DEAD MAN'S BOOK

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10313, 24 January 1927, Page 8

DEAD MAN'S BOOK

STRANGE CALLER AT NEWSPAPER; OFFICE.

FOUND SHOT AFTER LEAVING BOOK.

Strange circumstances >urround the death of an Italian, or Greek, Xenophon Malgliieri, who was found shot in a cemetery at Johannesburg. An hour before liis body was found Malgliieri visited the "Sunday Times” offices and interviewed a member of the editorial staff.

He' carried a thick foolscap manuscript book rolled up carefully. Untying a small piece of knotted string that was tied carefully lound the manuscript, lie produced this \ olume which consisted of thirty-five sheets, closely written in a clear out shaky hand.

Handing this over ‘for publication’ he left as quietly as he had entered. An hour later he was found dead. By his side was an old-fashioned cap-and-hanimer pistol. He lay half across a path on the English seition with a terrible wound in'the head.

UNIDENTIFIED. A number of inquiries were made at the mortuary, though so far it is understood that no relatives have been to the institution to indentify tbe'body. It is-believed that Malgliieri stayed in buildings in Commissioner Street.. The manuscript which was left at the ‘Sunday Times’ office is in places meaningless. The main portion is devoted to "Religious Psychology and Sociology,” and there is scarcely a misspelt word in the whole thirtyfive pages which abound in Latin quotations. On the last page is written: —- “And now. my reader. Vale morituri to.salutnnn. Video meliora, probeque deterior.i sequer. A lea j'acta est.” UX T V F.R SA i, REM EDI ES. It goes on: "An old man asked if ho would have liked to live till a hundred venrs, answered ‘til l two hundred.’ Yet the general .onsensus is that at a certain age death is at necessary as sleep; both universal remedies to universal ills of different degrees; An so, ‘Good-niglit, till morning, when we both will wake up, von from sleep to active life and myself from death to new life; the splendour of the sun for you; for me the mercy of God, life radiating suner-sun, Universal provider.” Then conies the writer’s signature, “Zenophon Malgliieri’ and below it appear- the words ‘‘for Publication if vou please.” . Indelible pencil lias been used, and the sheets ‘have the appearance oT having been moistened before they were written upon, as every word shows up in bright purple. The color of the paper points to the manuscript being quite fresh. In fact from the appearance 9f the glue in the binding it seems likely that this at any rate, 'was-quite recently clone. In big letters the words: "To whom it may "concern, Sociology and Religious Psychology,” appear on the first page. r I hereafter is a live lined stoic cf a soldiei. On the-first sheet in very small hand-writing appears: "N.B. Please excuse handwriting, hand paralysis the trouble.”

HIS CAREER. Lower down on the same page is written : "I do not claim for myself a remarkable intelligence; glaring mistakes made through life over and over again, and few worthless patents —disprove it entirely ; but I do claim to possess the plain understanding of an ordinary man, and to prove that such is the case allow me to mention a dental diploma from the University of Genoa, a law diploma from the .supreme Court cf Utah State, United States, the authorship of a book, ‘ll Corte di Montezuma,’ out of print, the book and its writer denounced from the pulpit, and a lot of fiou cl pies bought, paid, removed, and burned in tlionight by an emissary of the Catholic Church.” On the bac-k of each page are a number of signs corresponding with marks on the other side of the paper, and a few words. Uno reads: "I don’t ask people to believe, but only to consider; to stimulate thought is my object.” Several of the passages are apparently meaningless, while others lead up to some point which the writer elaborately explains.