NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1926, Page 1

NEWS BY MAIL.

HAMLET’S CIGARETTE. LONDON, March 22. A shingled Ophelia, and Hamlet soliloquising with a cigarette in liis mouth —in fact tho whole play of Hamlet in inodei-ii dress is being performed by the Batli Repertory players at tho Theatre Jloyal. The garvediggers stand with bowed beads while an unseen choir sings the Ave Maria. y Hamlet’s first soliloquy is accompanied by the dancing of a fox-trot by three couples, to tlie- music of a gramaplioue. Ophelia wears short skirts and lias lier hair shingled. Laertes and Marcellus (appear in khaki and Sam Browno belts. NEIGHBOUR SHOT. JOHANNESBURG, March 22. Captain Robert George Pottle, M.C.. who bad a distinguished war record was charged here to-day with the murder of a Dutch farmer named Steyn. He was found guilty of culpable, homicide and was sentenced to three years’ bard labour. Evidence showed that Pottle and his Dutch neighbours near Belfast were on had terms and frequently quarrelled. The judge found that Pottle received great provocation -and believed that threats were nindc to kill him. On .the day of the tragedy Steyn and another farmer went unarmed to tho fence separaing thorn from Pottle’s propery. After words, as they refused to go away, Pottle drew a revolver and fired twice. The judge found that be fired at Steyn to kill and intended nlso to kill tbe other man, thus using unreasonable and excessive force. TILS SON’S EXECUTION. PARTS, March 22. AA'iiilo liis wife had gone to Montauban, where her son was executed this morning for a double murder, a farmer named Blanquefort committed suicide by throwing himself down a well. Ho left a note slaying that he could not hoar to see his son lied to the guillo tine. FTGTIT TO PROVE INNOCENCE. BERLIN. Mar. 15.

It is stated that the A'ienua police have proved that the finger-prints of a man who shot himself last February at Hadrian’s A'illa at Tivoli, near Rome, were those of Karl Hau, barrister. convict, reformer. Tn 1907 Hau was accused of shooting liis mother-in-law during a walk in Baden. He was arrested in London and ‘tried in Karlsruhe. He told the court that he was innocent, refused to answer questions, and maintained silence during the trial, which ended in liis being condemned to deatii. There was no witness of the crime and opinion, ns to the justice of the sentence was, and is, sharply divided. His young wife killed herself in despair. By the clemency of the Grand Duke of Baden the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. At ‘he end of 1924 Hau was liberated on condition that he published no revelations of prison life. His only thought was to prove his innocence. He refused to see his daughter, who was 20, until he had cleared his name of guilt. In Italy a romance ended with the death of a woman in his arms. BOOK OF PRISON horrors. He then began to write a book on prison life which horrified Germany, and the Baden authorities issued-, .a warrant for his arrest to serve the six months which had been subtracted from his sentence. He fled and was lost sight of. The news that his case was not to be reopened had already brought Mm to the verge of despair and, guilty or not , guiltv. the only purpose of his life, to prove- that his -daughter was not the daughter of a murderer, had been thwarted.