TWIN POACHERS

Shannon News, 3 December 1926, Page 2

TWIN POACHERS

DEATH SOLVES A LIFELONG PROBLEM. A life-long problem of identity ended with the death in the Hitchen infirmary recently of Ebenezer Albert Fox, aged 69, the twin brother of Albert Ebenezer Fox, of Stevenage, Hertfordshire. The brothers were so much alike that it was almost impossible to distinguish one from the other, states the, “Daily Mail.” Owing to infirmity, the twins had, at intervals during the, past two or.!, three years been inmates of the Hitch in Poor Lav, Infirmary, but they- were •seldom- in the institution , togdther. A few days before his \ death Ebenezer. Albert walked- out of the infirmary and was not traced for several days.- Eventually he was found in a wooded swamp near' Hitcliin. He had been there for three days and was exhausted. As babies Ebenezer Albert and Albert Ebenezer were so much alike that their parents could distinguish them only by tying a blue ribbon on one and a red ribbon on the other. In early manhood both courted the same girl, and she was never certain which of the two had Avon her affections, for inA-ariably an appointment made by one Avas kept by the other. , The twins used lo shoot rabbits ’and game in the Avoods; and for years' Avere the despair of police and gamekeepers. They frequently lived in the Avoods in the game season, .making huts of hurdles and straw. When they reached the age of about sixty one of the tAvins had more than a hundred conA’ictions for poaching against him,, while the other twin was rapidly building up a similar record. Magistrates as well as police we re frequently puzzled, for one tAvin would attempt to prove from the witness-box that the other was the guilty party. On one occasion Ebenezer Albert applied for compensation for wrongful arrest. He declared that his brother Albert .Ebenezer should have served seven, days imprisonment for poaching which he had just completed. Albert. Ebenezer also wrote to the Magistrates that lie Avas guilty, but the claim was- dismissed. A lady of the manor in Hertford-, shire and a large landowner appealed to the sporting instincts of one of the twins by offering him £1 and a brace of pheasants during each weqk of the shooting season if he would absent himself from her presumes for a, year. Ho accepted and Jce.pt his promise. But he sent his twin brother to take his place!