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TYPES OF NEWS WRITING
BY
WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER, PH.D.
_Author of “Newspaper Writing and Editing” and Professor of
Journalism in the University of Wisconsin_
[Illustration]
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
PREFACE
This book has been prepared with the purpose of furnishing students
of journalism and young reporters with a large collection of typical
news stories. For college classes it may be used as a textbook. For
newspaper workers it is offered as a handbook to which they may turn,
in a particular case, to find out what news to get, where to get it,
and how to present it effectively. Every young writer on a newspaper
is called upon to do kinds of reporting in which he lacks experience.
If, with the aid of an index, he can turn readily to several instances
where more experienced writers have solved problems like his own, he
will undertake his new task with a clearer idea of what to do and how
to do it.
For systematic instruction in news writing it is desirable that
students have in convenient form representative stories for study and
analysis. Newspapers, it might be thought, would furnish this material,
but experience has shown that it is often difficult to find, in current
issues of newspapers, examples of the particular kind of story under
consideration, and it is likewise difficult to supply every student
in a large class with a copy of the issue that happens to contain the
desired example.
The selection of specimens for this book has been determined largely
by two considerations: first, that the news which the story contains
should be typical, rather than extraordinary or “freakish”; and second,
that the story should present the news effectively. It has been assumed
that the student must first learn to handle average news well in order
to grapple successfully with extraordinary happenings. A considerable
part of the book deals with more or less routine news, because it is
with this type that a large portion of the reporter’s work is concerned.
Since newspapers are read rapidly, it has been taken for granted that a
story is most effective when its structure and style enable the reader
to get the news with the least effort and the greatest interest. Many
pieces of news can best be treated in a simple, concise style, with the
essential facts well massed in a summary lead. Such straightforward
presentation does not mean that the style must be bald and unoriginal.
The examples illustrative of this purely informative type of news story
are generally marked by a simplicity and directness of expression that
are characteristic of good journalistic style.
Informative news stories in which the so-called “human interest”
element has been developed have also been included in considerable
number, not only because they are perennially popular, but because
some news may be presented very effectively by bringing out its human
interest phases. As a type distinct from these stories with news of
some value are those entertaining and appealing stories, containing
little or no real news, that are generally known as “feature” or “human
interest” stories. Both of these types illustrate the application to
news writing of recognized methods of fiction. The use of these methods
is entirely commendable. The danger for the reporter lies in failure
to discriminate between fiction and its methods. To use the devices
of fiction in order to portray faithfully actual events is one thing;
to substitute fictitious details in order to heighten the effect is
quite another. No stories have been included in this book that are
unquestionably fictitious. Some that may have imaginary details have
been given to furnish material for discussion.
The examples presented here are not put forward as models for the
student to imitate in every respect. Few news stories are perfect
in structure and style. The conditions under which they are written
and edited make careful revision almost impossible. For the purpose
of analysis, work that is not so well done as it might have been is
valuable as showing the student what to avoid in his own writing.
The stories have been grouped in chapters partly on the basis of
subject matter and partly on that of the methods used. This arrangement
has been adopted not as a complete classification of news, but rather
as a convenient grouping for purposes of study. In each chapter has
been included a brief discussion of the chief points to be considered
in analyzing and in writing the type of story in that division. None of
the points has been treated at length owing to lack of space and to the
fact that most of them have been taken up in detail by the author in
another textbook, “Newspaper Writing and Editing.”
Attention has been called in each chapter to the underlying purpose
that should determine the selection and the presentation of the kind of
news included in that group. This has been done in the belief that the
reporter should consider carefully the probable effect on the reader of
every story that he writes. Since “the food of opinion is the news of
the day,” the kind of food that he serves and the manner in which he
serves it is a matter of consequence, not only to him and his newspaper
but to society as a whole. Not until a reporter realizes the influence
that his news stories may have on the ideas and ideals of thousands of
readers, does he appreciate fully the significance of his work. The
possibilities of what has been termed “constructive journalism” have
been dwelt upon at some length because it is evident that well-edited
papers are undertaking more and more to present the news so that it
will have a wholesome effect on their readers.
The selections in this book have been taken from daily newspapers
in all parts of the country and may be said to illustrate current
practice. The name of the paper has been attached to each example, not
only in acknowledgment of the credit due, but in an effort to lead the
student to consider the story from the point of view of the policy of
the paper and of the character of the readers to whom it appeals. The
student should compare all of the stories taken from each paper and
should, if possible, examine the current issues.
Although it has not seemed desirable to print the examples in so small
type as that commonly used in newspapers, the column width has been
retained in order to reproduce, as far as possible, the effect of the
original form. Headlines have not been given because they are not
an integral part of the story. In a few instances stories have been
condensed when it was possible to do so without destroying the effect.
For obvious reasons names and addresses have frequently been changed,
and errors that escaped notice have been corrected in a number of the
stories.
The author is deeply indebted to Alice Haskell Bleyer for invaluable
suggestions and criticism in connection with every detail of this book.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON,
_January_ 20, 1916.
CONTENTS
I. NEWS WRITING 1
II. THE STUDY OF NEWS STORIES 6
AN OUTLINE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF NEWS STORIES 12
III. FIRES AND ACCIDENTS 15
IV. POLICE NEWS AND CRIME 46
V. CRIMINAL AND CIVIL COURTS 76
VI. INVESTIGATIONS, LEGISLATION, AND MEETINGS 107
VII. SPEECHES, INTERVIEWS, AND REPORTS 126
VIII. EXHIBITIONS, ENTERTAINMENTS, AND SPECIAL OCCASIONS 141
IX. ILLNESS AND DEATH 168
X. POLITICS AND ELECTIONS 179
XI. LABOR TROUBLES AND STRIKES 186
XII. WEATHER 192
XIII. SPORTS 200
XIV. SOCIETY 221
XV. MISCELLANEOUS LOCAL NEWS 232
INDEX 261
TYPES OF NEWS WRITING
CHAPTER I
NEWS WRITING
=Contents of newspapers.= The average daily newspaper includes a
larger amount and variety of reading matter than most readers realize.
In one issue of a large daily paper, which contains from 60,000 to
80,000 words exclusive of advertising, are usually to be found examples
of practically every type of literary composition. The contents range
from news of accidents and crime to humorous and serious verse, from
market reports to a short story or a chapter of a novel, from dramatic
and musical criticism to cooking recipes and cosmetic formulas, from
argumentative editorials to reports of boxing matches and baseball
games. Vivid description, spirited narrative, critical appreciation,
logical argument, lucid explanation, moving pathos, vigorous appeals,
wit and humor--all are often exemplified in a single issue of a
well-edited newspaper. Scarcely any other form of publication has
regularly so great a variety of writing as the daily newspaper. Thus,
although a newspaper is ordinarily thought of solely as a medium for
the publication of current news and editorials, the average daily paper
supplies its readers with much entertaining reading matter as well as
considerable advice and useful information.
=Classification of contents.= Diversified as are the contents of
a typical daily paper, they may be grouped in seven classes: (1) news
stories; (2) special feature articles; (3) editorials; (4) dramatic,
musical, and literary criticism; (5) practical advice and useful
information; (6) humorous matter; (7) fiction. Of these seven classes,
the first four--news stories, special feature articles, editorials, and
dramatic, musical, and literary criticism--are generally considered to
be the distinctly journalistic types of writing.
News stories present (1) timely events of interest and significance to
readers, and (2) timely incidents of little or no news value that are
made entertaining by the manner in which they are presented. The first
is the common type of news story; the second is usually called the
“human interest” or “feature” story. Although it is sometimes said that
anything that has ever happened is news if it has not been generally
known, it is evident that events that have occurred in the past are
not worth publishing as news unless they have a timely interest and
significance. A distinction is generally made between “spot news,”
which is news of events when they occur, and “detail” or “situation”
material that is presented some time later in the form of special
correspondence or of special feature articles.
Special feature articles are detailed presentations of (1) matters of
recent news that are of sufficient interest to warrant elaboration,
(2) timely topics not directly connected with the news of the day, (3)
subjects of interest that are neither timely nor connected with current
events. They are informative in character and are generally of some
length. They are usually published in magazine sections of Saturday or
Sunday editions, but in some papers they appear daily.
Editorials have as their purpose the interpretation of news and of
current issues and the discussion of matters of general interest,
particularly with a view to convincing readers of the truth or the
falsity of some proposition and of persuading them to act in accordance
with the convictions thus created. In this way they differ from both
news stories and special feature articles.
Dramatic, musical, and literary criticism consists of reviewing and
passing judgment on current dramatic performances, concerts, and books.
To the extent that some reviews of plays and concerts merely give
informative news concerning the event, they are like news stories, but
in so far as they are critical, they are more like editorials. Book
reviews, likewise, may simply give information regarding the contents
of a book, or they may undertake to evaluate it by pointing out its
merits and defects.
Practical advice and useful information in special fields, humorous
matter, and fiction, as given in the daily newspaper, do not differ
materially from similar matter published in other forms and cannot be
considered distinctly journalistic types of writing.
=How news is gathered.= Since the day’s news is the essential part
of the daily newspaper, the gathering, writing, and editing of news
is naturally the chief concern of journalism. From the point of view
of newspaper organization for handling news, it is divided into two
general classes: (1) local news, and (2) telegraph news. Local news,
which is that of the city where the paper is published as well as of
its immediate vicinity, is gathered (1) by reporters working under
the direction of the city editor of the paper, and (2) by reporters
working under the direction of the head of a local news association
or bureau, the news service of which the paper uses to supplement its
own news gathering. Telegraph news includes all news not local, which
comes to the paper by telegraph, long-distance telephone, cable, or
mail, whether sent by its own correspondents or by a news association
such as the Associated Press or the United Press. The reporters and
correspondents of the press associations work under practically the
same conditions as the newspaper’s own correspondents, but they are
responsible to the division head of the press association, whereas the
newspaper’s correspondents are under the direction of the telegraph
editor or of the state editor of the paper. The work of news gathering
is not essentially different, whether done by a reporter or by a
correspondent in the employ of a newspaper or of a news-gathering
association.
=How news is written.= After the reporter has obtained the news,
he returns to the office and writes his story as rapidly as possible,
in accordance with any instructions that the city editor may give
him. If it is inexpedient for him to return to the office, he writes
his story quickly at some convenient place and sends it to the office
by messenger or by telephone. Under some circumstances, particularly
when lack of time prevents his writing the story and sending it in,
he telephones the facts to a rewrite man in the office, who writes
the story from the data thus secured. The reporter for a local news
association prepares his stories, as directed by the news editor of the
association, under practically the same conditions as the newspaper
reporter.
The correspondent, after writing his story, mails it, files it at the
telegraph office, or telephones it to the newspaper office. He, too,
may telephone the bare facts to have them written in news-story form by
a rewrite man in the newspaper office. The correspondent of a general
news-gathering agency handles his news in the same way except that he
sends it by mail, telegraph, or telephone to the district office of the
association or agency that he represents. At this district office it
is edited and sent out to those papers in various parts of the country
that use the association’s service.
As news stories, whether local or telegraph, are edited before they are
printed, practically all stories as they appear in the newspaper are
the work not only of the reporter or correspondent who gathered the
news, but of one or more editors and copy-readers. Well-written stories
of reporters and correspondents usually undergo little change when
edited. A poorly written story, on the other hand, may be made over
into a very effective one by a rewrite man, an editor, or a copy-reader.
=Conditions affecting news writing.= The structure and the style
of news stories are determined (1) by the conditions under which they
are written, (2) by the character of the readers, (3) by the conditions
under which newspapers are read, (4) by the typographical form of
newspapers, and (5) by the popular taste.
Newspaper writing must be done rapidly under considerable pressure
and generally without opportunity for careful revision. Although this
haste does not excuse incorrect and slovenly English, it does result
in looser, less finished writing than might be produced under more
favorable circumstances. In rapid writing, and particularly in handling
similar material from day to day, the writer, unless he is on his
guard, is likely to fall into the habit of using stock phrases, trite
and colorless.
The large amount of available news that must be crowded daily into
limited space makes it essential to present the news in compact form
and concise style. “Boil it down” and “Cut it to the bone” are constant
admonitions in every newspaper office. Conciseness is a necessary
quality of newspaper style.
The average newspaper, in order to succeed, must appeal to all classes
of readers in the community. It must present its contents in a way that
will attract and interest the so-called masses as well as the business
and the professional classes. The style of writing is generally adapted
to readers of limited education no less than to the well educated.
Comparative simplicity of expression, accordingly, is the rule in
newspaper writing.
Newspapers are read rapidly by practically all classes of readers.
They must, therefore, be written in a style that makes rapid reading
easy. Important details are placed at the beginning of paragraphs and
sentences, where they will catch the eye at once. The emphasis thus
given by the initial position is one of the distinctive characteristics
of newspaper writing. To the most important details made prominent in
this way are added the less significant but necessary particulars, one
by one, in natural order. This arrangement results in a loose rather
than a periodic sentence structure and eliminates the possibility of a
climactic effect in the paragraphs or in the whole story.
The shortness of the line in the narrow column affects newspaper style
because it necessitates a proportionate shortening of the paragraph.
Paragraphs that appear long seem heavy and uninviting, especially to
the rapid reader. Since but six words on an average can be crowded
into a line in newspapers, as compared to ten or twelve in a line in
most books, newspaper paragraphs can be only half as long as those in
ordinary prose without loss of effectiveness.
The popular demand for novelty and variety prevents any form of
newspaper writing from becoming fixed, and results from time to time in
the development of new forms and new styles of news writing. To make
some news stories entertaining rather than purely informative, a number
of newspapers abandon the conventional summary beginning, or lead,
and use unconventional ones like the beginnings of short stories. They
likewise give prominence to trivial happenings worked up into so-called
“human interest” or “feature” stories, because in that form they make
entertaining reading.
=Characteristics of news writing.= As a result of these various
conditions and influences news writing has come to have certain
well marked characteristics. It must be (1) concise, (2) clear, (3)
comparatively simple, (4) easily read, and (5) attractive to all
classes.
Conciseness requires that needless words be omitted, that only such
details be given as are necessary for effective presentation of the
subject, and that the length of the story be proportionate to the
importance of the material. In order to be concise, however, news
writing does not have to be bald and unattractive.
Clearness is secured in journalistic style by comparative simplicity of
diction, of sentence construction, and of paragraph structure. Learned
diction, elaborate figures of speech, and involved sentences have no
place in news writing intended to appeal to all classes of readers.
To be attractive to the average rapid reader newspaper style must be
easy to read. It is made easy, as has been pointed out, by placing
the important points in conspicuous positions at the beginnings of
sentences and paragraphs. To satisfy the popular taste newspaper
writing must also be interesting in form and in style. It sometimes
adopts the more or less striking devices of fiction in order to add
to its effectiveness. Furthermore, attractiveness is secured by such
typographical means as the use of a frame, or “box,” and bold-face
type, for facts of especial importance.
CHAPTER II
THE STUDY OF NEWS STORIES
=Value of study.= Every good news story may be regarded as a
solution of a difficult problem in gathering, selecting, and weaving
together a number of details. The steps in the solution may be as
carefully followed as the steps in solving a problem in algebra or
in performing an experiment in physics. As in the analysis of such
problems and experiments, so in the analysis of news stories, the
ultimate purpose is to find out how to solve similar problems as they
arise in actual experience. However interesting the theories and
principles of the art of news writing may be for themselves, it is the
practical application of them in the writer’s own work that gives them
their value for the student of journalism.
=Aims in studying news stories.= The purpose in analyzing typical
examples of news writing should be to discover in detail (1) how to
obtain news, (2) how to determine its value, and (3) how to present
it most effectively. Most stories reveal the means by which their
contents were obtained and the importance which the writer or editor
attached to each of the details. Sources of information and standards
for evaluating material are thus shown by a careful examination
of examples. A study of well-written news stories makes clear the
application of the principles of prose composition to the writing of
news. A comparison of several news stories of the same type brings
out the variety of ways in which similar material may be handled.
The writer must know the varied possibilities of treating material,
because, in working on similar matter from day to day, he is in great
danger of dropping into conventional forms and stereotyped expressions.
=Methods of analysis.= In the study of a news story the following
points should be considered: (1) the value of the news; (2) the sources
of the news; (3) the methods by which it was obtained; (4) the purpose
of the story; (5) the type of the story; (6) the structure; (7) the
literary style; and (8) the typographical style.
=News and news values.= News, as commonly defined, is anything
timely that interests a number of readers, and the best news is that
which has the greatest interest for the greatest number. Constructive
journalism is not satisfied to present merely what readers are
naturally interested in; it aims to give news that is significant
to them from the point of view of their personal affairs as well
as from that of the welfare of society. It likewise undertakes to
create interest in significant news that of itself may not interest
a considerable number of readers. Each story, therefore, should be
examined in order to determine why the news in it was considered of
interest and significance to the readers of the paper in which it was
published, as well as how great the interest and the significance were
believed to be as indicated by the space given to the story.
News values are based largely on the reader’s interest in (1) timely
matters, (2) extraordinary events and circumstances, (3) struggles for
supremacy in politics, business, sports, etc., (4) matters involving
the property, life, and welfare of fellow men, (5) children, (6)
animals, (7) hobbies and amusements.
The degree of the reader’s interest in these matters of news is
proportionate to (1) his familiarity with the persons, the places, and
the things involved, (2) the importance and the prominence of these
persons, places, and things, (3) the closeness of their relation to the
reader’s personal affairs.
The distinction between local news and general news grows out of the
greater degree of interest on the part of the reader in persons and
places that he knows and in matters that are closely related to his
business and his home. News of significance concerning the community in
which he lives is of prime importance to every reader. Interest in news
may generally be said to vary inversely in proportion to the distance
between the place where the news originates and the place where the
paper is published. Local interest is given to general news by bringing
out those phases, or “local ends,” of telegraph news that are of
significance in the community in which the paper circulates.
Every story indicates the evaluation of the news that it presents
as made by the reporter or correspondent, and by the editor or the
copy-reader. By determining the basis of this evaluation, the student
acquires a criterion by which to judge the news value of whatever he is
called upon to report.
=Sources of news.= From the details of a news story it is almost
always possible to infer the sources from which the news was obtained.
Public and private records, reports, officials, eye-witnesses, for
example, are often cited as authorities for the facts in the story.
These sources should be noted carefully, so that they may be drawn
upon by the student in his own reporting. In fact, a list of sources
compiled from news stories of various kinds, such as those of crime,
accidents, fires, etc., will be found helpful to the beginner.
=Methods of news gathering.= How the details of the news were
obtained may also be ascertained from an examination of the story. In
the report of an interview, for example, the reporter’s questions may
be inferred from the person’s replies. Not infrequently the story
shows indirectly the circumstances under which the reporter secured
the material. The student will do well to note every such hint and
suggestion.
=Purpose.= Every news story should present the details of the news
as accurately as possible and as completely as the significance of
the news warrants. The embellishment of news stories with fictitious
details to make them more interesting or more entertaining, as well
as the distortion and suppression of significant facts of the news in
order to accomplish some end, are alike opposed to the fundamental
purpose of the newspaper. Besides reporting the news with fairness
and accuracy, however, the writer, consciously or unconsciously, may
accomplish other ends by the manner in which he presents his material.
By giving prominence to certain details and aspects of a piece of
news, he may produce one effect upon the reader’s mind; by emphasizing
others in the same piece of news, he may produce an entirely different
impression. Thus news of accidents, crime, courts, and similar matters
can be presented so as to exert either a wholesome or an unwholesome
influence on readers; that is, it may be constructive or destructive in
its effect. Stories of crime, for example, may be written in a manner
that tends to make the wrongdoer more or less of a hero, and hence may
encourage others to imitate his career; or they may be written in a way
that tends to deter readers from committing similar crimes. Whether
wrongdoing is made attractive or unattractive in news stories depends
not so much upon giving the facts fully and accurately as upon the
reporter’s attitude toward his material.
Some newspapers simply record the news without emphasizing either its
constructive or its destructive phases. Newspapers of this type have
been likened to mirrors that reflect impartially whatever comes within
their range. This policy is expressed in the dictum of a well-known
editor when he declared, “Whatever the Divine Providence permitted to
occur, I was not too proud to report.” Purely informative news stories
and entertaining feature stories in these papers are written without
particular regard for their influence on readers.
