LEON PELTZER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 86, 2 October 1911, Page 2

LEON PELTZER.

THIRTY YEARS AFTER. ECHO OF A SENSATIONAL CRIME. London, August 4. Thi' report from Brussels to the effect that the Minister of Justice has decided to release Leon Peltzer, the survivor of two brothers sentenced nearly thirty years ago for the murder of the Antwerp barrister, Guillaume Bernays, recalls one of the most wonderful criminal cases of the nineteenth century. Some idea of that extraordinary drama, run be gained from the remarkable novel, ''Andre Cornells," which the French novelist founded upon the Peltzer case, which attracted almost universal attention. Arinand and Leon Peltzer were of good family. Armand, the elder, was himself an engineer and lecturer of splendid capacities and a much-courted society man. Guillaume Bernays, a barrister of high standing and also an historian, was the son-in-law of one of the merchant. princes of Antwerp and was leader of the Antwerp Liberal party.

The motive of the crime was the infatuation of Armand Peltzer for the wife of Bernayß, who lived practically apart from him under the same roof, but who, notwithstanding her admiration for Armand Peltzer, was too pure a woman to requite another man's love as long as she had a lawful husband. Hence Armand's idea of doing away with Bernays. The trial revealed brotherly affection carried to the lengths of crime, Leon Peltzer having come from America to commit the murder, out of devotion to his elder brother, who had, years before, sacrificed his fortune to save him from bankruptcy and gaol. But the most wonderful thing of all was the genius and forethought displayed in tlie preparation of the terrible deed. The two brothers had, beforehand, given tangible existence and wide notoriety to "nothingness" by creating a being who, under the name of Henry Vaughan, purported to be a wealthy Anglo-American company promoter and who was to shoot Bernays during a consultation and afterwards deliberately to attract suspicions to himself before vanishing. The so-called Vaughan was Leon Peltzer, so admirably disguised that his most intimated friends were deceived. As "Vaughan" he visited London, Manchester, Brussels. Paris, Berlin and other big centres on the apparent business of his company. Having become well known to hundreds as Vaughan, Loon Peltzer managed to lure Bernays to a lonsly house in Brussels, and shot him dead. The corpse remained undiscovered for days, until a letter addressed from Germany "to the cproner" by Vaughan, concerning the "accidental" murder of Bernays, disclosed its whereabouts, and sent the whole police of Europe on the track of the alleged Anglo-American financier, Leon Peltzer having, in the meantime, abandoned his disguise and calmly begun preparations for returning to America.

The plot was only laid bare by pure accident through the misreading of a ciphered telegram from Leon to Armand, and the clue it afforded to a friend of the latter who, after a big mental struggle, gave information to the police, which resulted in the arrest of the brothers Peltzer.

At the trial Leon took upon himself the whole responsibility for the crime, but the jury found that Armand had been the "brains" and Leon the arm in the awful business, and both were sentenced to death, a penalty afterwards reduced to perpetual solitary confinement at the prison of Louvain, where Armand died less than three years after. Many attempts had been made to secure a pardon for -Leon without avail, but the present Minister of Justice has been won to, the cause of pity, and the return to the world of the once notorious "Henry Vaughan" is said to be merely a matter of days.