VON VELTHEIM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 380, 20 February 1908, Page 3

VON VELTHEIM.

A recently published story of this man’s career contains the following particulars: Von Veltheim is forty-nine years of age and has had an extraordinarily adventurous life. He entered the German Navy as a youth, subsequently left it for the Army, and afterwards travelled in Russia. In 1885 he fought for Bulgaria against Servia, and was twice wounded. .After the peace he came to London, sailing thence to West Australia, where he made a hazardous exploring excursion in the Never-Never Land. He went next to Sydney, after marrying a Miss Yearsley'at Perth. Subsequently he attempted to join one of Stanley’s expeditions at Zanzibar, but was too late, and went to Capetown. Thence he travelled to New Orleans, was sent to the Augentineas a shipping agent, and finally returned to England by Java and Japan- He sailed from Plymouth for Capetown in April, 1887. The Johannesburg tragedy occurred in March of the following year. Mr Woolf Joel, who, with his brother, Mr Sol Joel, succeeded to the great mining business of the late Mr Barney Barnato, who was seated in his office witn Mr Harold Strange, on the morning of 14th March, when Von Veltheim called. Blackmailing letters, signed “Kismet,” had been received, and the meeting had been arranged in the hope of discovering their authorship. According to Mr Strange, Mr Veltheim made proposals in connection with a plan for upsetting the Kruger Government. Mr Joel and Mr Strange refused to listen to any such proposals, and then Von Veltheim, declaring that both of them knew too much to leave the room alive, drew a pistol and fired. Mr Joel was shot three times and killed. Mr Strange escaped. Von Veltheim’s story was different. He said he had come to the Transvaal at the request of the Barnarto firm in connection with a plot against the ruling Boer powers. While he was conversing with Mr Joel and Mr Strange, the last-named tired at him with a derringer. Von Veltheim (an expert shot) fired at Strange, who ducked behind a desk, and then turned his weapon on Mr Joel. At all events, after a lengthy trial lasting eight days, and creating the most intense excitement, Von Veltheim was acquitted of the charge of murder, and given an immense ovation. He was, however, banished from the Transvaal, and went to Delagoa Bay, where, it is said, he received an infernal machine through the post, and escaped death only by good fortune. One of the mysteries connected with Von Veltheim —a man of gigantic figure and handsome mein—was the finding in the Thames in September, 1897, of a naked body which was formally identified as her husband’s by Von Veltheim’s wife. At the time of the discovery the supposed dead man was serving with the Bechuanaland police. Divorce proceedings were brought in London in 1902 by Mrs Paula Von Veltheim against her husband. The petitioner was married at the registry offiice in St. Giles in 1896. Before he left for South Africa Von Veltheim signed this document; “I, Carl Ludwig Fran Von Veltheim, hereby formally renounce all my matrimonial rights to the position and fortune of my wife, Paula Schiffer.’ He

had been married, it appeared from the divorce proceedings, to two other women. His wife obtained the freedom she sought.