Other newspapers, not satisfied with reporting the day’s events in an
accurate but colorless manner, without any particular consideration
for its effect upon their readers, deliberately undertake to give news
in such a way that it tends to be helpful and constructive in its
influence. They publish not merely the usual details regarding fires
and accidents; they emphasize the causes, the responsibility, and the
frequency of such occurrences, in order to impress upon readers the
importance of taking preventive measures against the recurrence of
such disasters. They also recognize the fact that some legitimate news,
even when given in what is ordinarily considered an unobjectionable
manner, tends to have a bad effect on readers in that it suggests
to them ideas and ideals inimical to the best interests of society
as a whole. So-called “waves” of crime and suicide they realize are
often the result of suggestions given to morally unstable readers by
newspaper stories of crimes and suicides. By constructive treatment
of such news, they attempt to reduce to a minimum these undesirable
suggestions and to substitute for them suggestions that tend to prevent
similar criminal and anti-social acts.
Another class of newspapers, apparently disregarding the unwholesome
effect upon their readers, give prominence to sensational, ghastly,
and scandalous phases of the news because they know that such details
appeal to the morbid interest of many readers. The not uncommon
explanation made by these newspapers for such treatment of news is that
they are giving the public what it wants. Critics of these papers deny
the validity of this excuse and point out that it would apply equally
to the selling of habit-forming drugs and adulterated food, acts now
forbidden by law.
Since the underlying purpose of the writer plays an important part in
the selection and the arrangement of material for news stories, as well
as in the effect that stories produce upon readers, it deserves careful
consideration in the analysis of news stories.
=Type of story.= There are two general types of news stories: (1)
the informative news story, the chief aim of which is to give the facts
of the news; and (2) the feature or human interest story, the chief
aim of which is to take material of little or no news value and make
it interesting. The fundamental difference between these two kinds of
stories is the news value of the contents. The presence or absence of
so-called “human interest” is not the basis of this classification, for
informative news stories may be developed by bringing out the human
interest element in the news.
The informative news story may be one of two kinds: (1) the story the
chief purpose of which is to record the facts of the news without
particular regard to its effect upon the readers; and (2) the story
that presents the facts of the news in such a way as to produce a
wholesome effect.
The purely informative news story usually presents the facts of the
news so that they can be grasped readily in rapid reading. Its length
is determined by the value of its news as measured by the ordinary
standards of news values. It may be made interesting by bringing out
the human interest element and by any literary device that is adapted
to the subject. Usually it has a summary lead.
The informative story of the constructive type aims to interest the
reader in the significance of the facts of the news, and the length of
the story, accordingly, is determined by the importance of the news
from this point of view. By bringing out the human interest element
in the constructive type of story, the writer is able to make the
emotional appeal to the readers that is particularly effective in
accomplishing the purposes of this kind of story. Stories of this type
may or may not have a summary lead.
In the entertaining feature story that contains little or no news, the
interest lies entirely in the manner in which the facts are told. The
literary ability of the writer is here tested to the utmost, for a
story is read only so far as it interests. The length of these stories,
therefore, is determined by the writer’s success in sustaining the
reader’s interest.
News stories in method are (1) narrative, (2) descriptive, (3)
expository, or (4) any combination of these three forms of discourse.
These forms are often to be found combined in a single story. The
reporter, for example, may in one story narrate a series of incidents,
describe the persons and places involved, and explain causes, motives,
and results.
In the purely informative news story that is narrative in form there is
little suspense, because the essential facts are usually summarized in
the beginning, or lead. In the narrative feature story, however, the
interest is frequently sustained by the same devices that are used in
fiction.
Description in news stories may be either suggestive or detailed. In
most stories lack of space makes it impossible to do more than sketch
briefly the appearance of persons and objects by suggestive touches.
In long stories, however, when circumstances warrant it, descriptions
may be given in considerable detail. The purpose in both kinds of
description should be to convey to the reader impressions of sights,
sounds, etc., as vivid as those the reporter himself experienced.
News stories are expository, as a whole or in part, whenever situations
must be made clear by explaining motives, causes, results, and other
phases of the news, or by summarizing the whole or a part of speeches,
reports, etc. Such exposition should always be as simple and lucid as
possible.
=Structure of the story.= The structure of the news story is
concerned with (1) the beginning, or lead, and (2) the body of the
story. The informative story usually begins with a summary lead that
answers the reader’s questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Thus
the summary lead includes the following details: (1) the persons,
(2) the event, (3) the place, (4) the time, (5) the cause, (6) the
significant circumstances. Any one of these elements of the news may be
“featured” in the place of prominence at the beginning of the story,
although the time and the place are seldom played up in this way. The
story of entertainment or appeal, on the other hand, usually avoids
the summary lead by beginning in one of the ways common to fictitious
narratives. In its beginning, its effort to sustain suspense, and its
semblance of plot the human interest or feature story closely resembles
the short story.
In the body of the story the details follow a logical order. The
arrangement in narrative stories is usually chronological. Only such
of the details summarized in the lead are repeated in the body of the
story as are needed for clearness. Although it is well to round out
stories in the last paragraph, the ending does not receive so much
attention as in other prose, because the exigencies of “make-up” often
necessitate the cutting off of the last paragraph or two.
=Literary style.= The style of a news story is concerned with such
elements as (1) paragraphs, (2) sentences, (3) words; and with such
qualities as (1) clearness, (2) force, (3) animation, (4) humor, (5)
pathos, (6) taste.
Analysis of paragraphs and sentences should include: (1) the length
of the paragraph and of the sentence; (2) the unity of thought in the
sentence, and the unity of topic in the paragraph; (3) the coherence,
or connection between the parts; and (4) the emphasis given to the
important ideas by their position in sentence and paragraph.
Because of the narrowness of the columns the newspaper paragraph must
be comparatively short to avoid appearing heavy and uninviting. The
typical newspaper paragraph contains from 35 to 75 words, whereas the
average paragraph in ordinary prose is from 150 to 250 words in length.
In sentence length, and in paragraph and sentence unity and coherence,
the style of the news story does not differ from that of other prose.
Involved constructions, long periodic sentences, and similar rhetorical
devices, however, have no place in journalistic writing, because they
tend to prevent rapid reading.
The emphasis given to an important point by placing it at the beginning
of a sentence or a paragraph, is a distinctive characteristic of
newspaper style, growing out of the fact that in rapid reading the eye
catches important points quickly if they occupy these initial positions.
Specific words in original combinations are always preferable to
colorless, general terms and trite phrases. Technical, scientific,
and learned words should be avoided unless fully explained. Slang and
colloquial expressions may be used when the tone of the story justifies
them.
Clearness, which is essential to rapid reading, depends upon the
arrangement, the connection, and the expression of ideas, and the
student will do well to analyze these essential factors in well-written
stories. How brisk movement and steady progress can be secured is also
worthy of notice. Humor and pathos are not infrequent in news stories,
particularly in those of the feature and human interest type. The
student should observe how humor may be effective without ridicule,
buffoonery, or vulgarity, and how offensive facts may be presented in
news stories without violating the canons of good taste.
=Typographical style.= Peculiarities in such details of
typographical style as abbreviation, capitalization, hyphenation,
and the use of numerical figures should be noted in each story and
associated with the newspaper from which the story was taken, for each
paper has a typographical style of its own. One style is as good as
another, but it is essential that consistency be maintained.
The printing of significant facts in a box at the beginning or in the
body of a story, often in bold-face type, the method of arranging lists
of dead and injured, the forms for market reports, scores in sports,
and similar details should be carefully noted.
AN OUTLINE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF NEWS STORIES
NEWS VALUES
1. In what paper was the story published?
2. What are the policy and the character of the paper?
3. How widely does the paper circulate outside of the place in
which it is published?
4. Does the paper appeal to a particular class of readers?
5. Is the piece of news presented from the point of view of
this class?
6. What, for the average reader, is the source of interest in
the news contained in the story?
7. How much would the news interest the average reader? Why?
8. Do you think that the news was worth more or less space than
was given to it? Why?
9. What more significant phases might have been played up or
developed?
SOURCES OF NEWS
1. How did the news originate?
2. Where was the first record of it probably made? By whom?
3. What records and what persons may have been consulted in
securing the news?
4. What reference books or material may have been used in
getting or in verifying the details of the story?
5. What other possible sources might have been consulted?
METHODS OF NEWS GATHERING
1. What evidence does the story give of the methods by which
the news was obtained?
2. Is there any evidence that the reporter or correspondent
failed to get any of the important details of the piece of
news?
PURPOSE
1. Does the story seem to be fair and unbiased?
2. Is there evidence that any important facts were suppressed or
that the story was colored to conform to the policy of the
paper?
3. Is the handling of the news constructive or destructive in
its effect?
4. What, if any, is the constructive purpose of the writer?
5. Is the story so treated as to tempt the reader to imitate
anti-social acts?
TYPE OF STORY
1. Is the primary purpose of the story to inform or to entertain?
2. Is the story largely narrative and descriptive? Is it largely
explanatory? Is it largely direct or indirect quotation?
3. If the story is narrative in form, is the order chronological?
4. Is the narrative clear or confused?
5. Does the narrative move slowly or briskly? Why?
6. Are accounts of the event by participants or eye-witnesses
used? If so, are these accounts in direct or indirect
quotation form?
7. Are remarks and conversation of participants and
eye-witnesses given?
8. Is the description detailed or suggestive? Is it effective?
Why?
9. Is there a striving for effect in the description?
10. If the story is that of a speech, report, etc., is the
material arranged in logical order?
11. Is much or little made of the personal, or human interest,
element in the story of the speech or the interview?
STRUCTURE OF THE STORY
1. Has the story a summary lead or an unconventional beginning?
2. Does the lead contain the essential facts concisely
presented?
3. Is the most striking detail played up as the feature in the
first group of words of the opening sentence of the lead?
4. What other element in the news might have been featured in
the lead?
5. Is the lead proportionate in length to the whole story?
6. How are the details arranged in the body of the story?
7. Is there any evidence that the story was cut down in making
up the paper?
8. Are the paragraphs closely connected?
9. Is there unnecessary repetition in the story?
10. Could the arrangement of the details be improved? How?
LITERARY STYLE OF THE STORY
PARAGRAPHS
1. What is the average length of the paragraphs?
2. Are any of the paragraphs too long or too short?
3. Is each paragraph a unit?
4. Are the details well arranged and closely connected in the
paragraphs?
5. Does the first group of words at the beginning of each
paragraph attract the reader as his eye glances down the
story?
6. Could any of the paragraph beginnings be made more
effective? How?
SENTENCES
1. What is the average length of the sentences?
2. Are any of the sentences too long or too short?
3. Is the construction of each sentence evident in rapid
reading?
4. Is each sentence a unified expression of a closely related
group of ideas?
5. Are the parts of the sentences combined in firm, closely
knit construction?
6. Do the sentence beginnings attract the reader by the
importance and the interest of the ideas expressed in the
first group of words?
7. Do any of the sentences trail off loosely into a succession
of phrases and clauses?
8. Is there variety in sentence length and sentence
construction?
WORDS
1. Is the style concise or wordy?
2. Is the diction original or hackneyed?
3. Is the style marked by many adjectives or by superlatives?
4. Are the verbs specific and forcible?
5. Is the diction too learned for the comprehension of the
average rapid reader?
6. Are words used idiomatically and accurately?
7. Are slang and colloquial expressions found in the story?
What is the effect of them?
8. Is the diction is keeping with the tone of the story?
QUALITIES OF STYLE
1. Can the details of the story be easily comprehended in rapid
reading; that is, is the style comparatively simple?
2. Upon what does the general clearness of the story depend?
3. Is the movement slow or rapid? Why?
4. Is there any humor or pathos in the story? How is the
humorous or the pathetic effect secured?
5. Has the news possibilities for humorous or pathetic
treatment that are not developed?
6. Is the story in good taste?
TYPOGRAPHICAL STYLE
1. What are the peculiarities of abbreviation, capitalization,
hyphenation, and use of numerical figures?
2. Is the typographical style consistent throughout the story?
3. Are any details of the story given prominence by
typographical devices? If so, why?
CHAPTER III
FIRES AND ACCIDENTS
=Type of story.= Many newspaper reports of fires and accidents may
be considered as typical examples of narrative and descriptive news
stories of the purely informative type. The essential facts of the news
are presented in a simple, direct, concise manner without any attempt
to give the story any greater interest for the reader than the facts
themselves possess. Such a fire story is that of the “Large Tannery
Fire” (p. 16) and such an accident story is that entitled “Automobile
and Car Collide” (p. 24).
When human life is involved in these events, some newspaper writers
take advantage of the opportunity to add to the interest by developing
the personal, or human interest, elements of the news in the
informative type of story, while at the same time presenting the facts
fully and accurately. Accident stories of this type are those headed
“Entombed Miners” (p. 38) and “Baby Drowns” (p. 42).
Less important fires and accidents that might otherwise go unnoticed,
or be dismissed with a few lines, may have in them some element that
lends itself to the feature, or human interest, treatment. A small fire
story of this type is found on p. 19; a humorous feature story of an
accident is that of the “Child in a Runaway” (p. 25); and a pathetic
human interest story is that of the “Boy Killed by Car” (p. 25).
=Purpose.= Stories of fires and accidents, particularly when such
occurrences result in fatalities, may be written so as to be either
constructive or destructive in their influence upon readers. The
constructive effect lies in emphasis upon those elements that tend (1)
to turn the reader’s attention to preventive measures, (2) to create
sympathy for the victims, or (3) to inspire admiration for heroism or
other virtues. Stories that give prominence to immediate or underlying
causes and responsibility in cases of fires and accidents, as well as
to possible preventive measures, have a helpful effect. Stories that
create sympathy for victims deserving of aid generally result in prompt
offers of relief. Examples of constructive stories are those entitled
“Fire in Stables” (p. 18), “Lodging House Fire” (p. 21), and “Runaway”
(p. 22). The story that aims to satisfy readers’ interest in ghastly
and sensational phases of fatal fires and accidents panders to a morbid
curiosity and inevitably has an unwholesome influence, even though the
facts that it presents are true.
=Treatment of material.= All types of fire and accident stories
give opportunity for spirited narrative and vivid description.
Possible means for lending life and interest to the narrative include
accounts of the disaster, either in direct or indirect quotation
form, as secured by interviews with survivors and eye-witnesses, and
conversation between persons involved.
=Contents of story.= Among the important details to be considered
in analyzing stories of unexpected occurrences, such as fires and
accidents, are: (1) number of lives lost; (2) number of lives
endangered; (3) names of dead and injured; (4) prominent persons and
places involved; (5) character and extent of damage; (6) property
threatened with damage or destruction; (7) cause and responsibility;
(8) investigations; (9) preventive measures against recurrence of
event; (10) probable or actual effects; (11) peculiar and unusual
circumstances; (12) humorous and pathetic incidents. Almost any one
of these details may be the feature of the story, and as such may be
played up in the lead. The space and prominence given to each of these
details are determined by its relative news value.
* * * * *
LARGE TANNERY FIRE
_Boston Transcript_
Following an explosion of fuel oil, fire spread
like a flash through the plant of the George C.
Vaughn Sole Leather Tannery on Upper Bridge street,
Salem, shortly before noon today and destroyed
three large buildings and a power house, with a
loss estimated from $325,000 to $350,000, covered
by insurance. Many times the flames leaped to the
neighboring wooden structures that surround the
plant, but by the efforts of the entire Salem fire
department, assisted by men and apparatus from
Beverly, Peabody and Marblehead, a conflagration
was narrowly averted.
More than a quarter million dollars’ worth of sole
leather was stored on the premises. A. J. Vaughn,
president of the company, said after the fire that
$200,000 worth of new stock had recently been
received and that the old stock, machinery and
buildings were worth $150,000 in addition, bringing
the total loss to $350,000.
The fire, which broke out at 11.15 A. M. in the
basement of the main tannery building, spread so
quickly that the employees at work on the upper
floors had difficulty in escaping to the street.
Even before the first alarm had been sent in, the
advancing flames reached a large tank of oil, used
for fuel in the power house. A heavy explosion
followed and the fire gained irresistible headway,
since the power house stood in the centre of the
plant and was flanked on three sides by the tanning
houses.
Unable to check the flames in the plant, the
firemen bent their energy to keep the fire from
spreading. Calls for assistance sent to the
surrounding towns met quick response, and by 12.30
the blaze was under control.
The buildings of the plant comprised a two-story
stone tannery, 200 feet long; a single-story drying
and rolling house, built of wood, with a frontage
of 150 feet; and a beam house, also of wood, with a
frontage of 125 feet. They were grouped on three
sides of a square surrounding the power house. The
plant was formerly known as the F. A. Lord tannery,
but was enlarged and remodelled after its purchase
by the George C. Vaughn Company.
* * * * *
UNIVERSITY BUILDING BURNS
_New York Times_
Three important collections of books and documents,
two of which were held by their owners to be
priceless, since they represented the lifework of
the collectors, were destroyed in the fire which
swept through the superstructure of the uncompleted
University Hall on the Columbia University campus
early yesterday morning.
While the fire was burning, between 1 and 2
o’clock, the interest of the student body was
centred principally in the gymnasium, where there
was a grand piano and much apparatus to be saved,
and in the rooms of the Columbia University crew,
where there were many trophies, oars, and banners.
In the rush to save athletic trophies, the
documents in rooms near by were overlooked. They
were finally pitched out of the windows by firemen
cleaning up after the fire, and they were made up
into three great rubbish heaps on the lawns about
the burned building.
Before these rubbish heaps a Professor of
Mathematics and a Professor of Germanic History
stood yesterday with tears in their eyes, their
shirtsleeves rolled up for work. They toiled
through the débris looking for personal papers and
for notes and documents which they said regretfully
they feared they could never replace.
The collections destroyed included all the personal
library on the history of Germanic civilization
brought to this country by Dr. Ernst Richard,
Professor of Germanic History. With Dr. Richard’s
documents went his personal notes, which he had
gathered in a lifetime of study. While he stood
over the rubbish pile in front of the window of
what had been his office, Dr. F. N. Cole, Professor
of Mathemetics, searched another big rubbish pile
near by.
Dr. Cole also contemplated his loss with deep
sorrow. In the pile before him were all the
official documents and records of the American
Mathematical Association, which had its
headquarters in the building. Dr. Cole was its
Secretary, and he had moved the documents from East
Hall two years ago because he feared that East Hall
might burn, while University Hall, except for the
temporary superstructure, was fireproof.
The documents had been accumulating since the
association was founded. The files of the first
ten volumes of its publication, the American
Mathematical Society’s Bulletin, were destroyed
together with the stock collection of copies of
all subsequent volumes. All of Dr. Cole’s personal
papers were destroyed with the society’s papers.
The fire, which apparently originated in the
kitchens behind the Commons eating quarters on
the main floor, swept through wooden partitions
separating various offices on that floor, and
through a temporary wooden roof which had been put
on against the time when seven more stories should
be built.
As the lower floors, which were part of the
permanent structure, were fireproof, the flames
did not work down through them, but died out when
they had consumed the temporary superstructure. The
gymnasium on the lower floor was unharmed, except
by water, and the swimming pool below it was ready
for use yesterday.
The offices on the upper floor which were
destroyed included the headquarters of The
Columbia Spectator, The Jester, the Prison Reform
Association, and the American Mathematical
Association, the rooms of the Columbia Crew,
the Commons Restaurant, and the offices of the
departments of mathematics and Germanic history.
The athletic trophies in University Hall, it turned
out, were of only minor value, having been won
at training bouts on the Harlem River. The rich
trophies of the university were kept in another
building with fireproof walls and floors.
E. Stagg Whitin, Secretary of the Prison Reform
Association, joined the downhearted group early in
the afternoon. “What will Thomas Mott Osborne say
when he hears of this,” he remarked, as he looked
over the débris that had been notes and documents.
“All our work was here,” he said, “all the fruits
of our years of investigation. And there was even
material we intended to use in a lawsuit against
some Connecticut prison labor contractors.
“I don’t see how we can replace what we have lost.
The reports of our investigators made up a good
part of it. We spent our funds preparing this
material, and the only way we can replace it is to
raise another fund to do it all over again.”
The ruin of University Hall’s superstructure
was not permitted to repose even an hour. Dean
Frederick Goetze, the university Controller, who
drove in by automobile from Orient, L. I., on
hearing of the fire, had wagons loaded with lumber
on the Campus before the firemen were through
tearing out the embers. He had 150 men at work
before noon rebuilding the roof, and had orders
placed for all material to replace the offices.
He notified the gymnasium instructors that they
might hold classes as usual on Monday, and posted
a notice to students that meals would be served as
usual in the Commons Monday noon.
A special announcement which pleased university
oarsmen was that their annual dinner, scheduled
for Oct. 21, could be held in the gymnasium.
Invitations to 1,000 former students had been
accepted, and postponement would have robbed the
oarsmen of the rowing season’s great event.
