Foreign News: Clods, Hunks

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, was en route to Russia aboard H. M. S. Hampshire on June 5, 1916. So much and no more the world knows of Kitchener. Why the Hampshire sank is not positively known, though conclusive evidence has been adduced to show that she sank as a result of the explosion of a submarine mine. Because so little is known, or because there is so little to know of the presumptive death by drowning of Lord Kitchener, the press has been flooded with recurrent rumors that: a) He was seen in an open boat and may have escaped. b) His corpse has been found (in various localities). For the past month one Frank O. Power, journalistic free lance, has been selling articles to London papers, also the New York World and many another news organ, describing how, after three years of patient search, he discovered and identified the corpse of Earl Kitchener in a Norwegian cemetery. Last week Mr. Power’s despatches became a sensation, even the New York Times gave him a front page column. He had deposited, he said, the body of Earl Kitchener with London morticians. Prime Minister Baldwin received a letter from Mr. Power—previously released to the press at space rates— inviting His Majesty’s Government to send experts to identify the body. Then suddenly Mr. Power effaced himself, retired into hiding, lay low. When eminent pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury and London Coroner Ingleby Oddie finally took it upon themselves to open the casket, they found it filled with clods of earth, hunks of tar. . . .