Conquistador Gold

Three grizzled prospectors -- Arrin Thorpe of the U. S., Joanes Van Steck, a Frenchman, and Antonio Hill, a German-- weary from months of prospecting, stopped their pack burros near the Piedra Candela settlement in the shadow of the Santa Maria Mountains on the Costa Rican-Panamanian border one day last week, prepared to lay out claims. Driving the first claim-stake, the ground beneath their feet gave way and the trio dropped into an abandoned mine shaft. Before their startled eyes stood 35 gold ingots, each weighing 50 lb., neatly stacked against the wall. Nearby lay equipment for panning gold and relics of the days of the Spanish conquistadors. Stumbling along the shaft, Van Steck came upon 45 additional bars, refused to share them with his partners, hurried to the settlement to file a claim, leaving native pack drivers on guard. The 80 bars, each stamped with the seal of the Spanish royal crown, are valued at $1,120,000. Dazzled by so much wealth, Hill intrigued with the native drivers, fired at Van Steck as he returned from the settlement, missed, fled into the mountains.

Authorities of Chiriqui Province chartered planes, flew to the mine to investigate the discovery while the Government, which under its buried treasure law is entitled to half the prospector's find, rushed a police guard to the scene to control a stampede of treasure-hunting natives. Authorities believe that the tunnel belonged to the almost-legendary La Estrella mine, worked by the Spanish conquerors. Fabulously rich, it became "lost" in the passing of four centuries. Indians, outraged by the cruel treatment of the Spaniards, are supposed to have ambushed a mule-drawn treasure train, killed the white men and buried them with their gold in the tunnel.

"Names make news." Last week these names made this news:

Returning belatedly from the Coronation of George VI, James Watson Gerard, Wartime U. S. Ambassador to Germany, commented, ''The Americans who wore knee breeches at the ceremony showed a fine set of legs. There wasn't a knocking knee or bandy leg in the whole outfit."

A Los Angeles private detective, Mrs. Pearl Antibus. sued Millionaire Thomas W. Warner, onetime General Motors director, for $510,000. Her story: Police hired by Mr. Warner had broken into her apartment, beaten her. Mr. Warner's reply: The police had gone to rescue his son who was being held captive by Mrs. Antibus and a Mrs. Jean MacDonald. Thomas W. Warner Jr.'s explanation: He had hired Mrs. Antibus to ascertain whether or not Mrs. MacDonald's romantic interest in him was sincere or mercenary. Assured, by a dictaphone which Mrs. Antibus had placed in Mrs. MacDonald's room, that Mrs. MacDonald was sincere, he had called on Mrs. Antibus at her apartment where Mrs. MacDonald had joined them and where police later found her dressed in shorts watching him shave.

While Los Angeles newspapers headlined young Warner as a "love captive," he disappeared on a yachting trip. Asked to clear up the confusion, Mr. Warner Sr. snapped: "I am.very much annoyed."

En route to the Salzburg Festival (see p. 37) Mr, 6 Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. stopped at a Caen hotel, registered as Mr. & Mrs. Frederick Hall.

Convicted by an Indianapolis Federal Grand Jury of conspiracy to defraud through the mails, Clarence Joseph Morley, onetime (1925-27) Governor of Colorado, was sentenced to five years in Leavenworth Penitentiary.

Movie Producer Samuel Goldwyn announced this week that he had "hired" Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt to write movie ads for Stella Dallas, a Goldwyn picture soon to be released. .j

In Miami, Fla., the Federal Government filed a tax lien against the Palm Island mansion of Mrs. Mae Capone, wife of imprisoned Gangster Al Capone. The

lien was for $17.166 taxes on Gangster Capone's 1926-29 income. Next day in Jacksonville Mrs. Capone entered suit against the Federal Government through J. Edwin Larsen, collector of internal revenue in Florida, for $52,103 which she claimed was unjustly collected from her to pay her husband's back taxes after he was found guilty of tax evasion in 1931. Mrs. Capone said she was not responsible for her husband's taxes. When his ig-year-old step-daughter Dorothy returned to his Salt Lake City house at midnight, 80-year-old Hiram Dempsey and an unidentified companion appeared in the darkness, ordered her escort off the premises. When Dorothy Dempsey began to cry, 41-year-old Mrs. Dempsey and her parents, Mr. & Mrs. John T. Lythgoe, who live next door, ran out to see what was wrong. In the argument that followed, someone felled Mr. Lythgoe with a black jack, Hiram Dempsey got a black eye, Mrs. Lythgoe was hit by what she thought was Hiram Dempsey's fist. Jailed for assault & battery, Hiram Dempsey next day proudly exhibited a telegram from his famed son, onetime Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey: "Congratulations to the new champ stop consider matching you with Joe Louis. -. ." Ill lay: Onetime (1916-21) Secretary of War Newton Diehl Baker, of a slight cerebral thrombosis, in Saratoga Springs, N. Y.; Chairman Aiming S. Prall of the Federal Communications Commission, of an ailment his son refused to name, in Boothbay Harbor, Me.; U. S. Ambassador Robert Worth Bingham, after a severe chill, in London; Actor William Powell, of nervous and physical exhaustion resulting from grief over the death of Jean Harlow, in Hollywood; Poet Gabriele d'Annunzio, 74, recovering rapidly from what he called "disturbances of old age," in Brescia, Italy; Federal Judge Florence Ellinwood Allen, of a fractured ankle suffered while trout fishing, in Estes Park. Colo.

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