Coach Jim Rice ordered the rowing squads to report
on Monday for barge work on the Hudson, remarking
that real rowing was better than work on the
machines in the gymnasium.
The loss on the building was officially placed at
“less than $100,000,” which, it was said, was fully
covered by insurance.
* * * * *
FIRE IN STABLES
_Boston Transcript_
Fire that partly destroyed the Thornton Stables, a
five-story brick building at 85 to 95 West Mifflin
street this morning, has aroused Mayor Curley to
the immediate necessity of legislation to enable
the city to raze buildings, without the fear of
resultant liability, when such buildings have been
condemned by the building department. He will ask
the incoming Legislature for such a law.
For sixteen years the West Mifflin street building
had been regarded as one of the worst firetraps
in the city, according to the mayor. In 1898 it
was condemned and an order was issued by the fire
commissioner forbidding firemen to enter the
building in case of fire. During these years the
building was constantly under inspection by both
the fire and building departments, and why it was
not ordered vacated has not been explained. The
walls were shored up, or strengthened by iron rods,
as the foundation had settled, and yet the firemen
realized that, once a fire got under way, the walls
would not last long, as their thickness was about
eight inches.
Before the fire was extinguished today, Mayor
Curley and Building Commissioner O’Hearn visited
the scene and discussed with Fire Commissioner
Grady and Chief McDonough the dangers that exist
in other buildings throughout the city which have
been condemned but which are still occupied and are
regarded as a particular menace in case of fire.
The party looked over the surrounding property,
and the Building Commissioner pointed out three
buildings on the same street and practically
adjoining the stables that were being torn down
on his orders. These were ramshackle buildings
that had been fire menaces for years. It was the
prevailing opinion that if the stable fire had got
under greater headway when discovered, and if a
heavy wind had prevailed, the best efforts of the
firemen could not have prevented a serious spread
of the flames. The buildings on the southerly side
of the stables are all of wood, and the flames
would have had little difficulty, had they got
beyond the control of the firemen, in sweeping over
the site of one removed building to those of most
inflammable nature used as lodging-houses.
Mayor Curley directed Fire Commissioner Grady
to prepare a list of buildings of sufficiently
dangerous fire risks to warrant orders from
headquarters forbidding the firemen entering them
in case of fire. That there are many such buildings
in various parts of the city of substantial
proportions was admitted. The fire commissioner
declared that he had received a legal opinion that
the city is not justified in tearing down buildings
which have been condemned, unless the owner or
owners give their consent. The city has authority,
however, to vacate buildings. Section four,
Chapter 550 of the Acts of 1907, provides that the
building commissioner, or one of his inspectors,
shall inspect every building which he has reason
to believe is unsafe or dangerous to life, limb or
adjoining buildings, and, if he finds it unsafe or
dangerous, shall notify the owner to secure the
building, and shall affix in a conspicuous place on
its walls a notice of its dangerous condition. “The
commissioner may, with the written approval of the
mayor, order any building which in his opinion is
unsafe to be vacated forthwith,” in the words of
the law.
Fifty buildings have already been condemned this
year. Many of them have been removed, but in every
case the owners have consented to the removal. The
building commissioner sends his lists of condemned
buildings to the City Council, which gives hearings
on the appeal. There is a long list of such
buildings now pending before the council, and the
mayor will go before that body at its next meeting
and urge that the list be given immediate attention.
The law department has handled two hundred egress
cases for the building department in the last
two years, Assistant Corporation Counsel Edward
T. McGettrick having full charge, and in not a
single case has the department been obliged to
vacate after the bill in equity has been filed
in court. Most of these cases, however, are of
lodging-houses, the owners preferring to obey
orders in providing sufficient fire-escapes rather
than fight the case in the courts.
* * * * *
SMALL FIRE
_Savannah News_
A tiny, golden-throated canary bird was the hero of
a midnight fire in the lobby of the Geiger Hotel on
Broughton street last night.
It was due to the bird that the attachés of the
hotel investigated and found a blaze in the wall
caused by a defective flue in the rear of the cigar
stand cases. The loss will amount to between $500
and $600. The bird hangs in a cage near the cigar
stand. About 11:30 o’clock S. D. MacMartin noticed
it suddenly wake from its sleep and flutter noisily
about the cage. He thought a cat was attempting to
get the bird and made an investigation. He climbed
on a chair and a puff of smoke and a blaze shot
towards him.
A telephone alarm was sent immediately to fire
headquarters, and Chemical Company No. 1 answered.
They extinguished the blaze in a short time. It was
necessary to chop away the partition, and the cigar
stand and cases were moved into the lobby of the
hotel from the wall. The owner of the stand stated
that his loss would be considerable.
With all the excitement in the lobby none of the
guests in the hotel was awakened.
* * * * *
LIVES LOST IN FIRE
_Chicago Tribune_
A careless electrician, a gas pocket in a fireproof
vault, a stab of flame from a blown-out fuse--and a
deadly “sane Fourth” argument for a city which has
ceased to need one.
Such, in brief, was the story read by Coroner
Hoffman and other official investigators yesterday
in the ruins of the Pain Fireworks Display
company’s plant at 1320 Wabash avenue, after an
explosion of the $5,000 stock of cannon crackers,
torpedoes, roman candles, skyrockets, and
pyrotechnical set pieces had wrecked the firm’s own
building and rocked adjoining structures.
The electrician, upon whom the authorities are
inclined to put the blame, was Joseph Johnson,
employed in the fire sprinkler department of the
American District Telegraph company.
Johnson was one of five persons trapped in the
building and killed. Late in the afternoon the
bodies of the other four victims--H. B. Thearle,
president of the company; Miss Florence Hill, his
personal secretary; Edward Connors, a salesman; and
R. H. Wolff, the stockman--had been recovered, but
Johnson’s was not found until night.
The explosion--or rather the explosions, for
there were three or four of them at half second
intervals--occurred shortly before 11 o’clock in
the morning. Mr. Thearle was sitting at his desk
in the middle of the building, a deep, narrow,
one story structure of concrete and steel. At his
side was Miss Hill, taking dictation in shorthand.
Connors was busy at an adjoining desk.
Wolff, the stockkeeper, was in the rear part of
the basement, in which most of the company’s stock
was stored. At the front end of the basement two
electricians were at work--Johnson and Michael
J. Callahan, his foreman. The job on which the
electricians were employed centered in the Coca
Cola building, adjoining the Pain plant, in which
an outfit of automatic sprinklers was being
installed.
Duty called Callahan into the Coca Cola building
just in time to save his life. A minute after the
foreman electrician had walked out the front door,
Thomas Byrnes, sales manager for the fireworks
company, stepped into the alley at the rear of the
building. He had taken only a few steps when there
was a flash and a roar and his feet shot from under
him.
As Byrnes fell, a body came sailing out into the
alley. It stopped short against one of the pillars
of the south side “L” structure, which runs through
the alley, and Johnny Costello, the Pain office
boy, let out a yell of terror. The yell was his
last for several hours, for he immediately lost
consciousness.
At the Wabash avenue end of the building other
things were happening. With the first explosion the
big plate glass window disappeared and a mountain
of flame burst into the street. The street car
tracks were clear for a hundred yards north and
south, except for which fact, it is believed, there
would have been many more killed and injured.
The flame rolled across the street and scorched the
front of the building of the Howe Scale company,
all the windows of which had been shaken out by the
explosion. On the heels of the dissipated flame
mountain a pillar of smoke several hundred feet in
height rolled out of the Pain building.
Columns of flame and smoke climbed through holes in
the fireworks store which marked the places where
two big skylights had been, and an instant later a
dozen shutters on the north wall of the Coca Cola
building were afire, and panic-stricken employés,
many of them girls, were racing for the south fire
escapes.
Firemen responding to a 4-11 alarm found the
bodies of Mr. Thearle, Miss Hill, and Connors just
inside the front door, all badly burned. Hours
later the body of Wolff was found in the rear of
the basement. It was after nightfall when firemen,
working in the glare of a searchlight, took
Johnson’s body from the ruins.
By that time the building had been carefully
inspected--and it was regarded as a tribute to the
strength of its reinforced concrete construction
that there was any of it left to inspect--by
Coroner Hoffman, J. C. O’Donnell, chief of the
bureau of fire prevention and public safety, and
investigators for the new municipal department
of public service. All were of the opinion that
Johnson was responsible for the explosion, but the
blame will not be definitely placed until Monday,
when a jury impaneled on the spot by Coroner
Hoffman will hold an inquest.
O’Donnell, who is third assistant fire marshal,
planned to combine his investigation with the
coroner’s. He was satisfied, he said, that the
Pain company had taken all reasonable precautions
and that favorable reports made on the place by
inspectors of his bureau had been justified by
conditions.
The building had been specially constructed for the
storage of fireworks, and had been occupied by the
company, formerly located in the loop, for three
years. The basement had been divided into three
sections by stout partitions, in much the same way
that bulkheads are built into a ship. Into each of
the partitions was set a steel door. But there had
been no time to close the doors.
“The Pain people thought they were absolutely
protected against accidents,” said O’Donnell. “This
goes to prove there is no such thing as absolute
protection when explosives are being handled.”
* * * * *
LODGING HOUSE FIRE
_New York World_
The lives of six persons who died in a lodging
house fire at No. 1516 Eighth avenue early
yesterday morning, might have been saved if orders
issued by the Fire Department last May 27 had been
obeyed, says a report which J. O. Hammitt, Chief of
the Bureau of Fire Prevention, made late yesterday
to Commissioner Robert Adamson.
Five of the dead persons were identified as Bernard
Lynde, thirty-five, a laborer; Edward J. Ryan,
thirty-five, a lunchman; Louis Detter, fifty-three,
a laborer; a man named Hagan, about fifty; and John
Cutter, eighty-four, a laborer. The sixth man was
unidentified.
There were sixty-five men registered in the hotel
when Peter Kelly, a watchman, saw the smoke and
gave an alarm. Sergt. John Butler of the Salvage
Corps ran to the roof of a neighboring building and
assisted fifteen of the men to safety.
Lieut. Reed of Hook and Ladder No. 12, and Hugh
Bonner, the son of the ex-Chief, mounted extension
ladders to the top floor and assisted many more to
the ground. Three bodies were found on the third,
and three on the top floor.
Coroner Healy and Fire Marshal Prial believed that
the fire was caused by a careless smoker.
Following the issuance of the report, it was
announced that an investigation would be made by
the District-Attorney’s office to determine whether
anyone could be held responsible for the loss of
life.
The orders were for the enclosure of an unenclosed
stairway, up which the fire spread, and for the
installation of an interior fire alarm system. Both
orders had been turned over to the legal department
for enforcement, and work on the stairway enclosure
was in progress the day before the fire. Plans for
the fire alarm system were approved Oct. 22.
Mr. Hammitt stated that the day before the fire an
inspector learned that the direct communication
of the lodging house with fire headquarters had
been cut and ordered its restoration. The report
says that Peter Loos, the proprietor, called at
fire headquarters at 9 o’clock and said that the
communication had not been re-established because
it was the work of the landlord, but that there had
been a fire in which “three persons were slightly
injured.” According to Mr. Hammitt, Edward Brown is
the owner of the building.
* * * * *
CAUSE OF FIRE
_New York Times_
A glowing match, carelessly tossed into a baby
carriage standing in the hall, is believed to have
started the fire in which thirteen persons lost
their lives in the three-story tenement house in
the rear of 986 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg,
as told in THE TIMES yesterday. Poor
lighting in the hallways may have been an indirect
cause of the fire, according to Tenement House
Commissioner John J. Murphy.
As in more than 2,000 structures in the city,
Commissioner Murphy said, kerosene lamps were used
to light the halls. Often the lights go out or
are turned out by 11 o’clock, so that persons who
go into the buildings later are forced to strike
matches to find their way. It probably was a match
struck in this way that started the fire.
After an inspection of the district about ten days
ago all the property owners were warned that they
must keep their lights lighted, according to the
law. The inspection disclosed that about 70 per
cent. of the houses were poorly lighted.
“Prosecutions for violations of the law relating
to lighting are almost without exception in vain,”
Commissioner Murphy told a TIMES reporter
yesterday, “If the owners are taken to court, they
say that the lights went out, or were blown out.
The reason for the law is primarily to see that the
means of exit are lighted. The danger from matches
used to light the way had not been thought so
great.”
Except with regard to lighting, possibly, the
burned tenement complied with all the provisions of
the law, the officials said. The fire escapes were
as prescribed, and it was due to excitement on the
part of the occupants that they did not use them
instead of trying to go down the stairs. Only one
of the windows opening to fire escapes was found
broken.
All of the victims were suffocated by smoke. Five
were members of the family of Michael Blund, and
two others were boarders with him; three were
members of the family of Michael Lenko, all of whom
lived on the top floor. John Whatso and his wife
and an unidentified man who boarded with them were
found on the second floor.
The house was occupied by six families, two on each
floor. It is owned by John Korno, a banker, of
667 Grand Street, who owns several other tenement
houses in the neighborhood. As told in late
editions of yesterday’s TIMES, flames were
seen shooting out of the windows by a passerby, who
turned in an alarm. The firemen, when they arrived,
found it difficult work, so excited was the crowd
in front of the burning building.
The interior of the building was scarcely touched
by fire. Several of the bodies were lightly
scorched, but it was apparent that suffocation
had caused the deaths. On one of the floors the
tenants had opened the door and left it open
creating a draft. Apparently all of the victims had
been asleep when the fire started.
Commissioner Adamson, Fire Chief Kenlon, Fire
Marshal Brophy, Deputy Tenement House Commissioner
Hickey, Assistant District Attorney Wilson, Captain
Shaw of the Homicide Squad of the Police Department
and Coroner Wagner made investigations. At first
it was thought that the fire was of incendiary
origin, and the theory was that it had been started
by one of Korno’s tenants who had been evicted.
The officials were hampered in their investigation
because most of the tenants were foreigners and
could not speak English.
* * * * *
RUNAWAY
_New York Evening Post_
Dragged from his own horse while trying to stop a
runaway in Central Park this afternoon, Mounted
Patrolman Stephen Dowling, although thrown under
the wheels of a light carriage, jumped to his feet,
remounted his horse, and, after a chase of ten
blocks, caught and stopped the other animal. His
uniform was torn and he received contusions about
the body, but he remained on duty throughout the
day. The runaway horse was attached to a light
runabout, driven by a man and woman, who said they
were Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Hamilton of No. 775 West
Ninety-fifth Street.
They were driving slowly on the West Drive when,
at Ninetieth Street, the bit broke and the animal
bolted. Dowling saw the runaway and pursued it on
his own horse, which overtook the fleeing animal at
One Hundred and Sixth Street.
Because of the broken bit it was impossible to
stop the running horse by catching the bridle, so
Dowling leaned far out and wrapped his arms around
the neck of the runaway. He clung in this manner
for a few minutes, and then, his own horse shying,
he was dragged from the saddle and fell directly
beneath the wheels of the runabout. Two wheels
passed over his chest.
Although dazed and bruised, Dowling jumped to
his feet and caught his horse, which stood near,
mounted and set off at a gallop after the Hamilton
rig.
At One Hundred and Sixteenth Street the runaway
swerved and the light carriage was thrown against
a truck. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were thrown out but
escaped with a few slight bruises. Dowling had
almost caught up when this occurred. He halted
long enough to see that the man and woman were not
injured and then started after the running horse.
Near One Hundred and Seventeenth Street he was even
with the animal and again leaned over and wrapped
his arms around the horse’s neck. This time his
own horse did its share of the work, and Dowling’s
weight soon told on the runaway, which stopped
within half a block.
“Just in the day’s work,” said Dowling, when he was
congratulated.
* * * * *
AUTOMOBILE COLLISION
_Boston Herald_
Tossed into a blazing pool of gasoline when two
touring cars collided and the gas tank of one
exploded, Miss Alice Cushing, 22, of Nahant, and
Percy Mason of 765 Washington street, Lynn, were
probably fatally burned at 8 o’clock last night on
the Nahant road at Little Nahant.
Walter Hanley of 11 Moore street, Swampscott, was
hurled 30 feet with his clothing a mass of flames,
but saved his own life by plunging into the surf
and extinguishing the fire about him. Ten other
passengers in the machines were bruised and shaken
up, but were able to return home after medical
attention.
The accident happened opposite Wilson road, when
a seven passenger touring car in which were Mr.
and Mrs. J. Fred Farley of Danvers, their three
children, Richard, Fred and Helen Farley, and Mrs.
Farley’s mother, Mrs. O. B. Merton of Danvers,
turned abruptly to one side to go down upon the
beach. It was struck from behind by a public
touring car operated by Hanley and containing six
passengers.
Hanley’s machine ploughed into the rear of the
Farley car, tearing a hole in the gasoline tank.
The lamps ignited the gasoline and an explosion
followed which sent several gallons of burning
fluid upon the road.
It was into this that Miss Cushing and Mason fell
when they were thrown from the public machine by
the impact. The young woman was made unconscious
by the fall and was lying helpless in the centre
of the fire when she was rescued with considerable
difficulty by H. C. Wilcox of Beverly, who was
driving by on the road. He rolled her in an
automobile robe and, after extinguishing the
flames, took her to the Lynn Hospital. There it
was said there was practically no chance of her
recovery. She was burned from head to foot and had
inhaled much of the flames.
Mason was rescued by Dr. Newton A. Stone of
Somerville, a Cambridge dentist, who heard the
explosion and saw the glare of flames while driving
in his machine farther down the road. He put out
the fire about Mason with auto robes, assisted
by the passengers of the public machine who had
recovered from their shock. The dentist worked over
him while another man drove his machine to Union
Hospital, Lynn. Mason’s burns were so severe that
his name was immediately placed on the danger list.
In the excitement which followed the wreck, it was
believed that Hanley, the driver of the public car,
had been burned alive. A half-hour later, however,
he was discovered in a cottage off Wilson road. His
clothing was ignited by the explosion, and he was
hurled over the road upon the sand, his clothes a
mass of flames.
He had to run toward the surf, but was seriously
burned before he could reach the water, some 50
yards away. After he had extinguished the flames
himself, he made his way to a cottage and sank
exhausted on the piazza. Later he was removed to
Lynn Hospital, where it was stated his burns were
serious, but probably would not prove fatal. He was
burned about the face and upper part of the body
and the flames had entered his mouth, burning his
tongue and throat.
Before the Nahant fire department could reach the
scene both automobiles were destroyed. The Farley
machine had been badly wrecked by the collision
and the public car was telescoped. In the latter
machine were Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hanley of Lynn,
Arthur Wright of Fiske avenue, Lynn, and Leo Sale
of Lynn, besides those who were burned. They were
all more or less bruised.
The Farley party narrowly escaped being burned and
were cut and bruised when they were thrown from
their seats. Mrs. Farley told the police that she
held up her hand to signal the other machine as her
husband turned his auto toward the beach. Hanley
was in no condition to discuss the accident. He is
said to have been driving at about 18 miles an hour.
Miss Cushing lived on Willow road, Nahant, and
was employed as a waitress in the Colonial Café,
Nahant. Mason roomed at 765 Washington street,
Lynn, and for many years was a resident of Peabody.
He was employed in a Nahant restaurant.
Mr. Farley is a machine manufacturer in Danvers.
* * * * *
AUTOMOBILE AND CAR COLLIDE
_New York Tribune_
George C. Hurlbut, the aged librarian of the
American Geological Society, and his daughter,
Miss Ilione Hurlbut, were seriously injured last
night in a collision between the automobile in
which they were riding and a surface car in the
86th street transverse road in Central Park. Father
and daughter were removed to the Presbyterian
Hospital, where it was said that the skull of each
was fractured. Miss Hurlbut’s right arm was broken.
Both were unconscious when they were received
at the hospital, and it was said they could not
recover.
Mr. Hurlbut lives at No. 560 West End avenue and
is seventy years old. His daughter, Ilione, is
thirty-five years old and is his assistant in his
work. Yesterday afternoon they engaged William
Agg, of 86th street and Broadway, to take them for
a drive in the Fifth avenue section, saying they
would afterward have him drop them at No. 106 West
55th street, where they intended to have their
Christmas dinner with William Hurlbut, a nephew of
Mr. Hurlbut.
Agg started toward Fifth avenue by way of the
transverse road. Less than half of the distance
to Fifth avenue had been covered when he heard a
westbound car approaching. The automobile was at
that moment opposite the Park Department workshops.
