Friday, July 20, 2012

Maria Tarnowska, Ukranian Femme Fatale – 1907


FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): A few weeks since we reported a sensational murder in Venice, in which a young Russian of good birth, named Naumofi, was arrested for the murder of Count Kamarovsky, and a notorious Russian beauty of good birth but ill repute, Countess Tarnowsky, and a lawyer named Prilukoff were also arrested as accessories to a most diabolical murder plot.

The “New York World” gives a most sensational history of the countess and of this particular crime. It says: – The fatal woman, with her usual train of infatuated men, has reappeared. As in all such cases, she is beautiful, selfish, ruthless, and cruel.

At least six men have ruined themselves for her. Two of these met tragic deaths on her account; two are in prison; and four of them deserted wives and children. She is now in prison, awaiting trial on a charge of murder, and has confessed, recklessly, even nonchalantly.

All the characters in this tragedy are Russian, except one Pole, who appears upon the stage for a moment, just long enough to be kissed once – and shot.

The woman in the case – the real vampire, she cannot he called a “heroine,” except in the sense in which that much abused word is applied to the chief female role in a tragedy – the woman is the Countess Maria Nicolalevna Tarnowsky, beautiful, slender, blonde, perfumed. Her adventures began early in life. She was born at Poltava, of a noble family called Oruk, which, it is said, was founded by an Irishman named O’Rourke. She was educated at Kieff, in a college for noble girls which has turned out more than one female bomb-thrower. In her goings and comings from to and from school, Miss Oruk was seen by Count Tarnowsky, who fell desperately in love with her. At the age of seventeen he kidnapped her from the college, which was exactly what she most desired. The Count, however, made amends by marrying her. They had two sons.

One evening in their home at Kieff, the Countess Tarnowsky, in the presence of the Count, threw her arms around the neck of a handsome young Pole who had been paying assiduous court to her, and kissed him passionately upon the lips. Count Tarnowsky did what every Russian nobleman is expected to do under such circumstances – drew a. revolver from his pocket and blew out the young man’s brains. He was tried for homicide and, of course, acquitted, he obtained a divorce; and the court gave him custody of the children. Here, Count Tarnowsky disappears from the stage.


The divorced Countess plunged at once into the vortex of unrestrained passion. She left Kieff for a time, but reappeared there with a banker as protector, and immediately became the queen of a little salon, in which rich men risked their money over the green baize tables, when they were not risking their hearts. What a fascinating woman the Countess Tarnowsky is may be gathered from the way she led Prilukoff, a Moscow lawyer, astray. Prilukoff had a splendid practice, a loving wife, and a son 13 years old; he was making from $12,000 to $15,000 a year, and was looked upon as a highly respectable and happy member of society. One day the Countess Tarnowsky appeared in his office, and engaged him as counsel. From that day, wife, son, home, clients, were forgotten, swallowed up in the ardent passion of is Russian blood, now ablaze for the first time. He became madly in love with his new client, and sacrificed everything in the world for her. The inevitable divorce followed. Prilukoff’s practice was neglected and he sank deeper and deeper into the whirlpool of debt. His personal fortune exhausted, he appropriated the funds of his client. In despair he decided to kill himself. At that time he was 60,000 roubles short in his accounts.

The doctors saved the ruined attorney, and he left the hospital to begin a life of wandering about the world with the Countess. Berlin, Vienna, Monaco, Paris, Budapest, and Venice knew the precious pair of adventurers. Prilukoff travelled under different names, now calling himself Zelser, now Jean de Roussie, now Derugie, then Seilak, and again Neirson. But under whatever name he was travelling Prilukoff was ready to do anything for the woman who had ruined him. And at her feet fell almost all the men who met her.

During their wanderings, the fugitive lawyer and his Countess ran across a youth named Naumoff, a son of the ex Governor of Permile was good looking, of a noble family, and married; but he fell in love with the implacable Countess. He, too, had his divorce, and became Madame Tarnowsky’s willing slave. Whether she played him and Prilukoff against each other, or whether she and Prilukoff conspired together to use him as their tool is uncertain, but the latter supposition is the more probable, and is substantiated by the confessions of the woman and of Prilukoff. to the Viennese police. Naumoff, at any rate, believed the Countess loved him, and he fully expected to marry her. She wrote to him and telegraphed to him whenever he was awn sending him many assurances of her ardent devotion.

This strange trio were joined by a fourth character in the summer just passed. This was Count Kamafoysky, a Russian nobleman by ancient lineage, a colonel of the National Guard, a Councillor of State, a widower with one young sons tall, slender, distinguished looking, .and most important of all a millionaire. He, like the others, fell in love with the Countess; but he was a gentleman, and thought of nothing but an honourable marriage. With truly Machiavellian coyness she temporised, until the Count’s desire was so piqued that he was ready to consent to any conditions she might impose. And she planned with diabolical skill to turn this nobleman’s infatuation into cash. At her request he made a will in her favour, leaving her everything but his estates, which were to go to his son, and insured his life in her favour, taking out a policy for 500,000 roubles. This done, she promised to marry him he took her to his aged mother, and introduced her as his affianced bride. But Countess Tarnowsky had no idea of marrying him, as the sequel will show.

