On Wednesday at the Central Criminal Court, after a remarkable
trial, Mr. Justice Phillimore sentenced Kurtze, alias von Veltheim, to twenty years' penal servitude for attempting to extort large sums of money from Mr. Solomon Joel under threats of murder. It was von Veltheim who shot and killed Mr. Woolf Joel, Mr. Solomon Joel's brother, and the letters read at the recent trial show that that act came at the end of a long series of threats. When von Veltheim was tried for murder in South Africa he was acquitted on the plea that he shot Woolf Joel in self-defence. Von Veltheim had an extraordinary career. He served in the German Navy, the British merchant service, and the Cape Mounted Police, and was a gold prospector; and all the time he was stealing, committing bigamy, deserting women, and blackmailing. He was a clever scoundrel, but all the more dangerous for that, and hie sentence was absolutely necessary for the protection of the community.
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