Death to Mortimer

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.

Cyclists of both sexes now infest British roads to such a point that politicians talk seriously of having to win "the cyclist vote." Aristocratic motorists are often heard to swear jestingly that they would like to do to cyclists some of the things Mortimer surprised and shocked the Empire by doing.

In the garrison town of Aldershot 27-year-old Lance Corporal Mortimer did not have to live in barracks because he had a wife at whose house he was supposed to spend the night. Nobody thought much of his occasional remark that "there are too many females on wheels in this world." For that matter the late, great "Lawrence of Arabia" who died in a motoring accident (TIME. May 27), was also a woman-hater, was also annoyed by women cyclists, and also used to tear over the roads. Five months ago Mortimer started suiting action to his words. In succession he stole several cars, all of which he used briefly in the same way. Overtaking a woman pedaling along a lonely road Mortimer would bunt her off her bicycle, then back up rapidly with profuse apologies only to bunt her again, if she had managed to get to her feet. After that, apologizing still more profusely, he would help her up, then send her spinning with a black eye or a clout to the jaw. In no case did Lance Corporal Mortimer make immodest advances and never was he drunk. The story told by Mrs. Alice Series, the first woman Mortimer bunted, made police think her slightly cracked. They could no longer doubt it, however, when the same story was successively told by Miss Nellie Boyes, Miss Lillian Rose Harding and Miss Lillian Harrie, all eminently respectable and severely bruised. "I asked him why he hit me--unable to believe my senses," testified Mrs. Series. "He replied: 'Why shouldn't I?' Then he scrambled down to the ditch in which I sat and punched me again. He said as he did so: 'Everybody knows that a bicycle on the road is more nuisance than the biggest motor lorry.' Then he hit me again and I seemed to go to sleep." Several women were too quick for Mortimer, riding their cycles off the road before he could bunt them. Near Winchfield the Oakes sisters, Betty and Phyllis, were pedaling to the hairdresser. As Betty neared a bridge she heard a big car roar up from behind, swerved well out of the way, then screamed as she saw it pass with her sister Phyllis spread-eagled across the smashed headlights and the broken bicycle dangling from the radiator. Lance Corporal Mortimer grinned down from the driver's seat. A few yards farther on Phyllis Oakes rolled off the car which sped away. Rushed by her sister to a hospital, Miss Oakes died while friends remarked that only the day before she had written a poem on Death entitled Smile. A capable secretary, she had worked regularly for second-string Novelist Dorothy Brandon (Beau Regard).

When finally caught by police after a wild motor chase, Lance Corporal Mortimer said: "Most extraordinary! My mind seems to be a blank since I left the parade ground yesterday." Why the sane lance corporal behaved as he did, the Crown prosecutor did not hint or suggest, since in Army cases common sense dictates no discussion of perversion. Some years ago, when it was a question of dismissing a high personage of the Realm in a case too grave to be brought to trial, the King angrily exclaimed: "I thought fellows like that shot themselves!"

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