The Count was living last summer in a fine apartment on the floor of the Hotel Bristol, in Vienna. He had another suite on the third floor for his little boy Edgar, the latter’s governess, and the Countess Tarnowsky. The boy’s governess acted as maid to the Countess, and in gossiping with the hotel servants told them that her master and mistress were soon to be married.

Prilukoff was also living at the hotel. His room adjoined that of the Countess, and they were in the habit of taking long automobile rides together. It was a delicate situation, but the Countess handled it skilfully, driving her little flock to the shambles with a bewitching smile, and smoking innumerable perfumed cigarettes. Kumarovsky did not know Prilukoff, and the latter avoided letting Kamarovsky or his little boy see that he knew the Countess. The elaborate care that Prilukoff took in this direction had much to do with his implication in the murder that resulted, for the hotel people noticed it with wonder, and afterwards told the police about it. The Count was careful of the lady’s reputation, never went to her room, and was never seen alone with her in short, he behaved in every respect like a gentleman.

Naumoff was living in another hotel in Vienna. He was a frequent caller upon the Countess, and she visited him on at least one occasion. He was wild with jealousy of Kamarovsky. Upon this, jealousy Prilukoff and Madame Tarnowsky played, with great skill. That they deliberately planned to use the infatuated young Naumoff to pull their chestnuts out of the fire subsequent events, seems to make certain.

Countess Tarnowsky left Vienna for Kieff on October 26, taking with her Count Katnarovsky’s little boy and the governess. The Count left for Venice the next day.

Naumoff had gone for a visit to Russia, where he was plied with love-letters and telegrams from the Countess.  There came an insulting, telegram, purporting to come from Kamarovsky, his hated rival, in which the Countess’s character was besmirched and Naumoff was sneered at contemptuously. Of course, Kamarovsky did not send this telegram, for he scarcely knew Naumoff. The despatch had been carefully framed to; influence the youth’s mind to the point of desperation. It had the desired effect; and Naumoff started post haste for Venice, which he reached on September 4. He went straight to Count Kamarovsky’s house, was shown to his room, where he found him dressing for dinner, and shot him. The rest of the story has already been told how Naumoff was followed and arrested, and how the Countess and Prilukoff were also subsequently taken into custody as accessories before the fact, and as conspirator’s for the commission of the crime.

Countess Tarnowsky took it very calmly, said it was all a terrible mistake, and that she had simply been trying to protect the man she loved from A mad-man who was in love with her. When told that the Count was dead she turned on the tears like a great actress. But the Chief of Police showed her the evidence, her telegrams and letters, and those of Prilukoff. Then she collapsed, and made a full confession. She said she did not love Kamarovsky, and had sought to get his money without having to marry him. At the same time; she said, she wanted to get rid of young Naumoff, of whom she had tired. But, she insisted, the plot to get rid of both of them with one blow .by egging Naumoff on and exciting his jealousy to such a point that he would kill his rival was Prilukoff’s and not hers, her only guilt being that she took no steps to prevent Prilukoff from accomplishing his designs.

“Do with me what you will,” she said, “but let me have a Russian priest. I must make my peace with God. And let me have my child’s photograph.”

She closed by demanding that, her meals be sent in from Sacher’s, and that her mail and her clothes be sent to her Prilukoff took his arrest quietly, and asked only that cold beer be supplied to him in prison. The refusal of this favour seemed to worry him more than anything else. And so the vampire and her willing victims will pass from the stage probably into life imprisonment, for there is no death penalty in Italy.

[“A Terrible Woman Countess Tarnowtky’s Amazing Career.” Clarence and Richmond Examiner (Grafton, NSW, Australia), Dec. 28, 1907, p. 8]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Early in 1910 the Assize Court at Venice was the centre of interest for the entire newspaper-reading world, for the trial was proceeding there of the ravishingly beautiful Countess Tarnowski, “the woman whom it was death to love.”

Others were on trial there with her, her lovers and accomplices, but it was the wonderful, strange personality of the siren Countess herself that held everybody in thrall. Her mere physical beauty was such that the judge ordered her at one point to lower her veil, as he noticed her marvellously seductive glances were being used to try to favourably influence certain of the jurymen, and he evidently feared that she might succeed in her design.

The crime for which she and the others were being tried was murder, the murder of her betrothed husband, who had, at her instigation, insured his life in her favour for £20,000. And as the evidence proceeded, a story of love and passion was unfolded of so romantic and extraordinary a character as surely never before was heard in a court of justice.

