ESCAPED HUN IN LONDON HOTEL

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 100, 21 January 1918, Page 6

ESCAPED HUN IN LONDON HOTEL

"TIP 1, FOR WAITER OUT OF £17. A Gorman prisoner of war, Lieutenant Paul Scheumarui, who recontly escaped from tho Ohippenham (Wiltshire) canip, was recaptured at Bollomo's private hotel,' Je'rniyn Street, London. iVlr. Andrew Bollorao, tho proprietor of the hotel, describing the capture to a "Daily *Mail ;, representative, said: ''Bciioumann booked a room here about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. He was smartly dressed in dark groy clothes. I thought he was a wounded British offiitfr. Later he went out and did not return until nearly midnight. "Next morning I saw for the first time that he had registered his name and address in the German stylo: THOMAS MANN, Bristol, High Street, 145. I at once suspected that 'Mr. Mann' was a German, and a-s I 1 watched him at his breakfast 'wy suspicions were confirmed.

"I asked him in English if his breakfast was all right. Hβ replied, 'Yes, it is very good. I am enjoying it. . Then 1 toid him in German that he could not Jiavo his room that evening as it had been let. He merely smiled and said nothing. Then I went out into Piccadilly and brought in a plain-clothes policeman. We allowed 'Mr. Maim' to finish his breakfast and then I said to him, 'You are a German soldier. It's the fortune of war. Here is a police officer. .

"Scheumann merely smiled and called for his bill. He paid and wanted to give the waiter os., but I said that half a crown was enough, and he handed that amount to the waiter. At Vine Street police station Scheumann admitted his identity and said that after escaping from Chippenham he took a train for London. That night he stayed at an hotel near Marble Arch. "He went to the New Theatre the next night. "Hβ also said that after escaping he changed from his uniform into a suit he had made himself out of Army blankets. He bought a mackintosn before coming to London, and on arriving here changed his clothes for those he wore when captured. His bag contained about £17 in money."