SOLDIER OF FORTUNE RE-APPEARS.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1920, Page 12

SOLDIER OF FORTUNE RE-APPEARS.

BOER SCOUT, SPY, AND PRISONBREAKER. Soldier of fortune and complete adventurer, Fritz Jouj)ert Duquesne, who has been wanted by the British police since 191G, l has sent a message to America from Breda, Holland.

This is the first news of luin since his sensational escape from the Bellevue prison, New York, on May 26th last, after he had feigned paralysis in a marvellous manner for seven months to avoid being surrendered to the British police on charges of murder and piracy at sea. Duquesne is a nephew of the Boer general. After fighting against Kaffirs and Matabeles in his early years he went to Belgium for military training, and later fought in the Boer ranksHe was captured by the British, but suc-% ceeded hi escaping, and was next heard of when secret service men arrested him at the table in the course of a banquet in honor of Lord Kitchener at Cape Town. He was condemned to death, but secured a reprieve by offering to translate the secret Boer code, and was sent to an internment camp in the Bahamas. He escaped by jumping off a cliff and swimming to safety through shark-in-fested waters.

He led a vagabond life among the I beach-combers until the hue and cry died down, when lie started again on his career as a gentleman of fortune. Finally sailing for England from South America on thhe steamer Tennyson he blew up the ship. . He was at length arrested in New York and lodged in the Bellevue Prison, whence he effected another spectacular escape. Still well under 40 years of age, Capt. Duquesne has already crowded into his life enough escapes and disappearances to entitle him to a place in the gallery of the great adventurers. In the Boer war, as a lad of 17, his scouting and spying exploits were remarkable, while he is credited with the powers of fascination which are a part of the soldier of fortune's stocK-in-trade. "While he was in hiding in the Bahamas, so the ■ story goes, he was discovered by the daughter of a British official. He so charmed her that instead of denouncing him she brought him food and clothing, and warned him when the hour was propitious for escape. It is said that she is now his wife, having joined him in New York after he had "hoboed" his way there.

In December, 1913, Duquesne left New York for South America to take cinematograph pictures of the Roosevelt hunting expedition in the jungle. Some two years later came the news that lie was dead —killed in battle with Indians on the Bolivian frontier. It may well he that he himself caused the story of his death to be circulated in order the more easily to obtain a passage in the Tennyson,