The body of court news stories usually consists of summaries of arguments, decisions, testimony, or legal documents, or of excerpts from them, with the necessary connective material. In some instances the story is largely a history of the case or action and of the persons involved. The lead is usually determined by the status of the case. Any one of the important points may be made the feature.
Testimony in news stories is given in one of three forms: (1) the question indicated by “Q” and the answer by “A,” both question and answer given in one paragraph without quotation marks, (2) the question and the answer in quotation marks, each followed by the necessary explanatory matter and each in a separate paragraph, like verbatim conversation in fiction, (3) a summary of the testimony of each witness in indirect quotation form, with the name of the witness at or near the beginning of the first sentence of the summarized testimony.
Contents of story. Because of the variety of material presented by different kinds of court news, it is difficult to indicate specifically the points to be considered in each story. Among the important details, however, are (1) the verdict and the conditions under which it was rendered, (2) the sentence imposed, (3) the decision rendered and its significance, (4) important testimony, (5) net results of the day’s proceedings in a trial, (6) the history of the case or action, (7) provisions of a will, (8) liabilities, assets, and cause in bankruptcy, (9) the award, or finding, (10) the grounds on which a suit is based.
Savannah News
If you own an automobile and are fond of joy rides in the evening, it will be a good idea to keep your weather eye on the gasolene tank, for none will be filled in Savannah after sundown if the efforts of the fire department are successful.
Chief John H. Monroe is seeking to have enforced the ordinance prohibiting the handling of gasolene after sundown, believing it will reduce the fire hazard.
Every city has a number of laws that are forgotten because they are seldom enforced. This is true of the gasolene ordinance here. It was not generally known that such a law was on the statute books until Barney Kolman was arraigned in the Police Court yesterday, charged with violating it by selling fuel to a motorist at night. He was fined $10 or thirty days in jail by Judge John E. Schwarz and the fine was remitted.
“No gasolene shall be handled in any way for charging or filling any tank or repository by artificial light, and never at all after sundown,” reads the ordinance, passed in 1906. A fine of not more than $100 and imprisonment not exceeding thirty days, either or both, is provided.
“It is dangerous to handle such a fire producer as gasolene after sundown because people become careless and in many cases use open torches, candles or matches, to get enough light to see what they are doing,” said the fire chief. “Such carelessness leads to increased danger from gasolene explosions.”
It was because of efforts of the fire department to stop violations of the law, which, it is said, have become common, that Kolman, whose place of business is at No. 435 West Bond street, was docketed.
The ordinance was passed April 13, 1904, and amended Oct. 10, 1906, and August 14, 1907.
Recorder Schwarz remarked, in hearing the case against Kolman, that he had never heard of the ordinance, and that if it did exist he had seen it violated a number of times.
Kansas City Star
Down Main Street drove Carl Wilson, 1228 Jenifer Street, yesterday on the seat of an undertaker’s ambulance, blowing on his fingers to warm them. Presently he saw a familiar figure on the sidewalk. It was Gus Hart, 2231A Holton Street.
“Hey, Gus,” he called. “Come on and take a ride.”
Gus climbed to the seat beside Wilson and smiled expansively.
“Fine day, ain’t it?” said he.
“Yes, it ain’t,” said Carl. “I’m cold through and through.”
“Oh, this is real weather,” said Gus.
“How can any man like this?” said Carl angrily. “You must be crazy.”
“Crazy yourself,” said Gus.
“Bing!” said Carl’s fist.
“Crack!” said Gus’s chin.
Then they fought on the seat of the undertaker’s ambulance, while the horse took the opportunity to snatch a few moments of rest.
Both were taken into the South Side Municipal Court this morning. Carl looked at Gus and Gus at Carl.
“Say, judge,” said Carl. “We’re friends. But even friends fall out about the weather. Let us off, will you?”
Acting Judge Casimir J. Welch let ’em off.