Agg attempted to turn out, but the slippery road
and rails caused the rear wheels of the automobile
to skid. Both the car and the automobile were
travelling at a rapid rate, and the front of the
car struck the body of the machine, overturning
it. Before the motorman could bring his car to
a stop the automobile had been crumpled up like
cardboard, and the aged librarian and his daughter
lay unconscious among the wreckage. Agg had saved
himself by jumping before the car struck the
machine.
The car was crowded, and there was intense
excitement among the passengers, who were shaken up
and struck by flying glass. Policeman Talt heard
the noise made by the collision and immediately
telephoned for an ambulance. Before it arrived,
however, a passing automobile was pressed into
service, and the injured man and woman were placed
in it and hurried to the Presbyterian Hospital.
Lieutenant Arnett, of the Arsenal station, ordered
the arrest of the motorman of the car, James
Gannon, of No. 419 Third avenue, and Agg, who lives
at No. 160 Manhattan avenue.
Mr. Hurlbut has been the librarian of the American
Geological Society, at No. 15 West 81st street, for
twenty-five years, and is considered the foremost
authority on that class of work in this country.
He was born at Charleston, S. C., about seventy
years ago, and before he came here was engaged in
geological study and writing in San Francisco and
was president of the Mercantile Library.
The library of the American Geological Society
consists of 40,000 volumes, and is second only in
completeness to the geological library at Paris.
Mr. Hurlbut is also editor of the monthly bulletin
which the society publishes. George Greenough,
the secretary of the society, was greatly shocked
by the news of the accident to Mr. Hurlbut and
his daughter. He said last night that the loss of
the librarian’s services, even for a short time,
would be an irreparable loss to science and to the
society.
Since the death of his wife, eight years ago, Mr.
Hurlbut has lived with his daughter, Ilione. They
occupied a suite in the building at No. 560 West
End avenue, and Miss Hurlbut acted as her father’s
assistant.
He has two nephews, William J. Hurlbut, author of
the play “The Fighting Hope,” now at the Stuyvesant
Theatre, and Stephen A. Hurlbut, professor of
Greek at Barnard College. Mr. Hurlbut’s brother is
said to have been the owner and editor of “The New
York World” before it became the property of Mr.
Pulitzer.
* * * * *
CHILD IN RUNAWAY
_Boston Advertiser_
NEW YORK, Dec. 23--Walter Jackson is a lucky baby.
His parents admit that he is something more than
that, but take it as things go in this world of
chance, he’s lucky.
A horse attached to a delivery wagon was standing
in front of 942 Columbus ave. One of the front
wheels was tied to a rear wheel. Jacob Katz, the
driver, was in the building.
Along came a fat boy with a Christmas tree on his
shoulder and longings in his heart. He stopped to
look into a shop window and swung the tree around
sweeping the face of the horse. The horse ran away.
When he got to the corner of 87th st. the horse
took to the sidewalk.
On the sidewalk, along with many other shoppers,
were Walter Jackson and his wife. Just ahead
of them was Miss Rose Williams, and just ahead
of Miss Williams was a baby carriage, and in
the baby carriage was another Walter Jackson,
three-months-old and lucky.
The first Walter Jackson was knocked down and his
face looks now as if the horse stepped on it. Mrs.
Jackson was knocked down and the wagon ran over
her. Miss Williams was knocked down also.
As the rear wheel of the delivery wagon passed,
it caught the baby carriage; the baby stuck, and
in another minute was going just as fast as the
delivery wagon. Walter Jackson the second, stuck to
his carriage and incidentally to the delivery wagon.
Half way down the block the wagon struck a sidewalk
showcase and the crash of glass further frightened
the horse. He plunged back to the street, going
through a line of Christmas trees with the wagon
and the baby carriage.
Once through the trees, he smashed into an L pillar
and there parted company with delivery wagon and
baby carriage.
The wagon parted company with itself, and about
all there was left of the baby carriage was that
very limited portion of it immediately adjacent to
Walter Jackson.
The baby looked much mussed up, but when Dr. Monaco
of the Polyclinic Hospital examined him there
wasn’t a mark to be found.
* * * * *
BOY KILLED BY CAR
_San Francisco Examiner_
NEW YORK, December 17.--“Over on Broadway there’s
a regular Santy Claus,” said 10-year-old Johnny
Nugent to his chum, 7-year-old Eddie Bowler, as
school let out on the East Side this afternoon. “I
never seen no Santy Claus--only pictures. Did you?
Let’s go over?”
They put their books away, Johnny in his home,
Eddie in his. Then they trudged, skipping curbs and
whistling, across to the region of a department
store at Broadway and Thirty-fourth street.
“I was a kid last year,” said Johnny. “Me mother
couldn’t let me come here and I dasn’t go without
asking.”
They didn’t have any money, of course. Johnny’s
mother is a widow and Eddie’s folks have little to
spare for the children. But an idea seized Johnny;
he would start earning money at once. He went to a
newsboy, and the latter, with the freemasonry of
the streets, “lent” him two papers to sell. In a
moment he was yelling “Extry--All about the murder
trial!”
Eddie helped him to yell.
A customer beckoned from across the street. Johnny
darted toward him just in front of the Hotel
Martinique. A Broadway surface car loomed up
suddenly. There was a little cry, then the forward
pair of wheels ran over the boy and his body became
jammed in the rear wheels.
While a tremendous crowd of shoppers surrounded the
car, some men--and Eddie--crawled underneath. The
men came out with Johnny’s body. His little chum
had his torn cap and the two evening papers.
In the police station, before a group of policemen
who wept, Eddie told the whole story while he clung
to the battered relics.
“Mr. Lieutenant,” he asked at the end, “do you
think Johnny will get alive again?”
“Maybe Santa Claus will take care of him,” said Dr.
Gilhooley gravely, and he turned quickly away.
* * * * *
SUBWAY ACCIDENT
_New York Times_
Seven persons were killed and eighty-five injured
shortly before 8 o’clock yesterday morning when a
blast of dynamite in the excavation for the new
Seventh Avenue subway carried away all the plank
thoroughfare between Twenty-third and Twenty-fifth
Streets, sweeping down into the great hole a
crowded trolley car and a brewery automobile truck.
That the toll of dead and injured was not many
times greater was due to the fact that the
supports of the subway structure gave way slowly,
affording an opportunity for hundreds of persons
who were on their way to work to scurry to side
streets and to the walks which were at the sides
of the excavation. Most of those injured were in
the Seventh Avenue trolley car, which was of the
closed type and was north-bound. When the tracks
sagged the car slid into the hole. It crumpled
like pasteboard when it struck the tangle of iron,
wood, and rock in the bottom of the excavation. Two
of the persons killed were passengers in the car.
All the others were laborers in the tunnel caught
beneath the wreckage.
Within an hour after the accident happened seven
independent investigations to place the blame
were under way. These inquiries were started by
District Attorney Perkins, the Fire Department,
the Public Service Commission, Coroner Feinberg,
the contracting company, the State Industrial
Commission, and the Street Railway Company.
The investigators said that before the
responsibility could be determined positively
they would need the testimony of August Midnight.
Midnight is the licensed blaster who set the
dynamite charge. He was seen after the accident,
but disappeared, and up to a late hour last night
had not been found. The police sent out a general
alarm for his arrest.
According to Policeman Daniel O’Shay of the West
Twentieth Street Station, who was standing at
Twenty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue, it was
about 7:50 o’clock when he heard the explosion,
which was followed by a sudden rising and then a
sagging of the temporary roadway in Seventh Avenue.
A few seconds later the structure gave way and with
a crash settled down into the big hole. The street
car was directly in front of O’Shay, and he saw
it drop with the crumbling roadway, and heard the
cries of the terror-stricken passengers.
O’Shay instantly ran to a fire box and turned in an
alarm, after which he notified Police Headquarters
by telephone. When he got back to the accident to
do his part in the work of rescue, the scene down
deep in the excavation was appalling.
All that was left of the car, it appeared, was the
roof and the steel trucks. The passengers inside,
flung together in a confused mass, were screaming
and struggling. On top of the debris, not far from
the Twenty-fourth Street side of the wreckage, was
the body of a stout, well-dressed woman. Persons
on the sidewalk more than thirty feet above her
saw that she was injured terribly. She was still
alive when taken from the excavation, but died in
a few minutes. The body was identified as that of
Mrs. Martha V. Newton, 67 years old, of 243 Waverly
Place.
Fire ladders were let down into the hole, and
firemen and policemen, reckless of danger to
themselves, scrambled over the debris to rescue
the injured and recover the dead. Mrs. Newton was
one of the first of those carried up the ladders
to the sidewalk and into the National Cloak and
Suit Company, where she died. This company, which
operates a model welfare department for the benefit
of its 4,100 employes, has an up-to-date hospital
connected with its plant, and to this infirmary
scores of the injured were taken to have their
wounds dressed.
Ambulances from all parts of the city were called,
and soon there was a force of thirty surgeons
and as many more nurses at work. Several hundred
emergency men employed by the contractors were
hurried into the excavation to facilitate the
rescue. Mayor Mitchel, Chairman McCall of the
Public Service Commission, Police Commissioner
Woods, District Attorney Perkins, and other city
and county officials arrived early and witnessed
the removal of some of the injured and the dead.
The rescuers found many wounded people and one dead
man in the wreckage of the street car. The dead
man was Louis Krugman, a garment worker, of 308
East Eighth Street. Another of those in the car
died soon after being removed from the wreckage.
The worst injured were taken into the emergency
hospital of the Suit Company, while others were
treated in the streets by ambulance doctors and
sent to their homes.
Two priests from St. Colomba’s Catholic Church,
Fathers Rogers and Higgins, descended into the
excavation and aided the rescuers. William
Dennison, the subway engineer who was taken to
St. Vincent’s Hospital and was expected to die,
was found with a girder across his chest, but was
conscious, and Father Higgins anointed him before
he was carried away. When a stimulant was offered
to Dennison to alleviate his suffering, he refused,
saying he did not drink.
The stifling odor of gas from broken mains hampered
the rescuers. The Department of Water Supply, Gas
and Electricity had employes at the cavity in
eight minutes after the accident. They found that
one twenty-four-inch high pressure fire main and
several six-inch water mains had been broken, and
that the water was rising in the excavation. Within
half an hour they had all the high pressure mains
closed, and thirty minutes later arrangements had
been made through adjoining mains so that the high
pressure system was ready for use. The smaller
mains were shut off by the subway contractors, and
temporary services were installed to meet the needs
of the residents of the block.
Through the fortunate presence at Seventh Avenue
and Twenty-third Street of a patrolman for the
Consolidated Gas Company, the gas was shut off
soon. Two mains had been broken; but on account of
the experience in the construction of the Boston
subway, when men were asphyxiated by escaping gas
in a similar accident, the gas mains are laid along
the curb in all the present construction in New
York; so that while a considerable amount of gas
escaped on the street it did no damage.
Fire Chief Kenlon directed much of the rescue work,
and fifty additional firemen without apparatus were
called out as soon as the nature of the emergency
was known. Forty-four alarm boxes were put out of
commission by the breaking of wires when the street
went down, but service was restored with overhead
wires an hour later.
Immediately after the arrival of Acting Chief
Inspector Dillon, who directed the police reserves,
called from all parts of Manhattan and the Bronx,
tenants were ordered to quit the houses in Seventh
Avenue from Twenty-third to Twenty-fifth Streets
until the authorities decided whether it was safe
for them to return. At 7 o’clock at night they were
permitted to return to their homes.
Acting Police Inspector Joseph Conroy, in
conjunction with officials of the construction
company, sent policemen at night throughout the
five boroughs to the homes of 200 employes on the
company’s payroll. All of the men were accounted
for except two--J. X. Zavina of 300 Avenue A and
John McCormick of 317 Bowery. McCormick had been
reported dead earlier in the day. At the address
given for Zavina it was said that no man of that
name lived there.
The Seventh Avenue car service was suspended south
of Thirty-second Street, and it will be at least a
week, it is said, before service is resumed below
that point.
The thousands of spectators who crowded as near
the great cavity as they could during the morning
and gave the police reserves a hard task at the
danger zone ropes, became alarmed when it was
reported that dynamite was still beneath the fallen
structure and that more explosions might follow.
Twelve sticks of unexploded dynamite were carried
up at one time, and the firemen took charge of it.
The engineers later said that there was no more
dynamite in the cavity, and that the twelve sticks
had been carried down early in the morning by a
powder man who was to explode them in small blasts
after the big explosion at 8 o’clock. The rules
were strict regarding the handling of dynamite, the
company officials said, and they were sure that
there was no further danger to the lives of the
rescuers after the twelve sticks had been taken out.
Colonel William Hayward of the Public Service
Commission stood at the edge of the great hole and
pointed to the crumpled wooden car.
“Look at that car,” he said. “That’s what we ought
to investigate, for before you is a picture of
what is going to happen when one of the old wooden
cars on the elevated takes a jump to the street.
I fought against those old cars going on the
elevated, but I was voted down. I will always fight
them or any other sort of wooden cars for New York
traffic.
“If that car down there had been a steel car I do
not believe a person would have been hurt. At least
the passengers would not have been crushed.”
The contract for the subway work affected by
the accident was awarded originally to Canavan
Brothers, but was taken over by the United States
Realty and Improvement Company on Dec. 31, 1913.
The price was fixed at $2,401,306.75. The job was
75 per cent. completed yesterday morning. The part
is designated officially as Section 5, Route 4 and
38 and extends from midway between Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Streets to midway between Thirtieth and
Thirty-first Streets.
The company also has a contract for the section
from Commerce to Sixteenth Street, and for Section
2 of the Broadway subway from Twenty-sixth
to Twenty-eighth Street. The total amount of
all subway contracts held by the company is
$6,996,037.75, of which 40 per cent. has been paid.
The contractors are under a $75,000 bond for the
completion of the construction and 15 per cent.
of the payment will be withheld until the work is
accepted.
The contractors are liable under the provisions of
the workmen’s compensation law for death and injury
of employes. The company is insured, according to
officials, against losses by other accidents.
The United States Realty and Improvement Company
has enormous assets. Its capital is $30,000,000.
Among the realty properties listed in its name are
the Flatiron Building, Broadway and Fifth Avenue;
17 Battery Place, 85 and 87 Beaver Street, 96 and
98 Mercer Street, 67 and 69 Wall Street, 91 and
93 Wall Street, 123-27 West Twentieth Street,
124-28 West Twentieth Street, 112 West Twenty-first
Street, 118 West Twenty-first Street, 122-26 West
Twenty-first Street, 41-45 East Twenty-second
Street, 128-32 West Thirtieth Street, 202-08 West
Thirty-seventh Street, 111-19 Broadway, 304-12
Fourth Avenue, 400 Fifth Avenue, 494-98 Seventh
Avenue.
Following are the officials of the company which
faces enormous damage suits for the accident:
President, Wilson S. Kinnear; Secretary, Richard
G. Babbage; Treasurer, Byron M. Fellows;
Directors--Harry S. Black, Chairman; R. G. Babbage,
Frank A. Vanderlip, John F. Harris, William A.
Poillon, John D. Crimmins, P. A. Valentine, Harry
Bronner, William A. Merriman, W. S. Kinnear, C. E.
Hermann, F. W. Upham, Franklin Murphy, and B. M.
Fellows. The main offices are at 111 Broadway.
The Superintendent is E. A. Little. C. H. Stengle
is chief engineer. S. S. Jones is in charge
of the construction work which collapsed. The
supervising engineer is B. C. Collier, and the
engineer immediately in charge of the division
which caved in is H. R. Jacobson.
Supervising the work for the Public Service
Commission are Alfred Craven, chief engineer for
the commission; Robert Ridgeway, supervising
engineer in charge of subway construction; Andrew
Veitch, in charge of the section, and Stephen
Koronski, immediately in charge of the division
that caved in.
* * * * *
RUN DOWN BY TRAIN
_Boston Traveler_
In a race with an express train over Lyman’s bridge
on the Southern division of the Boston & Maine
railroad at Waltham, Gerald Ross, 15-year-old son
of Herbert Ross of 95 Carroll street, Waltham,
was overtaken and instantly killed yesterday. A
companion, Kenneth Harrison, 11 years old, of 145
Fourth street, was struck by a cylinder of the
engine and suffered a broken arm. His brother,
Norman Harrison, 14 years old, escaped uninjured.
The boys stood in the middle of the single track on
Lyman’s bridge, a long trestle over which trains
cross a small stream. They were watching a group
of their friends sporting in Lyman’s pond, and did
not notice the approach of the 4 o’clock express
from Boston.
The locomotive’s warning whistle startled them as
the train rounded a bend 100 yards away. The bridge
was too narrow for the boys to remain on it safely
while the train passed. To cling to the girders and
hang suspended over the rocky bed of the stream 25
feet below while the express shook the trestle was
hazardous. As the locomotive bore down upon them
the three boys started to race toward the end of
the bridge.
The engineer shut off steam, but the locomotive
continued to gain on the fleeing trio, the whistle
shrieking the warning to the boys to jump from the
trestle.
Norman Harrison realized his danger and leaped to
the ground, 12 feet below. Kenneth turned to the
side of the track and was about to jump when the
engine hit his arm and threw him from the trestle.
Gerald Ross raced on between the rails, hoping to
reach the end of the bridge. The engine struck him
and he died instantly.
Ross would have entered the Waltham high school as
a freshman this morning.
A police ambulance carried Kenneth Harrison to the
Waltham Hospital. Norman Harrison escaped with
bruises.
* * * * *
TRAIN DERAILED
_Milwaukee Journal_
Two hundred people narrowly escaped death or
serious injury early Monday when the engine on
passenger train No. 13, on the Fond du Lac division
of the Chicago and Northwestern road, due in
Milwaukee at 12:10 a. m., going over forty miles
an hour, jumped the track two miles north of Lake
Shore Junction.
The tire on one of the rear drive-wheels came off,
throwing the locomotive from the track. It tore
along for over 150 yards, across a trestle, and
just as the nose of the engine turned down the
fifteen-foot embankment, Engineer Frank Purcell
brought the train to a stop.
The train was over a half hour late and was
pounding hard to make up time. But few of the
people knew of their danger, the rattle of stone
and gravel against the cars being the only sign
that something was wrong.
Some of the passengers dared the biting cold and
walked to the end of the car line, four miles away,
but most of them remained to be brought into the
city at 4 a. m. by a relief train.
The train blocked traffic on the Fond du Lac
division until a late hour Monday. Several trains
were held up, both north and south bound. The
wrecker, which did not get out until 4 a. m., took
over two hours to get the engine on the rails and
bring the train into town.
Hurrying to Milwaukee to the bedside of Mrs. Grant
Gilson, 3307 Western-av, were her husband and her
mother, Mrs. W. Gilson. When the train was wrecked,
the two were made nearly frantic by the information
that it would be two hours or more before a relief
train would arrive. With a few others, they
tramped, unmindful of the stinging cold, to Lake
Shore Junction, thinking they could make street
car connections there. By good luck they caught a
southbound freight on the Lake Shore division.
* * * * *
FATAL RAILROAD WRECK
_Milwaukee Sentinel_
JERSEY CITY, N. J., Nov. 6.--Four were killed
and over 200 were injured in the wreck of a
Philadelphia local on the Pennsylvania railway,
which ran through an open switch at Brunswick
street junction, crashed into a dead yard engine
and piled up four cars in a heap of tangled
wreckage on Saturday.
Every ambulance, police patrol and fire wagon
available has been utilized to remove the injured,
many of whom are seriously hurt. The wreck took
place on the elevated structure upon which the
Pennsylvania enters Jersey City, and the fire
department was needed to get the injured to the
street level that they might be hurried to the
hospitals.
The following are the dead:
JOHN MONROE, Perth Amboy, engineer.
JOHN M’CLURE, Newark, N. J., fireman.
JOHN SPILLE, Trenton, N. J., engineer.
STENCIO DIOGOSIE, Jersey City, track walker.
The list of injured, made at the various hospitals,
follows:
Max Donelson, 42 years old, New York, bruised about
body; unidentified man, suffering from shock,
probable internal injury; F. H. Clark, Metuchen, N.
J., cut about face and head; George E. Siddell, 30
years old, Elizabeth, N. J.; Miss A. P. Rook, 24
years old, Elizabeth; A. C. Allison, 29 years old,
New York; George L. Tench, 35 years old, Newark; W.
E. Wing, 27 years old, Allendale, N. J.
Fireman Daniel Meade, Newark, of the light engine,
jumped as the trains came together and was unhurt.
The police, on investigation, found a broken rail
on track No. 3 at the scene of the accident, and
agreed that this was the cause of the wreck.
Towerman Williamson, who had been arrested, charged
with throwing the switch and bringing the train and
engine together, was at once discharged.