The Countess Tarnowski was thirty at the time of her trial, and the opening scenes of the drama began some fourteen years previously, when she was sixteen. Beautiful as a dream even then, she was scarcely out of the schoolroom ere she attracted the attention of Count Tarnowski, a Russian official.

He married her, but her married life was a far from happy one. Her husband turned out to be a dissolute brute, who ill-treated her, arid also introduced her into some very doubtful society.

This was the beginning of her downfall. Seeing her unhappy, other men made love to her. She resisted their overtures, she alleged, until one of them, a certain M. Borgewski, in order to prove his devotion to her, allowed her to fire a loaded rifle at his right hand at close range, shattering it horribly. “Then,” said the Countess, “I knew that he really loved me, and I gave myself to him.”

News of the affair, however, came to the ears of her husband, who shot Borgewski, wounding him mortally. This was not done in a duel, but openly in a public place.

Borgewski was actually in the company of the Countess at the time, and the bullet, after piercing his body, passed through the brim of the hat she was wearing. Borgowski died in the arms of his mistress, protesting his love to the last. Count Tarnowski divorced his, wife, and thence onwards. her descent was rapid. Lover after lover basked for more or less brief periods in the sunshine of her affections, giving up all for her, and ruin and death was their reward.

One of her victims was her own brother in-law, a mere boy of sixteen, who, for love of her, and because she betrayed him, blew, out his brains. Another was a gallant young officer, Lieutenant Vladimir Stahl, who fought with distinction throughout the Russo-Japanese war. Re turning when peace was proclaimed, he met the enchantress. She persuaded him to leave his young and pretty wife, who adored him, and follow her.

Death also claimed him. He shot himself on finding out that his mistress was a wanton. Yet even in death he forgave her. The letter he wrote to her a few minutes before he committed suicide concluded as follows: “All is finished, I kiss you and die.”

Ghosts ought to have haunted her by this time, but apparently they did not. She pursued unchecked her reckless career, flitting from one gay capital to another, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin. Lover succeeded lover, for her extravagance knew no bounds, and not even the wealthiest could stand her for long, Prince Trubetzoki lavished £80,000 upon her, and was dismissed with a wave of the hand when financial ruin stared him in the face. The same thing happened as regards Paul Tolstoi, a relation of the novelist.


Two of her wealthy admirers were named Zolatareff and Zodo. Alluding to the initial letter of their names, she said when dismissing them.

“I have come to the end of the alphabet, I must begin over again.” And sure enough the next to become enmeshed in her net was a certain Count Azeff.

The begging of the end came when she prevailed upon M. Prilukoff to run away with her. He was a lawyer practising in Moscow, middle-aged, with a wife and family, and not too rich. But he held money on trust for clients. Tarnowski knew of this. She used her wiles upon him. And he fled with her to Berlin, his pockets bulging with stolen gold.

One lover at a time, However, was not enough now. She must have others. She extended her favours to Nicola Naumoff, a youth of twenty, and to Colonel Count Paul Kamarowski, a wealthy Russian. The latter she appears to have regarded in reality with feelings akin to loathing, but she tolerated his caresses because of his money.

“When Kamarowski fondles me,” she once remarked to Prilukoff, “I feel as if toads were crawling over my body.”

The man and the woman looked into one another’s eyes. “If that is so,” said Prilukoff gravely, after a pause, ‘he must be suppressed.’

The Countess clapped her hands glee fully. “Yes, yes,” she cried, “of course and I will prevail upon Naumoff to do the deed.”

So lightly and unconcernedly was the murder planned.

There was only one drawback to the arrangement. If the Countess caused Kamaowski to be assassinated, she would lose the money he was allowing her. So she told him that if he would consent to insure his life for £20,000 she would marry him. The poor, lovesick fool readily consented, thereby signing his own death warrant. Just at first, though j there was a hitch. Naumoff was altogether under his mistress’s influence in ordinary matters, yet he shrank from committing murder at her bidding.

A plot within a plot was, therefore, concocted, with a view to induce Naumoff to kill Kamarowski. A forged telegram, dictated by the Countess, was sent as if from Kamarowski to herself. It contained gross insults levelled jointly against the Countess and Naumoff, and the latter, completely hoodwinked, and mad with jealous rage, journeyed post-haste to Venice, where Kamarowski was then residing, and shot him dead.

Before the murderer set out on his dreadful errand, the Countess handed him a packet of chloroformed cigarettes, where with to lull Kamarowski into insensibility.

She also gave him a poisoned dagger, and a revolver. This latter weapon she charged with expanding bullets, and she gave Naumoff a practical illustration how, after drugging Kamarowski, he was to hold the barrel upwards inside his mouth so that face and forehead might in the explosion be shattered beyond identification, as had happened in the case of her former lover, Stahl.

