The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-05-01
BR|DGEPORTERS
 GOING TO AFRICA
Captain Hepston to Lead Party to Get Pictures of
 Continent.

Captain Maurice Paddy) Hepston will lead a party of Bridgeporters into widest Africa. for the purpose of talk ing moving pictures and still photo graphs of the life and scenery of that distant part of the world.
 Captain Hepston has spent 27 years of his life in Africa and came to this ] country from Queenstown, Ireland, in l April, 1918, under contract with the l Barnum & Bailey circus to exhibit the wild bushman that he had captured 1 in 1906 near the Kalahari desert, in 1 the German East Africa
 1 Tpe bushman had been exhibited throughout the British Isles and Ire land for several years before the cir- GUS people induced Captain TIepston to bring him here and exhibit him with the circus.
 l When the BarnuIn & Bailey circus went into winter quarters in the fall | the Captain was preparing to return to Europe to fill some e1ngag geunents there during the winter when on re- turning to his room one day he found it in great disorder and the wild bush man was gone. After a search he was found in the possession of one of the | employees of the circus who refused to give him up.
 An appeal to the thorities brought the answer that there were no slaves in this country and that as the bush man was a human being the Captain
 could not have any property rights in him and therefore could not recover him.
 Since then the Captain has lived in this city and during the war worked in the munition factories but was al- ways endeavoring to find a way to re- cover his "Clicko" as the wild man was called
 Temporarily abandoning his efforts i to obtain C1icko's return, he has ac- 1 cepted an offer made him by the
 American and African Enterprise Co.
 to lead a party of artists, news writers
 and camera men into Africa to obtain
 pictures and stories of that country
 at first hand.
 Eugene Jongelinghs, a diamond
 importer of New York, is the presi dent of the company and AIber
 Spony, Q former lieutenant in the A E. F., is secretary; Norman H. Me
 Leod of this city, is treasurer.
 The company is represented in Bel gfum by Karl Jonge1inghs of Antwerp l Among the party which will sail fo, Belgium early in May are Herber ] deFuniac of New York, photographer and B. w. Max, a newspaper man.
 
 = pictures at Las Palmas St. Helen; :. and Cape Town on the way and whe1 ' | in Africa will visit the Kimberly dia t mond mines, the gold mining distric e | of Johannesburg, the Victoria Falls ] which is the largest falls in tn = | world being considerably larger thal f Niagara Falls. The power generate
 by the falling water is used 1,50 [ miles away. The last stop will b l "a l. 5 discovered by Henry E. Stanley an - described in his work, 'fIn Darkes Africa"
 - Captain Hepston gives the folIowin vivid description of the capture of tn
 wild Bushman whom experts say
 over 100 years of age and is the las
 of his race. . "It was during the month of Janu q ary in the year of 1906 that receiv II ed a letter from a friend of mine l Buluwayo, asking me if I woul
 join him in a hunting trip. It al
 peared he was commissioned to SUI 7 ply a large quantity of monkey skin
 for a we'll known furrier in German:
 When the letter reached me I ha i settled in Kimberley, Cape Colon ,r where I was acting as governme1 n agent in the Diamond Secret Servic is living on the outskirts of the town C TT a small farm which I had bougl
 some time previously. In my spa
 time cultivated fruit trees and veg al tables and also raised some sma ,s stock to wit: sheep and goats. I ha 1e and couple of Kaffirs, working on g. When this letter reached me 1e had already got about tired of Il
 humdrum life of the town, and we
 comed this opportunity of returniT ,4 to the wilds. I answered my friend -' letter quickly, and made all Arrang x ments to join him at a town calle