The train left Philadelphia at 7:58 Saturday
morning and was filled with commuters going to
their work.
Engineer Monroe of the passenger train was running
at a good rate of speed to make up time, and
neither he nor his fireman had a chance to jump and
save themselves.
The engine of the passenger train toppled over,
part of it lying across the trestle work, in
imminent danger of crashing to the street.
A passing policeman, hearing the crash, turned in
the alarm, and the reserves and all ambulances
possible were soon at hand, extricating the
injured, which was a difficult task. Most of them
were pinned down by the wreckage.
In the mail car, which was directly behind the
engine, was more than $1,000,000 in specie, which
was being transferred to New York by the Adams
Express company. A special guard was hurriedly
placed around this car.
When the wreck occurred, the Jersey City station
was crowded with men and women about to leave for
Princeton for the Princeton-Dartmouth football
game. This crowd was thrown into great confusion
until the officials informed them that they might
proceed to their destination via the Jersey Central
railroad, the Pennsylvania tracks being blocked.
At the hospitals it was reported that none of those
taken there were seriously hurt, and that all would
recover. The bodies of the dead have been taken
to Hughes’ morgue. The officials of the road are
investigating the cause of the wreck.
That a hundred were not killed was due to the
equipment of the cars. They were of steel, with
steel beams and concrete flooring into which the
seat frames were set. When the cars toppled over,
there was no splintering of wood, and when the
windows were shattered, the glass flew outward.
Nearly all of the injured, as soon as their hurts
were attended to, left the hospitals and resumed
their journey without giving their names.
* * * * *
FATAL RAILROAD COLLISION
_Milwaukee News_
New York, Dec. 31.--Spencer Trask, one of the
leading financiers of the United States, was killed
today by a freight train running into the rear of
the New York Central passenger train on which he
occupied the drawing room section at the rear end
of the last car.
The accident occurred near Croton, N. Y. One other
passenger was seriously injured, and the negro
porter of the sleeping car was also badly hurt.
Mr. Trask, who was coming into the city from his
home at Saratoga, was dressing in his compartment
when the freight train plowed into the heavy
passenger train, which is known as the Montreal
Express. When his torn body was removed from the
wreckage, it was found that he had only partly
dressed himself.
The express had been stopped by a block signal, and
why the freight behind it was not stopped has not
been explained. The freight struck with such force
as to demolish the rear end of the last sleeper,
telescoping the front end with the sleeper ahead.
Many of the occupants of the five sleepers had not
fully dressed, and they were precipitated, half
clad, into snow banks, with the temperature far
below the freezing point.
Wrecking and relief trains were dispatched from the
Harlem yards of the New York Central, and officials
of the company hurried to the scene. Mr. Trask’s
body was removed to the Croton morgue, and the
injured passenger and porter were cared for by the
local doctors. The passenger was unable to tell his
name.
Those injured were for the most part in the smoking
compartment at the extreme rear of the sleeper,
where a group of passengers were gathered as the
train proceeded down the river. Mr. Trask was on
his way to this city from his home in Saratoga.
Engineer Flanagan of the freight train stuck by his
locomotive, but escaped serious injury.
Failure of a brakeman to walk far enough to the
rear of the stalled Montreal train to flag the
freight in time, is said to have caused the smashup.
The news of the banker’s death had no effect on the
stock exchange, where prices were slightly above
the close last night.
Spencer Trask, who was born here in 1844, entered
the banking business immediately on his graduation
from Princeton. His financial acumen was quickly
recognized, and he soon became a power in the
banking world.
Mr. Trask was among the first to recognize the
genius of Thomas A. Edison, and identified himself
with the Edison electric enterprises. The banker
was a director in many railroads and realty
companies and was deeply interested in educational
and philanthropic societies. Several years ago he
bought and reorganized The New York Times. He was
president of the National Arts club and a member of
numerous other prominent New York clubs. Mr. Trask
was married in 1874 to Miss Katrina Nichols.
* * * * *
NOTE--_The following two stories should be
compared as reports of the same accident given in
two New York morning papers._
DIVERS DIE IN SHIP’S HOLD
(1)
_New York Tribune_
Death followed triumphant achievement with terrible
swiftness for three men yesterday, when they
were smothered in the hold of the steamship H.
M. Whitney, of the Metropolitan outside line to
Boston, which they had helped to raise only a few
hours before after a month of hard work in the
raging currents of Hell Gate.
One, a diver, went down into the hold to see if a
patch he had put on the wrecked bottom from the
outside was holding well. He died, it is supposed,
as the poisonous gases rose about him, and two
more, going after him to see why he did not return,
met the same fate.
It was not until three men lay dead in the fetid
hold, suffocated by the gases that the cargo of
hides, beer and perhaps half a hundred other things
gave off, that a glimmering of reason seemed to
come to those in charge of the work. Then the
needless sacrifice of more lives was prevented.
Some one took charge, and men equipped with divers’
helmets rescued two more men who had gone down for
their comrades, and brought up the bodies of the
dead.
Augustus Bjorklund was the diver who brought about
the fatal ending of the day’s work. No one knows
just why he went down into the hold, warned as he
had been to beware of the poisonous gases that
always accumulate when a vessel has lain long in
the water, but the officials of the Merritt-Chapman
Wrecking Company suppose that he wanted to see his
work from inside.
Reports of what happened next on the Whitney were
vague. While the men were going down and dying, no
one seemed to know anything. There was no panic;
there was no excitement. Michael Menus, one of the
wrecking crew, apparently followed Bjorklund to see
if anything was wrong, and died as he reached the
bottom of the hold, falling unconscious from the
ladder he descended. Then Herman Fabricius went
down, and he, too, died almost at once.
John Hanson was the next man to go down, with
a rope and some caution this time, for it was
beginning to be realized that something was amiss.
Hanson came back alive, but unconscious. Captain
Kivlin having realized that a disaster had come
upon the ship, divers went down and saved Hanson’s
life, bringing up the bodies of the three dead men
besides.
That account of the tragedy is as much as could be
gleaned with any certainty yesterday. It was hard
enough to get aboard the Whitney at all, and no one
there seemed to know much. The coroner’s office
made a brief investigation yesterday afternoon,
and the bodies were removed to an undertaking
establishment in West 24th street. The police found
out little more than the casual spectators who
thronged the pier.
The H. M. Whitney went aground in Hell Gate on
Middle Four Reef just a month ago yesterday, and in
the early morning she was floated after long and
hard efforts. It had been a hard job, and those
who had accomplished it were more than happy. The
ship had been brought down to East 102d street,
and about all the work that was being done was
to keep the pumps working. The lighters with the
huge derricks lay alongside, and when the tragedy
occurred many of the men in charge of the work were
at luncheon.
None of the men who died had orders to go down into
the hold. This was dwelt on with much emphasis by
the officials of the wrecking company. Captain
Kivlin, who was in charge of the work, was arrested
and taken to the Harlem court, where Magistrate
Herrman refused to do more than remand him to the
coroner. Apparently no one in charge of the work
could have foreseen the accident and no one could
be held responsible.
Both Bjorklund and Fabricius lived at Stapleton,
Staten Island, and Menus lived at 1 Atlantic
avenue, Brooklyn. Supt. Kivlin said that Bjorklund
was one of the most experienced divers in the
company’s employ and he couldn’t understand how
the man happened to venture into the gas-ridden
hold without testing it for the poisonous vapors.
“With such a mixed cargo as the Whitney is carrying
submerged for thirty-one days, it was certain to be
almost fatal for any one to go into the hold until
it had been thoroughly ventilated,” he said. “He
should have taken the precaution to drop down a
lantern before he went down himself.”
Capt. Hone of the Henry M. Whitney said yesterday
that the damage to the steamer can be repaired very
quickly when she gets into drydock. As a result of
his steamer’s misfortune the Government has decided
to put a bell buoy on the reef.
The pilots of the Sound steamers breathed easier
yesterday afternoon when they approached Hell Gate
and found the steamer out of the channel. The
larger vessels, especially the Fall River Line
steamers, have had a tight squeeze sometimes, and
in foggy weather it was exceedingly dangerous to
attempt the passage.
(2)
_New York Sun_
Nobody was hurt when the steamboat H. M. Whitney
went on Nigger Point reef, Hell Gate, in a fog
a month ago, but three men were killed on her
yesterday an hour after she had been raised. She
had been pumped out by the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking
Company and floated over to the foot of East 102
street. Three of the wrecking crew went down the
forward hatchway into the hold, were overcome by
carbonic acid fumes and were taken out dead.
One was August Bjorklund, a veteran diver, who had
patched up one of the big holes in the side of
the steamer. He took with him Herman Fabricius, a
blacksmith, and Michael Menus, a laborer. Supt.
Thomas Kivlin, in charge of the wreckers, and Capt.
George Hone of the Henry M. Whitney had warned all
the wreckers and members of the crew that it would
be unsafe to venture into the hold until the air
had been purified.
The Whitney’s cargo consisted mainly of green
hides, miscellaneous freight made up largely of
rubber, resin and molasses, and a quantity of coal.
Some 500 tons had been taken out and yesterday
1,800 tons remained. The divers had patched the
hole in the boat’s bottom, and yesterday morning,
having pumped her out, the wreckers got two immense
chains under the bow and stern of the Whitney, and
she was lifted almost out of the water by four
powerful floating derricks. Shortly before noon the
derricks headed for the Manhattan shore and an hour
later the freighter was lying at the foot of 102d
street.
The derricks had scarcely been tied up there when
Bjorklund and his two assistants went down the
second forward hatchway. No one saw them go, but a
few minutes later one of the wreckers, happening
to pass the hatchway, looked down into the hold
and saw the three men stretched out on the bottom.
Supt. Kivlin was notified, and he called the
members of his force and the crew of the steamer
around him.
“The man who goes down after those men takes his
life in his hand, but there ought to be somebody
here brave enough to do it,” said Kivlin. “If we
can get them out of that rotten gas promptly we may
save them.”
There wasn’t any response for a moment, but
suddenly Diver Jack Hanson worked his way through
the little group around the hatchway with a diver’s
helmet over his head. Hanson didn’t speak until he
had taken half a dozen steps down the ladder, when
he said:
“I guess I’m about the best friend Gus Bjorklund
had, and if the boys will keep me supplied with air
I’ll get those poor fellows out as quickly as any
one could.”
He tied a rope around Bjorklund’s shoulders,
and while Bjorklund was being pulled up on deck
two more ropes were thrown to Hanson. He secured
the ropes around Menus and Fabricius, and in
ten minutes all three men were on deck and were
receiving first aid treatment. Ambulances were sent
for, but it was nearly half an hour before Dr.
Moeckel of the Harlem Hospital arrived. The three
men were dead then. Supt. Kivlin was arrested and
taken before Coroner Acritelli, who released him
to appear at the inquest.
* * * * *
SHIPS COLLIDE IN FOG
_Boston Transcript_
In a fog bank that had closed in only about twenty
minutes before, the four-masted schooner Alma E.
A. Holmes of Philadelphia was rammed and sunk by
the Eastern Steamship Corporation steamer Belfast,
just outside of Graves Light, shortly after six
o’clock this morning. That no lives were lost was
undoubtedly due to the action of Captain Frank
Brown of the Belfast, who held the bow of the
steamer in the hole in the schooner’s side until
Captain Henry A. Smith and the eight members of the
crew had climbed aboard the Belfast. Two minutes
after the Belfast backed away, the Holmes, which
had been struck on the starboard side between
the fore and mainmasts, plunged bow first to the
bottom, her stern lifting so high out of the water
that about twenty feet of the keel was visible to
those on the steamer.
The Belfast, with about 150 passengers, was on the
way here from Bangor and Penobscot River ports. The
weather had been thick all night, and Captain Brown
had been constantly on duty in the pilot house.
Shortly before the collision occurred those on the
Belfast heard the schooner’s fog horn sounding
at intervals. The steamer, too, was sounding her
whistle, when out of the fog and directly ahead
appeared the Holmes. At the first glimpse Captain
Brown ordered the engines reversed. The distance
between the vessels, however, was too short, and
a moment later the sharp stem of the Belfast cut
through the schooner’s side.
Frightened passengers hurried out on deck as they
felt the shock of the collision, but within a few
minutes they were assured by members of the crew
that they were in no danger. Many, nevertheless,
feared that the Belfast was going to sink.
Meantime, Captain Brown held the steamer’s bow
where it was, as he realized that the damage was
serious and that the schooner, laden deep as she
was with coal, would go down quickly if the sea was
permitted to rush in.
Meanwhile, the skipper and crew of the schooner had
got on deck, two or three of the sailors in scanty
attire, as they did not have time to dress after
being roused from their bunks. Captain Smith was
on deck when the accident happened, and perceived
when the steamer was sighted that the collision was
bound to occur. He shouted for all of the crew to
come on deck, and nearly all responded before the
crash.
While passengers crowded forward on the decks of
the Belfast, a ladder was let down to the deck of
the schooner, and one after the other the crew of
the Holmes climbed to safety. Captain Smith had
some difficulty in impressing some of the crew
with the necessity of quick action, one man being
particularly stubborn. The rescue was accomplished
in about ten minutes, according to Captain Brown
of the Belfast, and then the steamer backed away.
As she withdrew from the hole in the schooner’s
side, it was seen that the Belfast’s stem had been
twisted over to port. Otherwise she was apparently
undamaged, and was not leaking, according to
Captain Brown, after she docked at India Wharf.
The sight of the schooner going to the bottom was
one that the passengers will remember. In Captain
Brown’s opinion it was spectacular, in view of
the manner in which the craft seemed to stand on
her head, with the stern rearing almost straight
out of the water, until she disappeared beneath
the surface. Every one of the passengers praised
Captain Brown highly for the manner in which he
handled the situation and rescued the shipwrecked
men. According to Captain Brown of the Belfast,
the collision took place about four and one-half
miles northeast of the dumping ground buoy outside
of Graves Light, and the schooner sank in about
twenty fathoms of water. Neither he nor Captain
Smith cared to make any statement regarding
responsibility for the accident. An investigation
to determine this will be made by the United States
Steamboat Inspectors.
The Alma E. A. Holmes was bound from Norfolk to
Salem with 1819 tons of coal. She sailed from
Norfolk a week ago Wednesday. She was a craft of
1208 tons gross register, 1069 net, 202 feet long,
41 feet beam and 18 feet deep, and was built at
Camden, Me., in 1896. Joseph Holmes, Sr., of Toms
River, N. J., was the owner.
* * * * *
BOAT BATTERED IN GALE
_Philadelphia Ledger_
ATLANTIC CITY, Nov. 20.--As gallant a fight as
South Coast mariners have put up in many a day,
with life as the stake, was made by the skipper
and crew of the Drake, one of the fastest and
smartest of the Inlet fishing fleet. Coast guards
hardly knew her when she staggered into port this
afternoon, battered and torn, a leaking scarecrow
of her former trim self.
On board Mark Broome, master, Tomkins, the mate,
and the nine members of the crew were in much the
same state as their vessel. All hands were half
dead from loss of sleep and completely worn out
after a 36-hour battle with the gale that swept the
Atlantic yesterday.
The Drake was making a full speed ahead plunge for
Absecon late Thursday night, when the gale, ripping
up the coast, struck her. There was nothing to do
but turn and fly before the tempest, with everybody
aboard hoping they might escape the treacherous
shoals running miles seaward of Brigantine.
Then, to make matters worse, the Drake’s engine
jammed and went out of commission and Tomkins, the
mate, almost was swept overboard by a boom, while
he clung to the bowsprit trying to pour oil on the
waves. Broome, the skipper, saw his mate’s peril,
and his presence of mind saved Tomkins from going
into the sea.
It looked for a time last night, when the Drake
sprung a leak, as if the staunch craft never would
see harbor again. Everybody took turns at the
pumps, except Broome, who stood over his flagging
men, keeping them awake when exhaustion gripped
them. The Drake was minus half her cargo of fish
when she finally came in over the bar today.
* * * * *
FATAL SHIPWRECK
_New York Times_
ASTORIA, Ore., Sept. 19.--Between seventy and
eighty men, women, and children, coastwise
passengers and crew, were drowned late yesterday
when the three-masted schooner Francis H. Leggett
was pounded to pieces in a gale sixty miles from
the mouth of the Columbia River.
Two men were rescued by passing steamers and
carried to Astoria and Portland. They told how
the sea tore the vessel to pieces, and how the
passengers were drowned, a boat load at a time, as
the lifeboats capsized, or met their fate a little
later when the vessel turned over.
Alexander Farrell, a survivor, said that, at
the height of the storm, Capt. J. Jensen of San
Francisco, a passenger, who had lost his own ship
six months ago and had been marooned for four
months on an uninhabited island, went to the aid
of Capt. Moro of the Leggett, took command of the
passengers, and controlled them until he sank with
the schooner.
The schooner’s wireless, on a route alive with
ships, raised only the Japanese cruiser Idzumo, and
sank hours before any craft reached her position.
The steamer Beaver, which caught the Idzumo’s
report of the Leggett’s distress, said that the
Idzumo gave no position for the distressed vessel.
She asked for more details, but got no response
from the warship.
Plunging on her course for the Columbia River, the
Beaver ran upon the oil tanker Buck, standing by a
swirl of wreckage and timber which indicated where
the Leggett had sunk. The Buck transferred Farrell
to the Beaver for treatment. She remained for some
time searching for bodies afloat, or for some other
men, who, like Farrell, might have been fortunate
enough to seize a bit of lumber and strong enough
to cling to it for many hours in the icy water.
The other rescued passenger, George H. Pullman
of Winnipeg, Canada, is on board the Buck, which
now is lying off the Columbia bar awaiting calmer
weather before crossing in.
It is believed that Capt. Moro of the Leggett was
washed overboard shortly before the ship sank,
for it was Capt. Jensen, Farrell said, who was in
charge of a futile attempt to launch two lifeboats,
which foundered as soon as they struck the water.
Farrell, who had recovered considerably tonight
from his exhaustion, said that the Leggett carried
a full list of passengers, between forty and fifty,
while the crew numbered about twenty-five. Among
the passengers were six women, a girl and a boy,
including the Captain’s wife, the mate’s wife, and
the wife of Capt. Anderson of the schooner Carrie
Dove.
“We left Grey’s Harbor Wednesday morning,” said
Farrell. “Later the sea became rough. The Leggett
began to pound heavily and the Captain gave orders
to jettison the deck load. Then the seas swept off
the hatches, and the hold began to fill. Capt.
Jensen ordered the passengers into their cabins,
and many were still there when the boat went down.
“When it was seen that there was no hope for
the vessel, Capt. Jensen ordered the lifeboats
launched. In the first boat there were thirty
persons, two of whom were women. There were only
six women on board, and the other four were not at
that end of the ship when the boat was launched.
“As soon as the boat struck the water it capsized,
and all the occupants were thrown into the sea and
drowned.
“A few minutes later an attempt was made to launch
the second lifeboat. It contained four women and
their husbands. The boat met the same fate as the
other boat.
“I was standing on the bridge when the ship went
down. The boat capsized as she sank. I don’t know
how long I was under water, but when I came to
the top I grabbed a railroad tie and hung on. The
wireless operator was also hanging to the tie. I
saw men sinking all around me, but could not hear
their cries owing to the screeching gale.
“It soon became dark, but it was 1 o’clock in the
morning when the Beaver picked me up. The wireless
operator clung to the tie with me for several
hours, and then, benumbed by cold, he dropped off.
No one was to blame for the wreck. The boat was
unable to stand the storm.”
* * *
The Leggett was a three-masted schooner of 1,606
tons gross registry and a capacity of 1,500,000
feet of lumber. She was operated by the Charles R.
McCormick Company of San Francisco.
* * * * *
NOTE--_The following two stories illustrate different
arrangements of the same material and were probably
telegraphed by different news associations._
EXPLOSION IN MINE
(1)
_San Francisco Examiner_
MARIANNA (Pa.), November 28.--Within three
minutes after a State mine inspector and the mine
superintendent had returned from an inspection
of the district, the model Marianna mine of the
Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company was blown up by an
explosion to-day.
At midnight the rescuers, penetrating through a
portion of the shaft, came upon the bodies of 142
men, most of whom had been killed instantaneously
by the debris flung upon them by the explosion.
Many of the remains were badly mangled. Eighteen
bodies were immediately carried to the top of the
shaft, where they were encoffined. Six others,
killed at the top of the shaft, had been previously
recovered. Whether any more remain in the wrecked
mine will not be known until morning.
