CANNIBALS DISCOVERED IN EUROPE

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 87, 21 March 1931, Page 3

CANNIBALS DISCOVERED IN EUROPE

EERIE LIGHT ON MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES OF WAYFARERS THROUGH FORESTS INHABITED BY G.IPSIES

By FRANK CARLYN

/CANNIBALS in Europe! It sounds V incredible! Jet a woman who recently returned "from a study of Romany music in Central Europe brings back a weird tale of finding traces of cannibalism among tribes of wander : Gipsies. This bizarre report of an alleged modern outrage on civilisation was told to me by Madame Mally Wild de Villareal.

"it was while roaming about from tribe to tribe or nomad musicians of Bohemia," said Madame de Villareal, "that I first heard vague rumours of cannibal atrocities. Immediately my feminine curiosity was piqued, and 1 decided to look into the matter after I had finished gathering my notes on the melodies.

"The task I had cut out for myself was difficult in the extreme. The Gipsies refused to discuss the matter. Since the alleged' cannibals belonged to their tribes, they felt that the affair cast reflections on all of the Gipsies.

"However, a Hungarian journalist friend came to my aid", and with his first-hand knowledge of the matter, I managed to pieefc together the facts. I found that people had been disappearing mysteriously in the dark forests in the southern section of Czechoslovakia, a section inhabited by tribes of roving Gipsies. Woodmen would go into the forests and neyer come out.

"Occasional farmhands tilling the soil/along the, edge of some heavilywooded strip would vanish. The. carnal traveller along the gloomy forest paths would fail to reach his destination, and nothing further would be seen or heard of him. . "We Cooked Them!" "When these rumours became more frequent and persistent the Government -decided to investigate. Naturally, the first persons suspected in the mysterious disappearances were the Gipsies who abound in that section. The task of, the Government investigators in Questioning these nomads was no easy one, as anybody who understands their ways will realise.

"After months of patient investigation in the southern section of Czechoslovakia, suspicion centred upon a tribe of Gipsies headed by a young man of 22 years, known as Filke. The entire tribe of 25, including eight women, was arrested and held for trial.

"They were specifically charged with killing and eating 17 Czechs. Their trial was one of the most unusual in criminal history, but, of course, every effort was made to guarfrv against possible loss of tourist trade coloured reports of the affair.

"The State had a very difficult case to prove, since it could produce not a single corpus delicti. By dint of skilful questioning directed almost wholly at the women, they elicited one slender thread of evidence. , "'We cooked'them,' was the .startling admission made in court. Further than that they would not go. Stolidly they stuck to that one sen"itence.

- "The men were too keen to be trapped into such a damaging admission as the women had made. • "The result of the trial was that the men were imprisoned for life at hard labour, and the women were freed. The Government still refuses to believe their story'of 'We cooked them.'

"The whole proceedings were secret, no reporters nor spectators being permitted at the trial. I obtained the full version of the affair from a friend of mine who was a Czech official and consequently could not be barred from the tfial."

Having obtained her data on the discovery, trial and conviction of the Gipsies, Madame de Villareal's next step was to try to visit, them in prison, to see and talk to them. This proved the most difficult part of the whole adventure.

The destination of Vie convicts was kept, secret by the Government to prevent possible disorders or lynchings, since public feeling against the convicted vagabonds was running high.

Madame de Villareal finally found Ihafc the group had been taken to a prison deep in the mountains of the southern section ifear the ancient Leopoldsdary Fortress. Thither she sped in her car, despite the cautionings of her friends, and with the discouraging knowledge that no woman had ever set foot within the prison since it had been built. "Suddenly," she said, "1 bad a flash of inspiration. The siren signal on ray automobile is a common thing in the United States, many trucks and omnibuses being so equipped. But in Czechoslovakia only official car* have them. "I said to niy son Ernest, who always accompanies me on my trips:

HOW TO BE 100

DR. OUENIOT, of Paris, has fold mankind how to live to be a hundred, and .an inmate of Leicester Institution has died at the age of 104, complaining bitterly that he was alone and friendless, having outlived all his contemporaries. Thar, sort of thing makes it extremely difficult for (he rest of us to know what to do. Few men want to die. But fewer want to be alone and friendless. And though it is comparatively easy to keep a friend it is comparatively difficult, judging by the disclosures of successful centenarians, to keep alrve. It calls for as much self-denial to become a centenarian as to become a saint. Eating and drinking, it appears, are far more dangerous and deadly than we in our nursery days ever suspected. And to lie in bed. Dr. Gueniot assures us, is merely to accelerate death. Only, in fact, by avoiding all the comforts of human existence can man smear his portion of life across a full century. The recipes for longevity are diverse and mostly unpleasant. They range from mere abstinence from tobacco and alcohol t.o 30-mile walks and a diet of nuts. And they are all of them right. For in this world someone can always be found to support anytb.ig. Zaro Aga, the IGO- - Turkish porter, for instance, bad never touched tobacco or alcohol in his life and a half. He was immediately pounced upon by the Prohibitionists and exhibited, just as Captain .James Smith, of Philadelphia, who lived to be 124 and was a ferocious walker and smoker (30 miles and 25 cigars a day at 50), was heralded by the, peripatetic school. FOR THE SABBATH 1?

i Better Than Silver and Gold.-—God-liness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. —1 Timothy, 6: G, 7, 8.

Prayer.—Give us grace, 0 God, to win a victory over tlte acquisitive spirit within.

'Blow the horn.' Immediately the wail of the siren filled the air, reechoing from the mountainside and the valley.

"The gate opened and Ernest drove through and halted before the gate guard, who appeared startled out of his wits at the appearance of a woman in the prison.

"To help along the cause I handed him one of my cards with as official a flourish as I could muster and ordered him to report my presence to the superintendent. The sight of the card written in a foreign language, added to the official touch given by the siren, proved the last straw to the bewildered keeper. He scurried off in search of the'superintendent with one backward glance of consternation. Tigerish Eyes "Scarcely had he disappeared when my Hungarian friend who had attended the trial nudged me excitedly, pointing to the central prison yard, where convicts were busy at various tasks, breaking stones, transporting them in wheelbarrows, repairing various prison equipment and the like.

"'The cannibals!' he exclaimed. "I found the convicts were a group of fine-lookihg young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, none older. They had the natural, splendid physique of Romany men, and their faces portrayed the intelligence attributed to them. "I searched for some outward indication of a bestial nature in line with the horrible crime for which they had been imprisoned. At last I found it! It was in their eyes.

• "The average. Gipsy eye is noted for its shiftiness. Their eyes with this peculiar shifting quality are mysterious and awesome. Besides these usual qualities, the eyes of these criminals had an almost indefinable finality, I would say tigerish, as if their owners were capable of rending you limb from limb. "Then a commotion on the steps of the prison attracted my attention. The superintendent, bursting with rage and indignation, was berating the gatekeeper for admitting us to the prison grounds on lbe strength of a mere visiting card.

"Striving- to control his voice, he said: 'Unless you leave immediately, madame, you may cost this Katekeeper his job.' . . "1 had accomplished my purpose in seeing the prisoners, so we drove away."