Milwaukee Sentinel
With his young wife clasping him in her arms and sobbing bitterly, Louis Short stood with hanging head in District court on Friday, heard himself branded as a forger, and in a shaking voice told how he had forged the check because his baby had died and he had no money to bury the little body.
A hush fell over the courtroom at the sight of the young couple standing in the prisoners’ dock, crushed and broken after the bitter, losing fight against poverty and temptation. They have been married but two years and were happy in their little home in Chicago until the boy husband lost his job.
Misfortunes crowded upon them after that. They became driftwood on the sea of life, washed hither and thither and finally cast upon Milwaukee. Then the baby died. It was the last blow, and nagging temptation won its victory.
Short forged a check for $48 on the German-American bank. He made it out to Louis Short, signed the name “J. Seikler, president,” and passed it in Mrs. Mary Moore’s saloon, 251 Herst avenue, on July 28. With the money the baby was buried. Then came the law and Short’s arrest.
Short pleaded guilty, admitted everything, and tried to be brave. So did his girl wife, but the strain was too much. She broke down, threw her arms around his neck and hid her face on his shoulder.
“O, Louis, Louis!” she sobbed.
Judge Neelen adjourned the case one week, for there is a possibility that Short’s father will send him the money to pay Mrs. Moore back.
CHILDREN’S COURT
New York Evening Sun
There was a soft patter on the floor of the Children’s Court this morning, and in through the gates, swung open for them by a tall policeman, advanced two little maids, eyes cast down, doll feet taking quick, small steps. Justice Wyatt brushed aside the dry legal documents before him and looked down from the bench with more interest than he had displayed all the morning. The benchers craned their necks and the court officers were all eyes. Here was something out of the usual routine—two little Chinese maids. Somehow they didn’t fit into the picture of juvenile offenders, mothers from the tenements full of cares and burdened with babies, the motley array of parents, complainants, street arabs and heavyfooted guardians of the law. On the Yang-Tse-Kiang, perhaps, the little maids would have fallen into harmony with their surroundings, but not in the hurly-burly of an Occidental court room. Who were they and what was the occasion of their coming?
An agent of the Children’s Society explained. He was Obadiah Cunningham. The almond-eyed visitors were the Misses Moy You Toy and Chin Fung Toy, who had strayed beyond the boundaries of the three crooked streets which mark the limits of the local Chinatown. For two moons the quarter had been upset. The joss gave no comfort when his aid was sought and one night threw the luck sticks into the air in his temple ever so many times; but no matter if they came down with the wished for side uppermost, not a word came from beyond the pale, out of the wide spreading territory of the “white devils,” about either Moy You Toy or Chin Fung Toy—that is, not until this morning, when the lost were found again and taken to the Children’s Court. Then the Chinese women—the men do not care so much about the disappearance of a girl as of a boy—could once more eat with a relish their dried fish, and duck eggs dug from the soil of their native land, in which they had remained packed until the day of consumption.
Chin Fung Toy and Moy You Toy, the first named 13, and the other 14 years old, trembled much in the presence of the austere figure on the high seat, who they had no doubt was a ruler of mighty power; but he spoke kindly to them and they saw that it was not his intention either to eat them or cast them into a dark dungeon. Still, though his voice was gentle, they longed somehow to be at home again at 30 and 34 Mott street, respectively, to look upon their own people and hear their own tongue spoken.
It was not to be—not at once, anyhow. The agent who had charge of them submitted a paper to the Magistrate, in which was contained the information in terse, legal phraseology that there was no proper guardianship for the two maids, and Justice Wyatt committed them to the care of the Society, setting the case down for an examination next Wednesday. It was represented to the Court that there was reason to believe that their so-called parents were not their parents at all. Superintendent Jenkins of the Gerry Society promised to say something about that phase of the question later. In the meanwhile Moy You Toy and Chin Fung Toy will look on the world through the windows of the Society’s building at Twenty-third street and Fourth avenue, and not from the closely shuttered blinds of Mott street.