The trial lasted over two months, but much of the evidence was unprintable, and had to be suppressed. Amongst the published facts, that which most impressed people was the extraordinary hold the siren Countess obtained upon her victims.

Not only were they constrained to commit the most horrible crimes at her bid ding, but they did not even shrink from actual physical torture, inflicted upon their own bodies, provided it was her hand that caused the agony.

Thus, both Naumoff and Prilukoff told in the witness-box how she used to cut them with knives, burn the backs of their hands with lighted cigarettes, and tattoo various parts of their bodies, with her long hat pins, afterwards spraying the wounds with eau-de-Cologne. The sight of the blood, combined with the infliction of pain, seemed to afford her delight.

“love you more the more I see you suffer,” he would exclaim, rapturously as she threw herself panting into the arms or the victim of the ordeal.

In the end Prilukoff was sentenced to ten years’ solitary confinement, the Countess got eight years, while Naumoff, the actual assassin, escaped with only three.

[“The Countess Who Tortured Her Lovers.” Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (NSW, Australia), Dec. 1, 1911, p. 48]

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For more cases like this one, see: Vamps – Femmes Fatales – Predatory Women

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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Unknown History of Fatherhood


What you now have before you is forbidden knowledge.

The collection of images you will see below – taken from popular fictional stories of the past – tell a bigger story: the story of how, before the onset of “cultural Marxism,” American culture used to view fathers and fatherhood. By the time you finish looking at these pictures and the descriptions of the novels, plays, movies – and one song – contradict what you have been taught about fatherhood by educators, governments and the entertainment industry.

All the stories featured her involve so-called “child custody disputes” – and more specifically these narratives  show the struggles of fathers whose children have been torn from them by the child’s mother.


1886 – George Thomas Dowling, Wreckers, A Social Study – best-selling novel

The picture shows Mike Barney, a man in shock immediately after discovering that his wife has taken his little daughter, Katie, and disappeared with another man. The novel tells two stories woven together. One is that of the labor movement in the 1880s, which is where the title “Wreckers” comes from. The other is the odyssean quest of the father to find his kidnapped child, a journey in which he suffers a nervous breakdown from which he must recover in order to achieve his goal. Despite the dour subject matter the story is a comic romp, full of picaresque episodes.

Here is an excerpt from an 1886 review: “Narrative of an honest, high-minded Irishman of humble station who is deserted by his unworthy wife. She takes their daughter with her, and after this hero, Mike Barney by name, learns that his wife is drowned at sea, he devotes himself to finding his child. The disappointments of this search unsettle his reason. When at last he does find her, he quixotically determines not to claim her from the wealthy surroundings in which she has at last found herself. But eventually she is restored to her unselfish father, and the end is peaceful.” [from long review: The Literary World, Jul. 24, 1886, p. 252]

1905 – Charles Klein, The Music Master – play


This play was the greatest commercial success of early 20th century American theatre. It remained on the stage constantly from 1905 and 1919 (with the exception in 1908). There were few Americans who had never heard of the play and its narrative.

Here is what a Washington Post reviewer had to say in 1907: “Of all plays ever produced in New York, this one seems to have the distinction of the longest legitimate and profitable run. It is stated that during the three seasons of its New York engagement there has never been an empty seat at any of the performances. Other plays have had long runs, but none was ever of the duration of Warfield’s “Music Master.” No other attraction has ever played to continuous ‘capacity business’ for even one solid season, to say nothing of three.” The play’s spectacular success continued for years after this review was published.

The play’s story is that of a German composer who, on the eve of his greatest success, discovers that his wife has disappeared, taking the little daughter he adores. The celebrated and financially successful Anton von Barwig, leaves his beloved Liepzig, the famous world capital of music and follows unproductive leads in his search for his child and wayward wife. He is reduced to poverty, but this does not affect his kindly, gentlemanly and good-humored and selflessly generous demeanor. The action of the play takes place during the depths of his poverty and sadness, when he accidentally discovers that the young woman who had contact him to arrange violin lessons for a poor boy is the daughter he has devoted his life to finding.

 
1909 – Charles Klein, The Music Master – novel

Anton von Barwig is shown at the moment when he realizes he is in the presence of his daughter. In his hands is her doll with the missing eye that she had left behind when her mother whisked her away two decades earlier.

The novelized version of the story gives the back story of events that occurred before the action of the play. The book was issued to coincide with the revival of the play which toured nationally.

1909 – Helen Reimensnyder Martin, The Parasite: A Novel (published in syndicated form in 1909, as a book in 1913)

The illustration shows the man who found the parentally kidnapped boy, whose mother died in a car crash during her getaway, returning the child to the home of the father.