When she learned that her husband was among the
dead, Mrs. Joseph Jones broke through the guard
of fifty State constabulary and attempted to dash
herself to the bottom of the mine. She was caught
and restrained just as she was about to make the
fatal jump. Mrs. George Acker became violently
insane when she heard that her husband was in the
mine, and was arrested and placed under restraint.
At 1 o’clock Peter Arnold, an American, was brought
out of the Rachel shaft alive. Joseph Kearney, one
of the rescuers, reported that others were living.
The Marianna mine, which had been in operation less
than three months, was considered the model mine of
the world. Every device known to modern invention
had been installed to prevent just such a tragedy
as occurred to-day. But, wrecked by a mysterious
explosion, the very machinery which was to have
made accident impossible hampered the rescuers at
their work. They did not understand the wonderful
mechanism which bolstered the great mine with such
a network of contrivances, and they were delayed in
the attempt to bore through to the bodies of the
men lying dead in the bottom of the shaft.
The explosion came just before the noon hour in the
Rachel shaft. It was so terrific that the blast,
blowing up the whole length of the deep shaft, tore
loose the giant elevator cage at the surface of the
mine and hurled it 300 feet away.
Two men were in the cage at the time. Both were
instantly killed, the head of one of them being
literally blown off.
Immediately following the explosion, rescuers began
frantically to burrow at the mouth of the mine in
a futile effort to dig down through the tremendous
masses of coal that blocked the upper reaches
of the shaft, while other rescuers, headed by
President John K. Jones, of the Pittsburg-Buffalo
Coal Company, rushed to the scene in special trains
from Pittsburg and Monongahela with the latest
appliances, which were erected at the head of the
shaft to bore to the entombed men.
Five thousand women and children and miners
thronged the mouth of the mine, the former weeping
piteously and pleading for the rescue of their
fathers or brothers.
The officials of the mine are in a pitiful
condition. They have spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars to make the Marianna fireproof, and experts
have assured them that such a disaster as occurred
to-day was impossible. In the excitement and panic
it is impossible thus far to learn the names of the
victims. But the books of the company indicate that
the majority of the 275 buried in the Rachel are
Americans and that most of the others are English
miners imported by the company two months ago to
work the richest shafts.
(2)
_Chicago Record-Herald_
PITTSBURG, Nov. 28.--Two hundred and seventy-five
men, a majority of them Americans, are believed
all to have perished in an explosion which wrecked
the mine of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company at
Marianna, Washington County, shortly before noon
to-day. Marianna is considered the model mining
town of the world, and the mine itself was claimed
to be as nearly perfect in equipment as modern
science could devise.
Since the blast entombed all the men in the mine,
smoke has been issuing from the shaft, showing that
the workings are afire, and rescuers who entered
were compelled, after progressing only a short
distance, to retreat on account of the intense heat.
The explosion happened at 11:30 o’clock this
morning, when the full force was at work. The
explosion was terrific, and if all in the mine
were not mangled by its force, it seems certain
that they perished in the subsequent fire or were
suffocated by the deadly fumes.
The force of the explosion can be imagined when it
is known that the heavy iron cage which carried the
men from the surface to the workings was blown 300
feet away from the mouth of the shaft. Two men who
were in the cage at the time were killed, the head
of one of them being blown off.
Three foreigners who were at the mouth of the mine
when the explosion occurred are in the hospital in
a critical condition from injuries received when
the mine cage was blown out of the shaft. They also
inhaled the poisonous fumes.
The fanhouse was partly demolished and the fans
stopped for over an hour.
The explosion was in shaft No. 2. The only way to
reach the workings is through that shaft, as shaft
No. 1 is not completed. Some of the officials of
the coal company believe it will be necessary to
dig through 800 feet of solid coal before they can
reach the workings.
State Mine Inspector Louttit and Mine Foreman
Kennedy had just completed a two days’ examination
of the mine, and had come from the mine only three
minutes before the explosion occurred.
When the town was shaken by the blast, all the
people rushed from their houses. Learning of the
extent of the disaster, the members of the families
of the doomed men rushed to the mouth of the mine,
and a pathetic scene followed. Wives, mothers and
relatives of the men are gathered about, and their
cries are pitiful.
It is said there is a large gas well in the
vicinity of the mine. Whether the gas from this
well was communicated to the mine and became
ignited, or whether powder and dynamite used
for blasting purposes exploded, cannot now be
ascertained.
Rushing as fast as steam could carry them, special
trains from this city and Monongahela went to the
scene of the disaster. On them were officials of
the coal company and many prominent miners who
are considered experts in the work of rescue.
The latest appliances from the new United States
laboratory in this city, which were recently tested
before foreign and American experts, for the saving
of life in mine explosions, were hurried to the
mine.
John H. Jones, president of the Pittsburg-Buffalo
Coal Company, was almost a physical wreck when he
learned of the accident. He trembled in every limb
and could scarcely speak. Accompanied by other
officials of the company, and by J. W. Paul of the
United States mine testing station located here,
President Jones went at once to the scene in a
special train.
Two assistants accompanied Mr. Paul, carrying
patented helmets that make work possible in the
most dangerous mine. With these men Mr. Paul
expected to be able to save many lives.
Early reports as to the number of victims of the
disaster varied greatly. The mine officials first
claimed that not more than 100 men could have been
caught, but it now is certain that 275 were at work
at the time and that none in the shaft escaped.
State Mine Inspector Louttit and Mine Foreman
Kennedy, who had just completed a two days’
examination of the mine, declared that they had
found it in perfect condition. At the present
time, they say, it is impossible to state whether
the explosion was caused by gas or by a powder
explosion. Mr. Jones, president of the company,
stated that almost the entire force of men were in
the mine at the time of the explosion, but he did
not know the full extent of the casualties.
Marianna was built recently by the
Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company. It necessitated a
great outlay of money, as it was the intention to
make the mine up to date and the living conditions
of the miners the same as could be secured in a
large city. The houses were of brick construction,
and each contained a bathroom. When completed
the town was said by foreign and American mine
officials to be the most perfect mining town in the
world.
* * * * *
ENTOMBED MINERS
_Kansas City Times_
JOPLIN, MO., June 18.--The occasional
“rap-rap-rap” which has encouraged the men who
are battling with the tons of rock and earth
imprisoning two men in the Longacre-Chapman mine
ceased yesterday afternoon. Daniel Hardendorf and
Reed Taylor, the men who are buried, have now been
in the mine since 6 o’clock last Friday night.
There is hope yet for their rescue, but that hope
grows weaker as the night wears on.
The best shovelers in the Joplin district, 150 of
them, are working quietly, feverishly, knowing that
every minute lost means that much less chance of
rescuing the men. They work with strained nerves,
in squads of eight which enter the shaft, then come
up at the end of two hours completely exhausted.
A crowd of about five hundred persons, miners,
friends and relatives, are at the mouth of the
shaft. It’s a strange, pathetic crowd, alternately
weeping and praying.
Through this crowd tonight four big, pale men
elbowed their way. They were William Lester, Roy
Woodmansee, Edward Spencer and A. H. Harwood,
miners who were taken from the shaft Tuesday night
after having been entombed themselves four days
in another part of the mine. They pleaded to be
allowed to help in the rescue work.
“Let us save them. It’s hell down there, poor
fellows,” one said grimly.
A tragic figure in the crowd is Mrs. Hardendorf,
wife of one of the entombed men. As the shifts of
men go down she stands by and pleads with them to
exert every effort. When the men, exhausted by
their efforts, come up to be relieved, she works
with the other women, passing around coffee and
food.
Thirty-five feet of rock and earth separate the
entombed miners from liberty. The two men have been
without food, water or air more than eight days
now. When the tapping ceased yesterday afternoon
many shook their heads.
“They are dead,” they say sadly.
But the crowd about the shaft never diminishes and
the shovelers never quit.
“Maybe they have gone farther into the drift to get
better air,” some say hopefully.
About $1,500 has been raised by popular subscriptions
to pay the men who are helping in the rescue work.
The amount soon will be increased.
Experienced miners say it will be late Saturday
night or early Sunday morning before the tons of
rocks and earth can be shoveled away. If the
buried miners have fainted from lack of air, there
is little hope of reaching them alive. But if they
have gone back farther in the drift they can be
saved.
* * * * *
FALL FROM SCAFFOLD
_New York Times_
Because he had refused to take a seriously injured
man in his automobile to St. Luke’s Hospital
yesterday afternoon, the chauffeur of a machine
standing outside of South Field, opposite Columbia
University Library, was set upon by a crowd of Yale
and Columbia University students and threatened
with bodily injury unless he did so. Thoroughly
frightened, the chauffeur consented to take the
injured man to the hospital, where his condition is
said to be serious.
The injured man was Peter Bunn, a bricklayer, of
No. 231 East 80th street, who was working on Kent
Hall, a new Columbia University building, at 116th
street and Amsterdam avenue. Bunn and his brother
John were on a scaffolding on the third floor of
the building, overlooking South Field, the athletic
field of the university, where Yale and Columbia
were playing a game of baseball.
As the crowds began to leave the field, the two
men shouted from their high perch and imitated the
cheers of the students. While they were jumping
about on the platform of the scaffold, it swung far
out from the wall, and Peter fell to the ground.
* * * * *
TWO BOYS DROWN
_Chicago Tribune_
Joseph Tordio, 19 years old, of 920 Townsend
street, tried to save Albert Arrigo, 8 years old,
of 457 West Superior street, from drowning in the
north branch of the river at Superior street last
night. Both drowned.
Arrigo, a mere stripling, was fishing. He lost his
balance and toppled from the pier. Screams of his
brother, Charles, 12 years old, attracted Tordio.
He threw off his shoes, coat, and hat and jumped
in. For fifteen minutes the battle with death ran
on.
Tordio did not know the science of rescuing a
drowning person. He might have stunned the boy
and got back to the pier. But he merely used his
muscle. Then the little boy, in a death grapple,
tightened his arms around Tordio like two small
bands of steel.
The larger boy tired. The murky water ran over his
face. For an instant he thought he might lose. That
was his undoing. Fear unnerved him. He fought in a
frenzy. They went down together, the younger boy
strangling but still clasping his two small bands
of steel around the rescuer’s body.
They came up, or Tordio’s face did. With the terror
of death on him, Tordio made a last desperate
effort. It failed. He opened his mouth to call for
help, but the voice was drowned with the gurgling
water. He quit. His hands went up in a last act of
despair. Then they went down. In a moment there was
nothing on the water at that point save a few tiny
waves and a few bubbles.
The police came with grappling hooks. The body of
little Arrigo was recovered. The doctors worked for
an hour to drive air back into the water bloated
lungs. It was futile.
Tordio’s body is still on the floor of the river
somewhere. He did not know the boy he tried to save.
* * * * *
INVESTIGATION OF CAUSE OF DROWNING
_Boston Herald_
The city authorities, the police and the district
attorney have been asked to investigate conditions
at the deserted wharf on Albany street at the foot
of Union Park where one boy was drowned on Tuesday
afternoon and another narrowly escaped drowning
on the morning of the same day. Residents of the
neighborhood say that in the last decade the place
has claimed no less than seven victims and has been
the scene of a score of accidents more or less
serious.
So far no one directly responsible for the
recurring fatalities has been found. The premises
are private property, the boys who frequent the
place are trespassers under the law, the city
believes that it has no right to interfere and the
police of the district say that the only way they
could deal with the situation would be to have an
officer stationed on the ground day and night.
With a frontage of some 200 feet on Albany street
the lot extends back over a grass-grown area about
50 feet to the South bay. At the edge of the water
are the ruins of an old pier, a stretch of broken
boards and a group of broken piles.
The whole place is absolutely open to the street
and is unguarded by fence or barrier of any kind.
It has all the attractions of a playground and
swimming hole and is doubly alluring to the lads of
the neighborhood owing to the fact that they have
been warned off from time to time by the police.
All during the summer scores of boys of all ages,
but chiefly between 5 and 14 years, haunt the old
wharf, jumping from pile to pile or taking an
occasional dip when the officer on the beat is not
looking. From the shore the channel shelves down
sharply to a depth of about 30 feet.
The nature of the danger was shown Tuesday
afternoon. Alexander Penney, the 7-year-old son
of Alexander Penney of 114 Maiden street, while
playing fireman with several companions among the
piles, slipped and fell into the water. His body
disappeared and was not found until it was picked
up yesterday morning near the Dover street bridge
by the crew of the policeboat Watchman.
In the morning of the same day Arthur York, 5 years
old, of Albany street, stumbled overboard and
was rescued with considerable difficulty by John
Melanphy, who was forced to dive before he could
bring the boy to the surface.
Similar accidents have happened in the past
with such frequency that the citizens of the
neighborhood are demanding that some action be
taken to close the wharf and keep the children away
from it. Joseph E. Ferreira of 1 Pelham street,
a business man, well known politically in the
section, circulated a petition asking the city
to take action. There were over 250 signers, but
when the petition was presented to the mayor it
was found that the city had no legal right to act.
Mr. Ferreira has since appealed to the district
attorney and to the police in an attempt to have
the wharf fenced in.
Mayor Fitzgerald paid a personal visit to the scene
of Tuesday’s accidents yesterday morning. He looked
over the ground carefully and interviewed numerous
small boys who had been attracted to the spot.
Several of them were playing about the wharf end,
apparently unmindful of the danger.
“The situation here is a deplorable one,” said
Mayor Fitzgerald, “but up to the present I have
been unable to discover any way in which the city
can act. The premises are privately owned, and the
city, so far as I am informed, has no right to
fence the place in or otherwise block it from the
street.
“Something should be done, however, to prevent the
recurrence of drowning accidents. It would seem
that much of the trouble would be obviated if the
owners would consent to erect a high board fence.
I believe also that the police might be a bit more
vigilant, although I realize that the only sure way
to keep boys off a lot like this would be to have
an officer stationed here all the time.
“The place as it stands is a temptation to every
child who loves the water. In the hot weather it
is bound to lure about every healthy boy in the
vicinity. If funds were available, I should suggest
that the happiest solution of the difficulty would
be for the city to take the land over and transform
it into a bathing park. The neighborhood is crowded
and the nearest public bathing place is at Dover
street.
“The accident calls attention to the relatively
small number of our boys that can swim. I have
always advocated swimming instruction for our
children, and the fatality of Tuesday only
emphasizes the need of it.”
Mayor Fitzgerald allowed himself to be photographed
at the spot where the accident occurred, and as he
did so seven urchins grouped themselves about him.
Six of them were under 10 years and the other 13
years old.
“How many of you boys can swim?” asked the mayor.
The six younger boys shook their heads and the
oldest admitted that he could “a little.”
“That is a fair example of conditions,” said Mayor
Fitzgerald, “and a good argument against allowing a
place like this to exist.”
The property has been idle for a number of years
and is said to have been the subject of litigation.
The assessors’ books give the owners of the
property as Grant and Alice Nilson, neither of whom
is a resident of Boston.
If the owners do not take measures to shut the old
wharf from the street, Mr. Ferreira and a number of
other South End residents say they will appeal to
the courts in an effort to secure a remedy.
* * * * *
BOY SAVES DROWNING MAN
_New York World_
Johnny Donivan, fifteen years old, No. 2005 Second
avenue, went down to the Battery yesterday to look
for a job, and the only job he found was to save
a man from drowning. Johnny had no objection to
saving a drowning man, but was much disappointed at
not finding work, for his father has been out of a
job since last Christmas, and there are eight in
the family.
Daniel Wilson, who has been a deep-sea fireman,
went to sleep on a pier and rolled off into the
bay, striking his head on a rock. Then he floated
seaward.
Johnny Donivan jumped in after Wilson. With both
hands the fireman grabbed the boy so tightly around
the throat that he almost squeezed the breath out
of him.
Johnny seized the man around the waist, was pulled
under water twice, but swam with Wilson to the
pier, where the Liberty Island steamer makes fast.
Policeman Joseph Murry hauled them out.
John Brown, watchman in the Barge Office, lent
Johnny Donivan his old shirt and trousers while the
boy’s raiment was drying in the sunshine. Johnny
said he had a place in a picture frame store in
Beaver street until eight weeks ago when he was
let out. The only one in the family working is one
of Johnny’s sisters, and she earns $3 a week as a
dressmaker’s apprentice. A year ago he dived into
the East River at One Hundred and Second street and
saved a ten-year-old boy from drowning. On that
occasion a policeman gave him five cents so he
wouldn’t have to walk home.
* * * * *
BABY DROWNS
_Brooklyn Eagle_
Mrs. Rose Stock left her rooms, on the second floor
of 550 South avenue, at 10 o’clock this morning to
step across the street to make some purchases at a
grocery store. As she closed the door, the baby,
Harriet, 3 months old, was sleeping quietly in its
crib, and Louis, 5 years old, with Dorothy, 3 years
old, her other children, were playing.
Scarcely had the mother gone when an idea seized
one of the two. It was probably Louis, although
he credited Dorothy with it when asked about it.
Why not take the baby out of its crib and give it
a bath in the tub, as they had seen mother do so
often? It was a brilliant thought. So Louis went
and fetched the baby and took it to the bathroom.
The tub was full of water and clothes, for Mrs.
Stock had been washing there the night before, and
had not finished soaking the clothes. They set the
baby in the water, which was about a foot deep.
The baby gasped, gurgled and was still. It did not
appear to enter into the spirit of the game at all.
Louis had never seen the baby so quiet before when
its mother bathed it. He could not quite make out
just what was wrong, but a vague foreboding that
he had done something he ought not to came over
him. He ran out into the hall and met his mother
returning with her arms laden with groceries for
the dinner hour.
“Oh, mama!” he cried, “the baby is in the water.”
Mrs. Stock ran up the stairs, but before she got
there Mrs. Rose Leiser, a next-door neighbor, had
lifted little Harriet out of the tub and laid her
on the bed.
Dr. Joseph Strong of 566 Waite avenue was called
in and tried artificial respiration. Every time he
moved the little arms a jet of water gushed from
the baby’s mouth. His efforts were in vain.
When a reporter called at the little home some time
later, Mrs. Stock was seated in one room surrounded
by a semicircle of sympathizing neighbors, and in
the next room Louis, who has sunny Lord Fauntleroy
curls and a dimpled face, was down on his knees
looking through a photograph album. He looked up at
the visitor with steady blue eyes and a smile when
he was asked who put the baby in the water.
“Dorey did,” he replied.
“Where is the baby now?”
“I know,” he said. “It’s on the bed. It’s sleeping.”
Then he turned to his photograph album, but when a
search was made for little Dorothy, he led the way
up the stairs and showed the visitor how to open
the door.
Brown-haired Dorothy, with ear-rings in her ears,
hid her face behind the skirts of a neighbor. She
thought the man who came was going to take her away
somewhere, and she hung her head.
“Louis put the baby in the water,” she said. That
was all she seemed to know about it. Louis laughed
and went back to his album. He could not understand
why his mother was crying so in the next room.
Wasn’t the baby on the bed just as she had left it?
* * * * *
SHOOTING ACCIDENT
_Chicago Tribune_
Elgin, Ill., Oct. 28--[Special.]--Walter Black, 17
year old son of August Black of 416 Carroll street,
came home from a hunting trip at 7 o’clock tonight
and stood his single barrel shotgun up in a corner
of the kitchen.
“Big bruvver’s a sojer,” lisped Harold Black, 5
years old.
“Naw, there ain’t any war in Elgin,” replied
August, aged 11.
Walter went upstairs to change his clothing. Harold
went to the corner and attempted to drag the heavy
gun along.
“Le’s play sojers,” he said.
“You ain’t big enough to carry the gun,” retorted
August. “Let me take it.”
August took the gun, swung it across his shoulder,
and marched around the kitchen shouting “Hep! Hep!”
with Harold composing the rear guard of the army.
“Now we’re at the war,” sang out August. He turned
suddenly and pointed the weapon at Harold, his
finger on the trigger. There was a roar and a spit
of flame. The muzzle was only a few inches from
the head of the younger boy. He fell dead with the
whole charge in his head.
Mrs. Black ran to the kitchen and fainted when she
saw what had happened. An inquest will be held
tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock.
* * * * *
NOTE--_The following three stories
published in Milwaukee evening papers should be
compared as different versions of the same incident
in a suburb._
SEARCH FOR LOST CHILD
(1)
_Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin_
WEST ALLIS, Oct. 21.--After 2000 residents of West
Allis had spent an entire night searching for
Walter, the 18-months’-old son of Mr. and Mrs.
Ernest Strong, 5402 Fargo avenue, the little fellow
was found sleeping in a coal bin in the basement of
the home of Mrs. Johanna Bitter, Fifty-fourth and
Fargo avenues.
