attempts she had made; But there is no evidence that her husband ever consumed any poisonous sub- * stance. • None was found in his body. His health was at no time affected. The defence contended that all the eager writing about poison was, as the judge summed up their arguments, “‘swank’ to show what an heroic person she was.” It will not escape notice that the poisons she mentions are notorious in the annals of the criminal courts or in fiction. The suggestion that Mrs Thompson was, like many others, eager to pretend that she could rank with the most conspicuous villains is natural. But there is something to be said for another explanation. In such cases as this it is common to find that the obverse of passion is delight in cruelty. The gusto witn which the administration of poison to the husband is written about is not to be ignored. Whether she did in fact attempt to poison him or not, she took pleasure in the thought of it. The sensual desire which demanded murder found satisfaction in imagining the process of murder. When that is allowed for, we find suggested an answer to the problem over which common sense stumbles, why these two people wanted to do murder at all. There was no practical reason why, if Mrs Thompson wished to leave hex husband with Bywaters, she should not have done so. She had her own resources, Bvwaters his. It is not probable that she would have suffered in position or repute. The chance of such damage was plainlv infinitely greater in an attempt at murHer. Morality, in the nature of the case, is to be left out of the argument. To any normal, sane judgment her motives for murder are preposterously inadequate. But when we read her letters and see that the killing of her husband was in itself a gratification of passion, motives loom out of the murk. THE MURDER. . Hie prosecution was not concerned to interpret the processes of the murderers’ minds. It sufficed* to prove that Mrs Thompson and Bywaters were conspiring together to kill her husband. That they did 7 to. fact do it by any of the methods they discussed does not affect the validity of the proof of murderous intent. The jury nad before them evidence of & long-studied incitement of the man by the woman to 1 , mu ™ er - When he came back to England on September 23 of this year he telegraphed to her to meet him. She did ' meet him and frequently. On the afternoqn of October 3 they had tea together. bUe Jett him and went to the theatre with her husband. As husband and wife walked from the station at Ilford to their home that night, Bywaters (who lived at Norwood) was there waiting for them. He said that he had gone there waylaying them after midnight in a quiet 8t F f eet > _J® ur ff e Thompson to divorce his wire, there was. one may suppose, nothing else to say, but this was hardly worth saying. He declared that Thompson attacked him and that he killed in selfdefence. That is why, on this mission of midnight negotiation in the street, he had provided himself with a sheath knife But it is a disagreeable task to record the’ desperate efforts of the lad to give his crime some rags of manliness. He did his best to pretend that the woman knew nothing of his intentions, and to mho the * crime on his own shoulders. The evidence was overwhelming. When a woman of commits adultery with a lad of 20, and is involved with him in murder, a jury is not easily to be persuaded that he was not under her influence. Everything in the case confirmed the pre-supposition that tne woman was the leader. This is not to make a defence for Bvwaters. At 20 a Jad must be considered responsible for his actions. Ye may well be sorry for him but his is not a case, however good his record outside this intrigue may be. which commands much sympathy. It is alleged, the evidence being chiefly from Bywaters that the husband maltreated his wife, and By T w ators, according to his own statement, extracted a promise from him that he was not to beat her ” The lad may have beiie\ea himself a knight-errant, protecting an injured lady, but, after all, injured ladies and Kiught-errants should not correspond about giving broken glass to the brutal husband. There are more honourable ways of protection. Even though we believe the worst which the two who murdered him haie insinuated about the man they murdered, there remains against them both the damning question, why did they resort to murder? The woman need not have endured one day more of her husband than she chose. There is only the one answer that they desired, or one of them desired and imposed a dominant will on the other, murder for its own sake, murder as a punishment, as vengeance, or as cruelty. The manner in which the case was tried may stand as a model of the manner in which crimes of passion should be investigated. The moderation of the prosecution, w'hich was content to bring out the facts and let the facts speak for themselves, and the calm summing up of the case by Mr ' Justioe Shearman, in which, when sentimentalities had been curtly ruled out, every argument which the defence could advance was considered, however vague its import, but which insisted on the interpretation of facts by commonsense, have done justice. Let us hope that there will be no attempts to retry the case out of court by rhetoric and no glorification of those who are guilty of “a vulgar and crime.”