A prominent young judge, whose wife abruptly divorced him on baseless suspicions – after having refused all communication on the subject – is devoted to his young, but unruly, son. He discovers that his sister’s impoverished, but well-born house guest, a pleasant young but un-alluring woman, has won her son’s devotion (and obedience) and is clearly devoted to him. He proposed a deal with the young woman, marry him on a “strictly business” basis, and receive the security she desires, giving him a surrogate mother for the son he loves.

They marry, yet the ex-wife who has been begging for her son to be sent to her, permanently. The ex-wife benefits by two schemers who hatch a plot to assist the mother in snatching the boy, but the effort backfires. The getaway results in an automobile wreck that leaves the mother dead. The drama leads the married couple to deeper feelings and father, son and stepmother live happily ever after. The 1925 film version departs from this plot significantly. [R St E]


1915 – Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Daphne, or Marriage A La Mode – novel

Excerpt from review: “Daphne becomes a resident of Sioux Falls and there, with the aid of her money, secures a divorce which gives her custody of the child in spite of the struggles of the husband. The woman has no just grounds for such drastic action and only the ill-framed divorce laws make it possible. She is free, according to the laws of the United States, but still a wife in the eyes of England The husband, wild with paternal love, tries unsuccessfully to kidnap his daughter and spends the little money he has on the efforts. He becomes a drunkard, loses his moral grip and, after returning to England, gives his wife just grounds for divorce in English courts. The child dies and he sinks still lower, becoming a moral weakling and the victim of phihisis.” [“Mrs. Humphrey Ward’s New Work – A Discussion of Divorce Laws – “Marriage a la Mode” a Novel Which Sets Forth the Evil of Hasty Marriage and Hasty Repentance,” Springfield Republican (Mass), May 30, 1909, p. 27]


1915 – Eleanor M. Ingram, A Man’s Hearth – novel

The picture shows the father just before his wife divorces him and denies him access to his boy.

Adriance, son of a wealthy industrialist, marries a gold-digger, Lucille, who disappointed in her limited access to the family fortune, divorces her younger husband, having gained the attention of bigger game, her father-in-law who helps her gain her divorce and the custody of the young couple’s baby boy. Adriance is driven mad by the loss of his child, though she has little interest in the baby. Stopping furtively by a park to watch his boy play under the guidance of his governess he witnesses the nurse abuse the child. The father kidnaps him and goes into hiding.


1916 – The Music Master – play revival and national tour (1916-1918)

In 1916 The Music Master was revived for Broadway and a national tour. A 1917 review noted that “It has been breaking all records of the present season at the Knickerbocker theatre in New York.” Here is an excerpt from a 1917 review of the play’s opening in Washington, D.C.:

“The seasons since 1903 have not revealed a more appealing play than “The Music Master,” revived at the Belasco Theater this week by David Warfield and a portion of the original cast. There have been dramas of more pronounced lachrymose tendencies that have had an immediate and powerful effect upon the tear ducts – “Madam X,” for example – and there have been melodramas that have produced more startlingly vivid pictures of the desolation wrought by treachery – “On Trial” suggests itself – but there has been no recent play that has so effectively combined the familiar human qualities encountered in normal, everyday life as the late Charles Klein’s three-act study of the old musician who sought vengeance for sixteen years only to forgo it through love of his daughter when the hour of judgment came. That the charm of this simple story of a father’s pathetic loneliness and supreme love for a daughter who identity was disclosed by the merest coincidence after years of search, holds as firm a grip upon the hearts of Washingtonians as when first unfolded in the Capital was completely demonstrated by the enthusiastic cordiality of last night's audience. It was with the utmost difficulty that Mr. Warfield cheated those present out of a curtain speech after innumerable curtain calls at the conclusion of the second act.” [“Belasco – David Warfield in ‘The Music Master.’” The Washington Post (D.C.), Apr. 17, 1917, p. 9]


1921 – First Born – play, movie

“One of the first Chinese dramas ever produced upon the silver sheet is “The First Born,” a magnificently staged super-special, starring Sessue Hayakawa, the famous Oriental actor, which comes to the Forsyth on Monday for a three day’s engagement. Replete with episodes of both drama and pathos, the picture is the best vehicle in which the famous Japanese actor has ever appeared. All of the mystery of the Far East, and the alluring interest of San Francisco’s Chinatown, as it existed before the destructive earthquake, is encompassed in the photo-play in a series of gripping incidents. For the detail and perfection of setting, this picture has never been surpassed.

Chan Wang (Hayakawa) was the bravest and most popular of all the boatmen of the Hoang-Ho. Sturdy with his arm as he piloted his sampan from one fishing village to an other along the great “River of Sorrows.” Strong was his heart in his love for Loey Tsing, daughter and fairest flower of a fisher. But avarice has crept into the heart of Loey Tsing’s father, and one day, when a slave junk cleft the waters of the Hoang-Ho, there came an emissary of Man Low Yek, who lived in the Chinatown of San Francisco, and who wished a young and comely woman. Loey Tsing’s father heard the clink of gold coins and he sold Loey Tsing. She was carried off into slavery and Chan Wang was left on the Houng-Ho.

