Word: elst
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...most highly publicized execution in months and a banner opportunity for Britain's No. 1 Anti-Capital-Punishment Crusader, plump Mrs. Violet Van der Elst. The widow of a Belgian shaving-cream tycoon (Shavex), her jail-gate antics before the hanging of British murderers used to fill British authorities with quiet amusement but they do so no longer. With her Shavex-colored limousine, sound trucks blaring hymns, hired sandwich men and airplanes scattering leaflets, "Sweet Violet," as the penny press calls her, can be counted upon to draw large crowds of gawpers who mill about, tie up traffic...
...white Rolls-Royce, exuding posters, drove up before Strangeways Jail last week, somebody heaved a rock through one of the windows. Attempting to speak, Violet Van der Elst was booed down. "How would you like your daughter to be cut in little pieces?" shrilled an inquisitive voice. Sweet Violet again tried to speak. "Aw, get out!" roared the crowd. Police hustled her away, charged her with "driving through a crowd in a manner likely to endanger life and limb." She was held in $250 bail. Meantime, inside the jail the black flag was run up and the lifeless body...
Handsome Lance Corporal Arthur Charles Mortimer, an outstanding misogynist of the British Army who especially hated female cyclists, was held to be sane by a court in Winchester last week, sentenced to be hanged. In the circumstances Mrs. Violet Van der Elst, wealthy and eccentric British widow who usually protests in person every hanging in the United Kingdom (TIME, April 15), was expected to skip that of Mortimer...
High among the luxuries Britain can now enjoy are Mrs. Violet Van der Elst and her anti-capital punishment crusade. This irrepressible lady inherited from her Belgian husband a profitable shaving cream business (Shavex). Fiftyish, she heads three corporations, is a director of twelve. She claims that she sleeps on two hours a night, is never tired. In her swank Kensington home she fondles a fine collection of Oriental objets d'art, hole spiritualist meetings, makes phonograph records of them. Lately she has been untiring in behalf of one Leonard Albert Brigstock, onetime petty officer in His Majesty...
Shortly before 9 o'clock Mrs. Van de Elst went sweeping up to the prison gate in a cream-colored limousine, shouting through a loudspeaker: "They are hanging an innocent man. We have last-minute evidence to prove it." Three loudspeaker vans were already driving back & forth blaring out "Abide With Me". A mob of 50 sandwich men paraded with signs. Mrs. Van der Elst's supreme inspiration, three airplanes zoomed above the prison, trailing banners, "Stop the Death Sentence." Promptly at 9 o'clock, the trap dropped under Murderer Brigstock. "Gentlemen remove your hats," Cried...