The little lad had wandered away from his father’s
yard on Friday afternoon and reached the yard of
Mrs. Bitter. While at play near a basement window
he probably tumbled through to the coal below.
There he slept soundly until early this morning,
when he was found by Mrs. Bitter when she went to
the basement to clean out the bin. She picked the
child up and carried him in her arms to the home
of the distracted mother, who had been waiting and
watching all through the night for the return of
her baby.
With a cry of joy she seized him and clasped him to
her breast and imprinted kiss after kiss upon his
face. The father, who, with a party of neighbors,
had been searching every corner of the village, was
notified and hurried to his home to see his boy.
Walter was playing on Friday afternoon with his
brother Willie in the back yard of the home.
About 3 o’clock Willie went into the house, and
his mother asked where Walter was. The brother
told her that he was playing in the yard. She was
entertaining visitors and forgot about the lad
until after 4 o’clock.
When she went into the yard, the boy was not there.
She searched through the neighborhood for a time
and then notified her husband, who works at the
Allis-Chalmers plant. He organized a searching
party and spent the entire night with almost 2000
others in trying to locate the baby.
At first it was feared that the child had been
kidnaped, as a man with a young child was seen
driving down Fargo avenue shortly after the Strong
child was missed by the mother.
(2)
_Milwaukee News_
He was such a little chap--only 18 months
old--and when he started out yesterday to take
his pedestrian exercises, in which he had not
progressed very far, he met with a mishap in
tumbling through the basement window of a
neighbor’s house into the coal bin.
His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong,
Fiftyfourth and Fargo avenues, called him Bootsie.
When Bootsie found himself in a pile of coal, it
tickled his childish fancy to learn what beautiful
black marks the coal made on his hands.
He tired of playing with the coal, rolled over
and went sound asleep. Then the trouble started.
An older brother who had been left in the yard to
watch the baby, came into the house alone.
“Where’s Bootsie?” the mother asked.
The little fellow shook his head and said he didn’t
know. The mother ran to the yard. No Bootsie was
in sight. Inquiries were made among the neighbors.
Then the news of the mysterious disappearance of
Bootsie traveled from mouth to mouth until West
Allis became aroused.
Deputy sheriffs got busy; the West Allis police
force was brought out; neighbors, relatives and
friends to the number of almost 1,000 gathered near
the home.
The father came home to supper, learned of his
son’s disappearance and was puzzled. Mrs. Strong
wept and at times was on the verge of hysteria.
Women called and tried to comfort her.
Then a searching party of many hundred started over
the territory, “with a fine tooth comb,” the police
said, to look for Bootsie.
Ponds in the neighborhood were dragged, and until
far into the night, lanterns could be seen bobbing
over the fields, going here, there, everywhere,
searching for Bootsie Walter Strong, youngest son
of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong.
Then someone brought in a clew. An evil-looking man
with a black mustache and smoking a cigarette was
seen driving through West Allis about 6 o’clock in
the evening. He had a child on his knees.
The child answered the description of Bootsie. He
was crying and struggling to get away. The black
mustached man leered at people in driving by and
disappeared.
The child had been kidnaped! There was no
use denying it. Had not the clew been almost
conclusive? By midnight the search for Bootsie
had been abandoned. Searchers returned home
disheartened.
About 5 o’clock this morning Mrs. Johanna Bitter,
who lives at 5418 Fargo avenue on property
adjoining the Strong home, went to the basement to
get some potatoes.
There on top of the coal pile was Bootsie--he of
the mysterious disappearance--sound asleep, with
his mouth open. The child was carried home by
Mrs. Bitter, and when the crowd of last night’s
searchers called at the Strong home again this
morning, it was met by the wide-eyed Bootsie,
munching on a cookie, with evidence of coal dust
still lingering in his golden hair.
(3)
_Milwaukee Journal_
If Walter Strong, 18 months, 5402 Fargo-av, West
Allis, were to try and make up during the next
four years the sleep that he caused to be lost
Friday night, he would fail. It would be impossible
because 2,000 nights o’ sleep went a-glimmering in
the twelve hours of darkness.
But that doesn’t worry Walter Strong, 18 months.
Not at all. That sleep didn’t belong to him, but
was the property of 2,000 neighbors.
Friday afternoon, when the baby’s father, Ernest
Strong, was at work in the Allis-Chalmers plant and
his mother, Mrs. Anna Strong, was busy with her
household duties, young Walter toddled out into the
yard in front of his home. That yard, the street
beyond and the highways and byways that Walter
could indistinctly see stretching out before him,
were to him as were the unexplored new worlds to
Columbus.
It was 3 p. m. when Walter began his journey. At 6
p. m. he had not returned. Strong had come home;
the mother had noticed that her baby was missing,
and a search was begun. At 9 p. m. Walter was still
missing. An alarm was spread in the neighborhood.
Then the search began. The good neighbors of West
Allis scurried to and fro, listening to stories
of kidnaping, following various clews, telling
of strange men seen in the neighborhood and,
altogether, creating intense excitement. This
lasted until 6 a. m. Saturday.
What Baby Walter thought as he toddled out of his
yard cannot be told, for Walter is unable to
say. He walked up Fargo-av until he observed a
peculiar--to him--scene. To most of us it would
have been an ordinary cottage at 5418 Fargo-av, the
home of Mrs. Johanna Bitter, but to Walter there
was a great cavern underneath a pile of wood. This
cavern had a screen across the mouth, and, peering
through, Walter could see a pile of dark stuff. To
others that would have been a cellar filled with
coal.
Walter was highly interested in his discovery and
began to pry at the screen. Ah! the screen moved!
It opened! Walter pushed his head inside and gazed
about. Then he tumbled in.
Perhaps he cried a little when he fell, but if he
did no one heard him. He soon reconciled himself to
his imprisonment and began playing with objects
at hand. Soon, however, he became sleepy and what
makes a better bed than a large pile of potato
sacks?
So while his frantic parents and the neighbors were
searching for him, Baby Walter slept peacefully
within a few hundred feet of home and mother.
Early Saturday Mrs. Bitter, who lives alone,
entered her cellar to get some potatoes for
breakfast. She carried no light, and when she
neared the bin, stumbled over the sacks. The baby
cried out. That ended his trip.
When Baby Walter sat on his father’s knee Saturday
morning calmly munching a biscuit, he blinked and
smiled. The father and mother were busy thanking
the neighbors for their interest and assistance.
CHAPTER IV
POLICE NEWS AND CRIME
=Type of story.= Since police news ranges from slight misdemeanors to
the most serious of crimes such as murder and suicide, it offers widely
different material for news stories. Because of the general interest in
the material with which stories of crime deal, the purely informative
story is sufficient in itself to insure reading (cf. “Burglary,”
p. 54, and “Murder of Business Man,” p. 59). The strong personal
element in stories of wrong-doing gives occasion for effective human
interest presentation in the informative story (cf. “Forgery,” p. 49,
and “Street Car Bandit,” p. 57). Amusing aspects of minor offenses,
and even of burglary, hold-ups, or fraud, often furnish inspiration
for humorous treatment (cf. “Charged with Intoxication,” p. 48, and
“Hold-up,” p. 57).
=Purpose.= In no other kind of news should the effect of the story on
the reader receive more careful consideration than in news of crime.
The evil effects of news stories of criminal acts on many readers have
already been pointed out (cf. p. 8). That these destructive influences
can be offset to a considerable extent by constructive handling of
news has also been shown. In order that the crime story may have a
deterrent effect, the crime must be shown to be wrong, even though the
wrong-doer deserves some sympathy. The results of wrong-doing, not
only in the form of legal punishment imposed but in the remorse and
the pangs of guilty conscience that the wrong-doer suffers, as well as
in the disgrace that he brings to others through his criminal acts,
when emphasized in news stories tend to deter others from risking the
dangers of such penalties.
Constructive presentation of crime news may also include emphasis on
underlying causes and responsibility, especially when these can be
traced to bad conditions in the community or in society as a whole,
since such emphasis leads readers to consider the necessity for
changing the conditions that are directly or indirectly responsible
for the criminal acts. In so far as the criminal is the victim of
these circumstances it may be legitimate to create a sympathetic
understanding of his act (cf. “Hold-up,” p. 56, and “Story of Escaped
Convict,” p. 68).
A danger in writing stories of crime lies in creating sympathy for
the undeserving wrong-doer by a sentimental treatment of him and his
act. By making more or less of a hero of him, news stories may lead
undiscriminating readers to regard him and his crime as not unworthy
of emulation. There is also a temptation in writing crime stories to
sacrifice truth and accuracy of detail in order to secure greater
picturesqueness or stronger dramatic situations, but such treatment is
an indefensible deviation from the fundamental duty of presenting the
news fairly and accurately.
Whatever influence a story of crime may have on the reader should be
the result of the reporter’s selection and presentation of the actual
facts. Moralizing or “editorializing” concerning the facts is not only
unnecessary but undesirable in news stories.
=Treatment.= Dramatic narrative and vivid description, when true
to the facts of the news, are both legitimate and commendable. It is
important to keep consistently to one point of view in arranging and
presenting the details, particularly in constructive stories. Available
material for making the narration and the description effective
includes confessions, interviews with witnesses and persons involved,
and clues to the identity of the perpetrator or to the solution of any
mysterious phases of the crime. Fairness requires that persons accused
of wrong-doing as well as their accusers be given a hearing in news
stories. It must also be remembered that a person accused of crime is
not a criminal unless he has been convicted; until he has been found
guilty, he is described as an “alleged” criminal, or is said to be
“charged” with the crime.
=Contents.= In police news and crime stories details of
significance are: (1) number of lives destroyed or endangered; (2)
names of victims; (3) names of persons charged with the crime; (4)
arrests of suspects and detention of witnesses; (5) clues to the
identity of the perpetrators when these are not known; (6) causes,
motives, and responsibility, known or conjectured; (7) amount and
character of loss; (8) methods employed in commission of the crime; (9)
measures to prevent similar crimes.
* * * * *
BOY RUNS AWAY
_Chicago Herald_
Somewhere between Chicago and Lansing, Mich.,
Harvey L. New, a fair-haired boy of 14, is
wandering along the dusty roads carrying a
nightcap, a pocket full of feed and Sarah Jane, a
stub-toed chicken.
In his boyish heart he carries a love for his
chicken, the life of which he felt bound to save at
the cost of his home.
Harvey visits his grandfather’s farm near Lansing
every summer. A year ago his grandmother presented
him with Sarah Jane, then only three weeks old.
He brought the chicken to his home at 4969 Prairie
avenue and built a coop in the back yard. Every
morning he arose early and fed and fondled the
chicken. When he returned from school his first
thought was for Sarah Jane.
One night last winter the cold penetrated the
cellar where he kept her and froze off her toes. He
nursed her until she got well.
As time went on his love for the chicken grew. The
chicken also grew, until one day Harvey’s parents
jokingly remarked that she was getting large enough
for a stew.
Harvey shuddered, but said nothing. Last Sunday his
parents again threatened to sacrifice his pet.
Early Monday morning, when Harvey’s father entered
the boy’s room, he found his son gone. In the mud
beneath the bedroom window he saw footprints. He
made a search about the house.
Then he noticed that Sarah Jane also was gone,
likewise a coop that Harvey had made from an old
fruit crate. The boy’s nightcap, presented to him
by his grandmother, also was missing. Harvey has
not been heard from since.
“I believe the boy actually thought I was going
to kill his beloved pet,” said his broken-hearted
father, James New, yesterday. “He probably will try
to make his way to the home of his grandparents
in Michigan. He loved his grandmother more than
anybody else in the world, with the possible
exception of Sarah Jane.”
When Harvey left he wore a gray suit, a brown
overcoat and a blue cap. He stammers slightly when
excited.
Harvey’s father has promised that Sarah Jane never
will be made into stew.
* * * * *
“ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH”
_New York Times_
Frank H. Thompson of 981 West Fifty-second Street,
who runs an elevator on ordinary days, took a day
off yesterday and celebrated so heartily that, when
he tried to buy a ticket to the Crescent Theatre, a
moving picture and vaudeville house at 1,175 Boston
Road, the Bronx, at 6:30 o’clock last evening,
they refused to admit him. Thompson then strolled
down an alley leading to the stage entrance, and
finding no one at the door, stepped inside, leaned
heavily against the wall, and went to sleep.
Inside the theatre, where 600 persons were gathered
to watch the election returns, which were flashed
on the screen between acts, there was great
excitement, for all the lights went out, even those
of the electric sign outside the place. Thompson
had leaned against the master switch.
They found him there, turned the lights up again
and turned him over to Policeman Fitzgerald, who
locked him up in the Morrisania Station.
* * * * *
CHARGED WITH INTOXICATION
_New York World_
Business has been bad with Isaac Einstein, who
keeps a “gents’” clothing and furnishing emporium,
No. 918 Paris avenue, the Bronx.
To encourage trade he marked down his goods until
it was a shame to take them at the prices he asked.
The gilded youth of the Bronx could buy of Einstein
a suit of evening clothes “like King Edward wears,
$2.98: reduced from $29.80.” Still, nobody would
buy the suit.
The lack of customers made Einstein despondent. It
is suspected that yesterday he sought to drown his
low spirits in others. After a rather long absence
he returned to his store and began to act as if the
thought had struck him, “If I can’t sell ’em I can
give ’em away.”
Einstein pulled in the first man that came along
and made him a present of a pair of trousers.
“They cost me $4 wholesale,” said Einstein,
tearfully. “I can’t sell ’em for $1.50. You’ve got
fine legs; you will show off this check well. Take
’em, my friend, take ’em. But take my advice, too.
You are a married man? Yes. You have children? Yes.
Don’t wear ’em in the house when the babies are
asleep.”
To the next man Einstein gave “a real Panama straw
hat” knocked down from $19 to 90 cents; to the
third a suit of near-silk underwear such as “the
Sultan wears when he goes visiting.”
In a very short time 500 men and boys were
scuffling to get into the store. Patrolman Buck
could not restrain the mob, and sent for the
reserves of the Alexander avenue police station.
“At last I have a bargain crowd,” cried Einstein.
“See what a rush.”
Einstein thoughtlessly left his store. Policeman
Buck grabbed him, charged him with intoxication and
locked him up. Then Buck locked up the store.
* * * * *
SWINDLE
_New York Tribune_
Frederick A. White, fifty-six years old, who says
he is a broker and lives at No. 345 West 116th
street, was arrested yesterday by Detectives
Fitzsimmons and Flood, of the District Attorney’s
office, charged with swindling James H. Burns, of
Knoxville, Tenn., out of lumber land in Marion, N.
C., worth $65,000.
Burns says that through fraud and misrepresentation
White obtained possession of the deeds to the
property on May 10. Burns became suspicious, and,
coming to this city, went to Police Headquarters,
where, according to the police, he picked out
White’s picture, No. 4,391, in the Rogues’ Gallery.
He then communicated with the District Attorney’s
office, and the alleged swindler was arrested in
the office of W. E. Wells & Co., lumber dealers, at
No. 29 Broadway.
Burns, who is staying at the Hoffman House, is the
owner of extensive lumber lands in South Carolina.
He came to this city in January, and advertised
in an organ of the lumber trade that he had some
property for sale. He says White, representing
himself as a broker, called on him in answer to
the advertisement, and said he had a prospective
purchaser of the land. He introduced Burns to
Frederick A. Cannon, who lives in The Bronx, as
the ostensible purchaser. The negotiations which
followed were completed in Washington.
Burns was to receive two bonds for $25,000 each and
three notes for $5,000 each, he says. The bonds, he
understood, were guaranteed by a trust company of
this city. The notes were for three, five and seven
months.
Shortly after the transfer of the property to
Cannon it passed into the hands of the Standard
Lumber Company, of which White is president and
Cannon is vice-president. Burns says he tried to
get possession of the $25,000 bonds but failed,
notwithstanding repeated demands.
When the first note fell due, on August 20, Burns
did not receive the $5,000. Then the man from
Tennessee grew suspicious, and on investigation
he learned that the bonds were not guaranteed. He
learned also, he says, that the Standard Lumber
Company consisted of three shares valued at $5 each.
The title to the land subsequently changed hands
again, this time to the Southern Lumber Company.
White was arrested, the police say, about five
years ago, under the name of Wilce.
* * * * *
FORGERY
_Kansas City Star_
Sister sick. No work. Money gone. Everything that
could be pawned or sold outright gone. Then Laura
Walsington, 20 years old, 14 West Thirty-second
Street, took to forgery.
That was in July. Since then she has cashed forged
checks for sums from $15 to $75. She was arrested
this morning, was taken to police headquarters and
there confessed.
Slumped down in a chair in the office of Larry
Ghent, chief of detectives, she wept bitterly.
“Sister and I were living together,” she said.
“Then she got sick. She had to go to a hospital and
be operated on. We had a little money, but that
soon went. Then I pawned everything I had, and then
everything Sis had. Then those things were gone.
Then I lost my position. I was desperate.”
After that, she said, she decided on forgery.
On receipts for supplies of butter and eggs,
she had the name of a dairyman of Parkton, Kas.
After practicing the name until proficiency had
been acquired, she telephoned to a Lakeview bank
to inquire if the dairyman’s checks were good.
Informed they were, she began, July 23, to cash
checks, signed in his name. The Eagle Clothing
Company, the Smith Garment Company and the Wilson
Coal & Coke Company all cashed checks for her
aggregating $119.
The name of the physician who had attended her
sister was next. After practice, Miss Walsington
issued checks signed in his name for sums totalling
$170. The checks were cashed at the London Cloak
Company, Peck’s, French Cloak and Suit Company and
the Mond Suit Company.
Then, November 10, Miss Walsington, in a downtown
bank, found a deposit slip signed in a woman’s
name. After practicing the signature, she
telephoned the bank, inquiring if checks by that
name would be honored. She drew and cashed checks
on the woman for a total of $45.
Miss Walsington was arrested at the Wilson Coal
and Coke Company this morning. She was recognized
as having previously cashed bad checks there and
detained until the arrival of two detectives.
“I’ll pay it all back,” she cried in Chief Ghent’s
office. “Only give me another chance. Why, I’ve
been respectable all my life until this happened.”
She is being held.
* * * * *
WORTHLESS CHECKS
_Topeka Capital_
Frank Green and Ruth Blair were childhood
sweethearts at New Rapids, Kansas. Five years ago,
when both were 16 years old, Ruth married a man
named Bird, 13 years her senior. The bride moved
away while Frank remained in high school and tried
to forget.
Frank developed into a youthful speaker. A year
ago last September on Labor day, Green, then 20
years old, delivered the labor oration before
1,500 persons at New Rapids. Then he went to Baker
university. Young Green played in several games
with the Baker football team and was active in the
debating societies. He returned to his home in June
to find his former sweetheart back in New Rapids.
Her life with Bird had been unhappy and she had
secured a divorce.
The old friendship was renewed. In a few weeks the
two were married in Atchison, “on the sly,” as
Green said, because his parents did not approve of
the match. With a few hundred dollars the happy
couple left New Rapids to make their way. First
Green tried getting subscriptions for magazines.
This failing, other propositions were tried in
various towns, including St. Joseph and Kansas
City. The store of dollars dwindled until, when Mr.
and Mrs. Green reached Topeka from Lawrence, where
they had looked vainly for work, only $3 remained.
That was a week ago Saturday.
Still optimistic, Green took his wife to the Fifth
Avenue hotel, confident that he could find work and
meet expenses. But work was lacking, Green says.
Meanwhile Frank Long, manager of the Fifth Avenue
hotel, suggested several times to Green that his
bill had not been paid.
Completely discouraged Thursday, Green cashed
several small checks not good. That night two suit
cases were lowered by a rope to the street from the
room occupied by the Greens. Then the young husband
led his wife through the hotel lobby “to find a
dentist to help her toothache,” as he explained
to the night clerk. The two went to the Santa Fé
station and boarded train No. 117, Oklahoma City
bound.
A telegram from Sheriff L. L. Kiene arrived ahead
of Mr. and Mrs. Green. When they entered the
Oklahoma City station they were arrested.
“We were taken to the city jail like murderers,”
said Green.
Saturday Sheriff Kiene arrived. The return trip was
ended last night, when Mr. and Mrs. Green slept in
the county jail.
Penitent would hardly describe the feeling of the
two as expressed to big-hearted Sheriff Kiene.
Pretty Mrs. Green was nearly a nervous wreck
from the continued uncertainty and the shocks.
Apparently it is the first affair with the law for
either.
“My record has been clear,” said Green. “I never
have been arrested before. One hallowe’en night
they almost got me, but I outran the cop.”
How the present escapade will end, is not known.