When the opportunity arrived Chan Wang left the Houng-Ho. To seek his lost Loey Tsing. To San Francisco he went, but his immediate efforts were not crowned with success. He net and married Chan Lee, and there was born to them Chan Toy – the first born of Chan Wang. And Chan Wang loved him with all his heart. In the course of time, Man Low Yet coveted the wife of Chan Wang. Chan Wang found Loey Wang and the old love flamed again. Man Low Yek discovered that Loey Tsing loved Chan Wang. He managed to get Chan Lee and Chan Toy, the first born, in his clutches, and caused the death of both.

Chan Wang avenged the death of Chan Lee and Chan Toy, the first born. When Man Low Yek was no more, Chan Wauk took Loey Tsing back to the Hoang-Ho, where he again told her of his love, and they were married.” [“Chinese Photo Drama Forsyth Attraction – Sessue Hayakawa, Oriental Actor, in Story of the Far East.” Atlanta Constitution (Ga.), Apr. 3, 1921]


1927 – Charles Klein, The Music Master – movie

Anton Von Barwig is shown at the moment he realizes that the wife who had run off with his best friend had furtively returned in order to kidnap his beloved daughter.


1928 – “Sonny Boy” – song

Al Jolson’s hit “Sonny Boy” was the first record ever to sell a million copies. Following the success of his song and film, Jolson quickly made another film with Davey Lee playing the role of his son, using the song’s title as the new film’s. The record made Jolson the most popular entertainer in the world.


1928 – The Singing Fool – Movie starring Al Jolson and Davey Lee

$5 million box-office receipts in 18 months, making this the most commercially successful film until the 1939 release of Gone With the Wind.

“The story concerns the life of a “singing fool.” Al Stone, who starts his career as a waiter in a honky-tonk and is rapidly elevated because of his ability as a writer and singer of songs. As the adoring father of a little son. Al finds joy and inspiration, but Molly, his wife, is unfaithful and leaves him, taking little “Sonny Boy” with her. Broken hearted, Al gives up his work and sinks almost to the gutter. From this condition he is rescued by friends of his waiter days, including Grace, a cigarette girl. Through her loyalty and for the sake of his little boy, he rehabilitates himself and soon reaches new heights as a Broadway star. When he receives word that his son is ill in a hospital and rushes to him, to arrive only in time to sing him to his last sleep, there is created a moment which can not but tug at the heartstrings of any audience. [Excerpt from: “The Singing Fool,” movie review, The Washington Post (D.C.), Oct. 8, 1928, p. 16]


1929 – Sonny Boy – Movie starring Al Jolson and Davey Lee

The image above shows a promotional pin, probably given out to children. The Singing Fool, because it involves the death of a child was inappropriate for children, but the new movie was a family film with a happy ending.


“The plot presents a mother sending for her sister to carry away her son and hide him because her husband threatened divorce. The husband’s lawyer, Horton, is about to board a train for his vacation, but he is called back because Sonny Boy had disappeared. The sister and Sonny Boy had hidden in the lawyer’s apartment thinking that they would be safe there for a few days, while the lawyer was away. The lawyer’s father and mother visit him. The sister, when found by them is forced to tell them that she is their son’s wife. Complications from this point thicken rapidly, especially after the lawyer arrives. However the rest of the picture continues in a merry style, reaching a great climax.” [Excerpt from: (“Sonny Boy,” cinema review), “Davey Lee Makes Big Hit In ‘Sonny Boy’ At The Majestic,” The Sheboygen Press (Wi.), Apr. 17, 1929, p. 21]


1935 – O’Shaughnessy’s Boy – movie

The story of a man’s search for the son “Stubby,” kidnapped by his wife, he loves with all his heart. Wind’s wife disappears with the child after being influenced by her sister, Martha.

“When Windy realizes that his son is missing and that all his money has been taken, he single-mindedly devotes himself to finding Stubby. Desperate for extra money to pay for a private investigator to find his son, Windy agrees to perform a dangerous fire trick with a tiger. While in the cage with the tiger, however, Windy is distracted by thoughts of his son, and when the tiger attacks him, he loses his arm. After quitting the circus to search for his son, Windy becomes depressed and spends his days wandering through the streets in a daze. “ [American Film Institute]

Shortly after the parental kidnapping, Cora, the mother dies. Aunt Martha indoctrinates the boy with hatred for his father. The film represents an early example of a dramatization of what until recent decades was know to lawyers and judges as “poisoning the mind of the child,” and more recently, “parental alienation.” When Windy finds his son, after years of searching, he must struggle against the Stubby’s resistance, which, eventually, he is able to overcome. [R. St. E.]


1935 – O’Shaughnessy’s Boy – children’s book by Lebbeus, Mitchell

Children’s novelization of the movie, illustrated with 30 photos from the film and published in a “Big Little Book” format.

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This little presentation provides just a little glimpse of the true history that has been erased from our memory by the university-based authors of the what this editor has labeled “the orthodox history of the relations of the sexes,” or, in shorthand, “the fake history.”

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[870-12/17/21]
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Sunday, July 8, 2012

Patriarchal societies treat women as slaves. Just ask Allie Patterson, if you can find her - 1906


FULL TEXT: The journal entry was made in the probate court case [in Mansfield, Ohio] of Allie Patterson vs. William G. Patterson, which came on for hearing yesterday before Judge Bricker, who granted the defendant a divorce on his answer and cross petition. The plaintiff failed to appear. It was learned from the defendant’s attorney, C. H. Workman, that this is the fourth husband who has secured a divorce from her. At the hearing yesterday Henry Boader, her first husband, was present and testified that she tried to shoot him a couple of times, besides trying to poison him before he got a divorce. Plaintiff and Mr. Patterson were married only last December and it appears that she told him that her first husband died 18 years ago and that she had never been married except once before. July 14 last Mrs. Patterson brought action against Mr. Patterson for divorce, alleging various things against him, which the court by the testimony of the witness found to be untrue. She is debarred from an interest in defendant’s property.

[“In the Courts,” Mansfield Daily Shield (Oh.), Sep. 21, 1906, p. 6]

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[532-9/19/21]
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Pennsylvania’s First Female Judge: Two Cases Gone Wrong – 1930-1974


FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 4): Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Aug. 27. – While Judge Sarah Soffel, Pennsylvania’s first woman judicial official was being sworn to office here today Mrs. Clara Palscak, 24, shot probably fatally wounded her husband, Steve Palscak in the office of the desertion and non-support court, climaxing the first case on the woman judges’s docket.

One of the three bullets fired wife, lodged in Palscak’s abdomen. He was reported in a critical condition.

Palscak was in court today on complaint by his wife and his case was to have been the first called by Judge Soffel after taking her oath of office.

Mrs. Palscak, witnesses say, walked into the court’s office while the judicial ceremonies were being carried on in another room of the court house and asked Miss Bess Parkin, attendant, for permission to speak with her husband.

After a brief conversation the woman was seen to pull a pistol from her purse and fired three times at Palscak.


The woman raged and fought with a half dozen officers who rushed in and was finally led to the county detective bureau, sobbing “he wouldn't come back to me.”

The couple had been married only recently and had separated once and been reconciled. A few days ago, however, Palscak refused to return to his wife.

Judge Soffel was being sworn in as county judge of Allegheny County following her recent appointment by Governor John S. Fisher. She is the first woman ever to be named to the bench in the Commonwealth.

[“Shooting Climaxes First Case Woman Judge’s Docket - Deserted Wife Shoots Her Husband Immediately Before Case is to be Called Soffel Was Taking Oath - Scene In Nearby Room,” syndicated (INS), Clearfield Progress (Pa.), Aug. 27, 1927, p. 1]

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PHOTO CAPTION: Appearing in a Pittsburgh court against her estranged husband, Steve Palscak, 24, Clara Palscak; 21, threw the courtroom into a panic when she whipped out a revolver and possibly mortally wounded him. The woman said the gun accidentally discharged when she pulled it from her purse. The case was the first listed for Judge Sarah N. Soffel, just sworn in as Pennsylvania's first woman jurist.

[“Courtroom in Panic,” The Morning Herald (Hagerstown, Md.), Aug. 30, 1930, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 4): Hellertown, Pa. – Hayden C. Jones Jr. is asking for $1 million from the State of Pennsylvania because he ii claims his wrongful conviction in 1949 on morals charges cost him 19 years of freedom, his health and the lives of his wife and three children.

Jones says all he has ever received was $7 and a train ticket home from prison, and now only the possibility of a formal apology from the Board of Pardons.

Jones was convicted of sodomy and assault charges in 1949 in Allegheny County after five boys between the ages of 11 and 14 testified against him. In his suit, filed in Commonwealth Court Jones said he was released from prison in 1968 after one of the youths who testified against him admitted he had lied.

“I was convicted on morals charges because I wouldn’t get involved in a shakedown,” Jones said at a retreat here where he is resting. “Most silly thing I’ve ever heard, they
asked for $300.”

Jones explained he was on 10 day leave from the Army at the time and had gone to Pittsburgh. “I went to a movie. The way they do it is that the police bring boys into the movie and they sit on each side of you. The boys put their hands on your legs and then you’re arrested on morals charges,” Jones said.