Last night Green prayed for another chance for his
wife and himself.
“I will make good,” he said.
* * * * *
NOTE--_How, with additional information,
a striking follow-up story can be written a few
hours after the first story was published is well
illustrated by the following two stories, the first
of which appeared in the Saturday evening edition
and the second in the Sunday morning edition of the
same paper._
EMBEZZLEMENT
(1)
_Kansas City Star, Saturday evening edition_
John E. Jones, jr., formerly a clerk at the
Merchants Bank, which day before yesterday was
absorbed by the Commercial Trust Company, is being
detained at police headquarters this afternoon
pending an investigation of his accounts. He is
about 22 years old and is married. It was asserted
there was a discrepancy amounting to something like
$9,000.
The difference was found when an audit of the books
of the Merchants Bank was made in turning over its
money, books and business to the Commercial Trust
Company.
In a statement made to the police this afternoon
young Jones told a queer story. He admitted
falsifying the books for an amount he calculated
to be about $9,800. But he said that he received
only about $500 of that amount, the rest going to
a lawyer friend. The lawyer is being detained and
questioned this afternoon in the office of Larry
Ghent, chief of detectives. There is some doubt as
to whether the lawyer would be criminally liable
although he got most of the money.
Jones lives at 4510 Walker St. He did not dissipate
or spend recklessly and it is believed he can
restore the greater part of the money.
This was the method of the bookkeeper and his
lawyer friend. The friend wrote checks on an
account he had in the Merchants Bank. When the
canceled checks appeared at the Merchants Bank
from the clearing house to be charged against the
lawyer’s account, they first went to Jones, whose
task at the bank gave him that opportunity. He held
out those checks and destroyed them. He covered the
discrepancy by making a false entry on his books.
Jones says he received $160 at one time with which
he purchased a motor cycle, but the rest of his
share went to him, he says, in comparatively small
amounts.
Young Jones told the police that he had been forced
by the lawyer to keep up the system of destroying
checks and falsifying the books after once he
started, for fear of being exposed. The bookkeeper
said that he first fell into the clutches of
the lawyer when the attorney representing an
installment furniture house, threatened to take
back the furniture he had partly paid for. A
payment was due on it and the bookkeeper could not
meet it. He says the lawyer proposed the scheme for
destroying the checks and falsifying the accounts.
Once he started, Jones said, his master made him
keep it up. The amounts of the checks at first were
comparatively small, but they kept getting larger
until one day the lawyer compelled him to put over
a check for $2,000.
At 3:30 o’clock this afternoon the police were
still investigating the lawyer. He cashed the
checks, but was in no way connected with the bank.
(2)
_Kansas City Star, Sunday morning edition_
After drifting in a current that both knew must
lead to wrack and ruin, two Kansas City men are
on the rocks today. One is Henry A. Black, 47,
smart lawyer and man of affairs. His companion in
dishonor is John E. Jones, jr., 21, a pallid bank
bookkeeper.
Accompanied by detectives and lawyers, Black went
to his offices in the Commercial Building yesterday
afternoon and produced from his safe cancelled
checks totalling $9,800. The checks, drawn on his
account at the Merchants Bank, had been paid by the
bank but never charged against him. Jones, the tool
in this game of foolish finance, pocketed them as
they came in.
Around Black were men in whose class the lawyer
had only recently counted himself. They were all
staring at him. He felt the need of explanation. He
spoke slowly:
“I was under a great financial strain and I had to
resort to methods of raising money that otherwise I
never would have used.”
He said nothing more and the little group
returned to police headquarters. Black and the
young bookkeeper, who for months had juggled the
lawyer-promoter’s account at the bank, were held in
jail over night. Tomorrow both will be charged with
a felony, the prosecutor said last night.
Black is a church member and was for many years a
Sunday school teacher. He is a cold man and even
his close friends have known only in a general way
about his business affairs. He was an exceptional
scholar. In the last ten years he has not practiced
much at the law, but has sought to promote
telephone corporations and large land businesses.
He has a lot of that force that is sometimes called
character but more often described as personality.
He was the first man possessed of any considerable
personal magnetism who ever came into the life of
John Jones, bank clerk.
The man of affairs began to notice Jones months
ago and Jones glowed under the attention. Married
at 18 to a girl a year his junior, earning for a
time $35 a month, while his wife added to this by
wages from a wholesale coffee house, Jones had had
a dull life. He had been graduated from a grade
school at 14 and gone through a business college.
Several jobs followed and he finally worked in
one bank until his salary was raised to $50 a
month. After that he helped his father in a grocery
and then went to work for the Merchants Bank for
$70 a month. When that bank was absorbed by the
Commercial Trust Company last week, he was getting
$75.
This was the young bookkeeper, pallid, unassuming,
rather thin chested, beside whose place at the bank
railing Black, one of the bank’s customers, stopped
one morning.
Black asked how his checks totaled. The bookkeeper,
returning in a moment, told him his account would
be overdrawn $110. Black thanked him, said he would
go out and get the money, and passed a 10-cent
cigar over the railing.
Many times this happened, Jones said yesterday. His
pocket was quite used to the “feel” of one or two
good cigars by now.
Then one day Jones, the bank clerk, needed a
friend. He had lost a little home out on Walker
Avenue which he had sought to buy on installments.
Now an installment house was threatening him for
furniture purchased.
Well, he guessed he had a friend, a lawyer-friend,
too. His intimacy with the man, whom he considered
one of the bank’s best customers, had grown. Black
now was trusting the bookkeeper to notify him
whenever that exasperating account was about to be
overdrawn.
Jones was not disappointed. The installment people
were placated. In one interview his friend of the
10-cent cigars arranged a basis of settlement and
even advanced the first payment of $7.50.
This was the story that Jones told yesterday to
a roomful of lawyers, bankers and bond company
representatives, and to one woman--the little girl
who had married him at 17.
In the next chapter it was his benefactor who
needed a favor.
It was in the power of the bank bookkeeper, the
financial weakling, to favor the man of affairs.
Black had written more checks than he could meet.
He wanted a check for $100 held out for a day. It
would be easy for the bookkeeper to slip it from
the pile that came in from the clearing house. Of
course, the man of affairs might ask Mr. White, the
cashier. But sometimes Mr. White was willing to
favor and sometimes not. It depended a good deal on
how he felt. And this was important.
That $100 check was not made good the next day. It
went over to the “next day.”
Others, at the insistence of the man of affairs,
were added to this.
The picture Jones drew in the minds of those that
heard him was of a nervous young man, hurrying from
the bank to the office of the man of affairs and
greeting him with all the apprehension that had
grown upon him every time he looked at a bank book.
“For God’s sake get this money and get this
straightened up.”
“Now, that’s all right. I’ll look after this.”
And after a few minutes Jones would be surprised
to find himself picking up some of the other’s
confidence. He would go back to his post confident
that the money would soon be raised and his
duplicity toward his employers wiped away.
Jones would get such messages as these:
“Meet me at 7:30 in the morning.”
“Drop in at 6 o’clock at night.”
“93, 94, 95, 96 are coming in. Take care of them.”
It had reached $9,800 when the prospective
consolidation threatened disclosure.
Jones had the advice of the man of affairs--to keep
quiet and trust in him as his lawyer.
When arrest came Friday, Jones called for his
lawyer. The lawyer was at church. The messenger
reached the church too late.
At midnight Black was at police headquarters. The
police would not let him see his young client. At 8
o’clock yesterday morning, and again at 10 o’clock,
Black was back at the jail. But Jones, under the
sweating of the detectives, was keeping his faith.
Then his young wife, leaving their 2-year-old baby
at home, came into the room. She pleaded for the
truth. Then Jones took her hand and told the queer,
pitiful story.
The chief of detectives stared hard.
“Can you tell that story before Black?” the chief
demanded.
In a little while Black was brought into the room.
The two men, so radically different in character,
education and manner, sat on either side of a desk.
Again the young man told his story. Black played
with a lead pencil.
“Well, sir, what do you think of that?” the
detective chief asked sharply.
The answer was ready enough.
“The boy is having a wild dream. It is
preposterous!”
But a little while afterwards Black said, briefly,
that the cancelled checks, given him by the accused
clerk, were in his office safe.
There the checks were found. And Black, who had
gone to the bank officials the day before and
pleaded for time for his client’s sake, now
pleaded for time for himself, time in which to
clean everything up, time to make that restitution
delayed so many months.
In the matron’s room at the jail were the boy and
his wife. They had been crying.
“A headache I’ve had for weeks is gone,” the boy
said.
He was not vindictive.
“I was the fool,” he said. “I thought that he was
prosperous and that it would all come out right.”
The disclosures of the day brought to police
headquarters another wife, Mrs. Black, from the
home at 215 Wilson Place. With her was the Rev.
A. Brittingham Brown, Mr. Black’s pastor. Black’s
7-year-old daughter was at home, asleep and
ignorant of the day’s cumulative events.
Mrs. Black brought for her husband in a valise a
change of clothing.
Black was summoned from the cell-room and conducted
to the office of the night captain. He came in, his
hat pulled forward, head bowed.
Then he saw his wife. They advanced to each other
with open arms. They kissed and hugged. Neither
said a word for a long time.
They all sat down, the wife holding her husband’s
hand.
“We are very sorry, indeed, at this sudden
trouble,” the minister said. “The sympathy of
pastor and of members is with you and we are going
to stand by you. This is a time to stand by a man.”
Black and Mrs. Black wept.
Other friends entered the room. No one spoke of the
case and Black volunteered no information.
After his friends had gone, Black went back to the
cellroom, leaving on the captain’s desk the valise
brought by his wife. The pajamas inside would have
given slight comfort on the iron slats upon which
he was to sleep.
* * * * *
BURGLARY
_San Francisco Chronicle_
Diamonds and other stones to the value of $3500
were stolen yesterday afternoon from the apartments
of Mrs. Dennis M. Patrick at 1907 Woolworth street
by a burglar, who ran away in such haste that he
left jewelry to an equal value spread out on the
bed, besides money and other valuables.
The burglar seems to have been familiar with the
hiding places of Mrs. Patrick’s valuables and with
her movements as well. While she was out of the
house between 2 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon,
he entered the rear door with a key which he took
from the place where she had hidden it, picked up
a screwdriver in the kitchen, and, going straight
to the bedroom, pried open the locked bureau drawer
where the jewels were.
The burglar spread the loot out on the bed and was
evidently engaged in sorting and packing it up when
Mrs. Patrick’s daughter, Dorothy, came home from
school at 3:30 o’clock. The little girl went up to
the back door, and, finding it locked, went back to
the street and down to the corner. Apparently, when
the child tried the back door the burglar ran out
through the front way, as Mrs. Patrick found that
door open when she came home half an hour later.
The stolen jewels included thirty-seven diamonds,
eight emeralds and eight pearls, all set in
platinum, principally in the shape of rings and a
lavalliere. Most of the stones were heirlooms and
prized by Mrs. Patrick beyond their value. The
jewels which the burglar left behind in his hurry
included a diamond bracelet, besides other diamonds
and emeralds, and a quantity of gold jewelry.
Several hundred dollars’ worth of silverware and
about $20 in coin had not been touched. But the
burglar did take about 55 cents from the little
girl’s purse.
A cigarette on the floor, a room full of smoke and
an excellent set of finger prints on a hand mirror,
which Detective M. T. Arey found last night, were
all the clews the burglar left.
* * * * *
BURGLARY
_Chicago Herald_
Helen Walker is 12 years old. Her father is John
Walker, a lawyer, and the family resides in Oakland
Park. Mr. Walker always has been proud of his
daughter. But he boasts about her now.
Helen’s mother, when she kissed her girl good-by
yesterday morning, had said she would not be home
till late. That’s why Helen grew suspicious.
She heard some one walking upstairs when she came
home from school. It couldn’t be her father.
And the step was too heavy for her mother; and,
besides, her mother wasn’t home.
So she tiptoed upstairs and into her father’s room,
and she found a big revolver in a bureau drawer.
Then she walked quietly into the room where the
noise seemed to come from.
She saw a man putting things into a
bag--silverware, bric-a-brac, ornaments,
jewelry--all her mother’s pretty things.
The girl drew in her breath sharply. The burglar
turned. His little eyes glared at her--a slim
little creature with a halo of golden hair and
a revolver--and blue eyes that looked into his
unafraid.
For a moment they kept the pose. Then--
“It’s loaded,” said the girl. “Don’t you think
you’d better drop my mamma’s silver comb?”
The burglar did. Likewise a rope of pearls.
“Hadn’t you better turn the bag upside down on the
bed there?” the girl continued.
The burglar, without a word, complied.
Then she made him turn his pockets inside out, and,
keeping the revolver trained on him, walked him
down the steps and onto the porch.
And there he turned and spoke.
“Say, kid, you’re all right,” he affirmed, and
walked away.
And Helen went and told the neighbors--and was
afraid to go back into the home she had just
defended--until the arrival of her mother.
* * * * *
HIGHWAY ROBBERY
_Chicago Herald_
About to be married and needing money, Edward
Russell, 19 years old, decided it would be easier
to steal the money than work for it.
So he turned auto robber, and was captured with
three other young men, after they held up Edward
Bessinger and took his satchel, containing $3,000.
They told their stories yesterday in the Chicago
avenue police station and gave their strange
motives for becoming criminals.
“I was going to be married and knew I would need a
lot of money,” said Russell. “I couldn’t get enough
by working and thought a holdup would be the best
way.”
John Harper said he joined the other robbers
because his father was in trouble.
“He is a saloon-keeper in Walsingham, Ill., and was
caught staying open after hours,” said Harper. “He
needed money to help him out, and the only way I
had to get it was to steal it.”
“I was just trying to collect what Bessinger owed
me,” declared Arthur Raymond, who planned the
robbery. “I worked in the Bessinger restaurant at
Halsted and Hamilton streets and got paid next to
nothing for it. You can’t work for such small wages
and have any money.
“I decided I would get enough out of Bessinger to
pay me handsomely for the time I worked there. I
knew he carried money in the satchel and planned
the holdup.”
“Let the others talk themselves into the
penitentiary if they want to,” said George Wilson,
the fourth prisoner. “I have nothing to say about
it. We tried and fell down. That’s all.”
The four men were arrested after they had run their
automobile into a fence while trying to escape
with the satchel. They had knocked down Bessinger,
who is a collector for the Bessinger Restaurant
Company, and the automobile ran over his leg,
causing the machine to swerve. The money satchel
was recovered.
* * * * *
THEFT OR LOSS
_Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin_
It will be Christmas without the “merry” for Jules
Alexander, Brussels, Belgium, who will spend it
in Milwaukee penniless, because of either an evil
twist of fate or the daring of a hotel thief.
Monsieur Alexander, a young Belgian, is an American
representative of a large machinery plant in
Brussels. He has been in Milwaukee about two weeks
and is staying at the Hotel Pfister.
Thursday afternoon M. Alexander decided that his
suit needed pressing. Hurriedly--it must have been
hurriedly--he made a change of wardrobe, rang for
a bellboy and had the suit taken down to the hotel
tailor.
Little did M. Alexander know that a $130 roll of
crinkly American bills, practically his assets
in toto, reposed in the left hand hip pocket of
the tailor-bound trousers. In the newly donned
suit there was not a franc, not a sou, not even a
centime.
Later in the afternoon, having left the hotel, M.
Alexander had use for some change. He felt in his
hip pocket and found nothing. He found the same
thing in all his other pockets. All at once it
dawned on him that he had left the precious roll of
bills in the other suit.
M. Alexander went back to the hotel on the run. He
told the clerk of his loss. Quickly but quietly
a search for the lost or stolen money was made
through the hotel, but without avail. Evidently
both tailor and bellboy declared that they knew
nothing of the money.
M. Alexander is positive that the roll of bills
was in the pocket of the trousers sent down to the
tailor. As the tailor is in the same building,
there was no chance of the money’s dropping on the
street, and yet the hotel corridors, elevators and
lobbies have been searched inch by inch.
This morning M. Alexander went to the central
police station and reported the loss, or theft.
Detective Paul Pergande was detailed on the case.
“It was 650 francs I lose; all I had, aussi,” said
M. Alexander this morning, with a deprecatory
French shrug of the shoulders. “I do not know what
shall I do if the gendarmerie, the police, soon
do not find the money. It is of a probability,
certainement, that I can get some more, but it will
take time and I am what you call ‘broke’--n’est-ce
pas?
“You see, monsieur, my compagnie--it is in
Bruxelles--allow me an expense account and we
representateefs do not carry with us so much. That
which one has stolen is all that I had. Voila!
“I must find that money, monsieur. Certainement I
can explain to our New York agents and they will
send me some money to live with. Assuredly I hope
that they will not doubt my explanation and wonder
how I use so much expense account. Six hundred and
fifty francs--it is much, monsieur!
“King Albert, I? Oh, oui, we have a new and fine
king, but just now I worry so about my money that I
have not thought much of our new king.”
* * * * *
HOLD-UP
_Kansas City Star_
Liquor was responsible for starting out two young
men last night on a brief career as holdup men
which lasted only a few hours and ended in cells
at police headquarters at midnight. The men are
Herbert Wilson, 24 years old, 910 East Nineteenth
Street, and Sherwin Carter, 28 years old, 143 Payne
Avenue. Carter is married.
The holdups were eight in number, occurring in the
district between Twenty-first and Thirty-seventh
streets and Penn Street and Forest Avenue. The loot
obtained amounted to $12 in cash, eight diamond
rings, four purses and three watches. The robberies
came in quick succession and so did the calls of
the victims to police headquarters. Two policemen
in a motor car finally caught the pair at Linwood
Boulevard and Forest Avenue.
Carter is the son of Dr. Eugene Carter, Hampshire
Apartments, president of Standard Lumber Company.
Doctor Carter, when notified of his son’s arrest,
immediately blamed liquor for the young man’s
downfall and said that ordinarily he was a “good
boy.”
“I’d been drinking for three days and didn’t know
what I was doing last night,” young Carter said
this morning at police headquarters. “I was out of
a job and didn’t have any money to speak of. And,
say, I’m kind of responsible for Wilson’s getting
into this, too. It was my scheme to hold up people.
“I’ve been a little wild, but I’ve never been in
trouble for holding up people. Say, this’ll be hard
on my wife.”
Wilson, too, blamed liquor.
“I’d never have dreamed of robbing people if I
hadn’t been drunk,” he said. “Carter thought it
would be an easy way to get some money and so we
went and borrowed a gun from a negro that he knew
and went to holding up people. I’d hold the gun and
Carter would search them.”
Both men were shaking and wild-eyed this morning.
After their continued drinking of whisky for three
days, their nerves were far from steady.
* * * * *
HOLD-UP
_Kansas City Star_
.......................................................
. See now how real life beats the reel life every .
. now and then. Here, for instance, is the strange .
. history of The Man in the Black Mask, as acted upon .
. the stage of Kansas City’s streets in the deserted .
. hours of the morning when everybody slumbers except .
. holdup men, belated wayfarers and policemen. .
.......................................................
REAL I.
Ed Wilson, alias E. Harry Miller, known in the
family album at police headquarters as a “gunman,”
fares forth very early this morning with a
companion to make his living. At 2:30 o’clock at
Thirteenth and Charlotte streets, they meet a man
and begin their pleasant labors.
“Don’t do it, gents,” says the stranger, “don’t do
it. It ain’t perfessional. I’m one of the same.
Here’s my gun and here’s my black mask. See?”
“Excuses,” says Spokesman Ed. “Have ’em back. Luck
to you.”
REAL II.
Frank Mathis, one of those belated wayfarers who
afford occupation to holdup men, is held up half
an hour later at Thirteenth and Charlotte streets
by two men. By the illumination of an arc light he
observes the two closely. So does Timothy Dalton,
policeman. Timothy comes up rapidly and the two
flee, bombarding the air, Timothy doing the same.
The robbers escape.
Mathis then furnishes Timothy descriptions of the
two, which Timothy, in turn, furnishes police
headquarters, which, in turn, furnishes them to
whatever policemen can be reached by telephone.
REAL III.
(_In two scenes._)
SCENE I--Frank Hoover, another policeman with
insomnia, sees a man approach him at Eleventh and
Charlotte streets about 4 o’clock. The man seems
to answer the description of one of the two holdup
chaps.
Hoover runs and so does the man.
Another batch of shots are fired. This time they
find lodging.
The fleeing man drops with a bullet in the left
leg and another in the left hip. Hoover stoops
down, picks up something clutched in the wounded
man’s hand, stares at it curiously, puts it in his
pocket. The ambulance arrives and the wounded man
is taken to the General Hospital.