He was sentenced to 15 to 25 years imprisonment by Judge Sarah Soffel. A week later he was called back and resentenced by the same judge to 15 to 30 years. His attorney, David Spirit, said no reason was ever given for the resentencing. Judge Soffel is now dead [she remained on the bench until 1962]. Jones was sent to Western State Penitentiary at Pittsburgh then transferred to Eastern State Penitentiary and finally released in 1968 from Huntingdon Correction Institution. While in prison he testified before a Pittsburgh grand jury investigating an alleged shakedown ring.

“That never got anywhere,” Jones said, adding that Sarah Soffel was the jury’s presiding judge.

Jones claimed he developed emphysema, asthma and a weak heart in prison after spending “five years in solitary at one time.” In 1965 while he was incarcerated at Eastern Penitentiary, his wife and three children were killed in an automobile accident en route to see him at the prison.

“I didn’t know about their deaths until two years later,” Jones said. “They keep it from you in prison. Maybe to keep you from going over the wall. In those days the wardens were pretty bad.” According to Spirit, Jones was in solitary confinement at the time of his family’s deaths and “nobody ever notified him.”

“He had been in prison 15 years and it wasn’t unusual for him not to hear from them for six months or a year or more,” Spirit said. “It wasn’t unusual for him to expect them and not have them show up.”

During that time, according to the suit, the five youths signed affidavits admitting they perjured testimony under coercion by police. Spirit said the affidavits never reached the court. Jones said he did not learn of the affidavits until 12 years later.

“I was in prison taking a shower and I saw this boy staring at me,” he said. “I got all hogtied and he asked me, ‘Don’t you know who I am? I’m one of the boys that framed you. I was forced to lie against you.” The following day Jones was brought before Allegheny Court President Judge Henry Ellenbogan who ordered the sentence vacated and the conviction overturned.


Since his release in 1968, three bills were introduced in the Pennsylvania Legislature to compensate Jones for the years he spent in prison.” None of the bills passed.

Jones recently received a letter from Gov. Milton J. Shapp advising him the case has been referred to the Board of Pardons. But Jones wants more than just a formal letter of apology.

He filed the suit against three state officials and 11 state Senators and Representatives in an effort to receive compensation for his 18 years of “unlawful and wrongful imprisonment.” Jones, who now resides in Philadelphia, turned 51 last May. He thinks his reward is long overdue.

[“Wrongly Convicted on Morals Charges . . . Man Asking $1 Million From State,” syndicated (UPI), Leader Times (Kittaning, Pa.), Jul. 2, 1974, p. 14]

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 4): Harrisburg – Commonwealth Court has rejected an Allegheny County man’s contention that the state must pay him for wrongfully keeping him in prison for 19 years.

Hayden C. Jones Jr., 52, of McKeesport, charged he was falsely imprisoned. He had asked the court to force either state officials or the legislature to pay him an unspecified amount of money.

Jones was sent to prison in 1949 after his conviction for running a crime school for youths and for morals offenses.

He was released in 1968 when three of the five boys who had testified against him disclosed they were told by authorities to the seven-judge panel said the state is protected from such suits by the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

“Under the current status of the law, the commonwealth’s allegedly wrongful incarceration of plaintiff, though abjectly distasteful, offers plaintiff no cognizable relief,” the court said.

Besides, the court said, it has no power to force the legislature to pass a measure compensating Jones.

In 1972, the House passed a bill to pay Jones $133,000, but the Senate refused to agree.

[“Plea Nixed,” syndicated (AP), The Evening Standard (Uniontown, Pa.), Aug. 5, 1975, p. 6]

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Other cases in which a wife shot a husband in the court house:

1914 – Clara Schweiger – Kansas City, Missouri

1919 – Emma D. Simpson – Chicago, Illinois

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[791-11/21/21]
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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Are the Universities Committing Fraud by Teaching Lies About Men?


Stop the institutional abuses!

Demand your money back!

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The “gender” theory racket is intimately intertwined with the derivatives / fractional reserve banking racket. Yes you are made a debt slave through fraud, but you are also being made a legal slave through fraudulent regulations based on bogus theories designed deliberately to strip you of your civil rights.

Fighting for the rights of every baby boy in the USA is Roy Dean Hollander

Fighting for the rights of every baby boy in the UK is Tom Martin

There will be no quick and easy victory.

Yet, now that it is public knowledge that our politicians have colluded in the largest financial fraud in human history resulting in debts that are mathematically impossible to satisfy, we have, it is no overstatement to say,  entered a new realm. We have entered into uncharted territory. We must fight both the “gender” and the financial fraudsters through the legal process. Fight the debt slavery!

The struggle for men’s rights has a long history. The first formal organization dedicated to men’s rights (specifically opposing both cultural and legal misandry) was founded in 1926. Here is a selection of introductory sources on the early phase of the men’s rights movement: Early Men’s Rights Activism

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Stop the institutional abuses!

Demand your money back!

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[470-4/19/21]
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