How were Chin Fung Toy and Moy You Toy found? That is another story, which has not been told yet; but there are hints of interesting developments to follow before the wanderings of the children of Mott street become known.
The statements issued from the offices of the Gerry Society this afternoon, statements made by the little girls through an interpreter, put an entirely different complexion on their disappearance and made it appear that they had been little white slaves in Mott street. They were both sold like common chattels in China, they said, and in the quarter they got more kicks and blows than kindness. For instance, Moy You Toy, after stating that she is 14 years old, according to our reckoning, and 15 years old according to the Chinese, giving the place of her nativity as Sung Hing district, Moy-how city, said:
“My address has been 34 Mott street, Room 11. My father died when I was very young, and my mother married again and left me alone with my grandmother, who was very, very poor. I was sold to the wife of Moy See Chai, who brought me over here to America about two years ago, and I have been with her ever since.
“I have had to work very hard in the house, making buttons and button loops from early morning until late at night. When I take a rest I get scolded and beaten. Whenever my mistress’s boy called to me to do certain things, and when I was not able to do them fast enough, the boy would beat me.
“I do not want to say anything that is not true against them; they fed me well, of course, nothing luxurious.
“My mistress often said to me: ‘You must be careful of Miss Banta [Miss Mary E. Banta, superintendent of a school in Chinatown]; you can’t depend upon her all the time, and complain to her and display your feelings’ (meaning by this that I should not make any complaints to Miss Banta).”
The girl continued that her mistress had even said to her, “If I killed you they could only arrest me.” Once, she added, she got a terrible beating because she had gone to the country with Miss Banta.
Chin Fung Toy or Choy said that there was a man named Ing Yee Yue of Washington, D. C., who has a son and wife in China, and that Fung Choy was sold to his son.
“I was sold to his son and was brought to America by Pang Sam,” she continued. “Pang Sam was a friend of Ing’s. I was told that the price the son paid for me was $160.
“I came from a village in China, but don’t know its name. About eight or nine months ago Ing Yee Yue said he was going back to China and was not able to keep me any longer; he then brought me to New York and sold me to Chin Hing for $500 gold. I have been with Chin Hing ever since, about eight or nine months. I have had to work in the family all the time, making buttons and button loops for stores. Some mornings I had to get up at 7 o’clock and sometimes work right on until 2 o’clock in the morning. I was not allowed to go out.
“If I didn’t work all the time I got beaten, although I am told I was treated much better than the former slave girls. The other two were married. One is here in New York yet and the other has gone down South. I had to do all the washing—sheets and all. The only teaching I ever received was from Miss Banta, who taught me for an hour or so every Monday.”
Fung Choy did not want to go back to Mott street, after all, she told the Gerry agents, no matter how downcast she may have seemed in court. She would rather die than be sent back to Mott street, she declared.
She won’t be.
RUNAWAY BOY IN COURT
New York World
Morris Steiner is a bad boy and Morris Steiner is a good boy, and whichever he is most Magistrate Naumer in the Flatbush Court, Brooklyn, must soon decide.
Morris, now in Raymond Street Jail, says he will not live with his stepmother. He braved hunger and privation because of this idea. He built himself a hut, lived a queer gypsy life for weeks, cooked his own meals and slept in his queer camp. He did his own washing and cooking. And, curious boy that he is, he did his own praying, which was that his own mother would forgive him for running away, and would come to him as he slept and kiss his forehead. That, he says, was the prayer he made in his hut.
Morris, who is sixteen years old, could never get along with his stepmother. He has a brother eighteen years old and another fourteen, and they live on good terms with their stepmother. It was nine years ago that the brisk little woman married Aaron Steiner, a travelling salesman. He was a widower with four children.
The Steiners have not only a comfortable but a pretty home at No. 991 Sixtieth street, Brooklyn. It possesses shade trees and carefully trimmed hedges and a beflowered piazza. Mrs. Steiner said to a World reporter there yesterday:
“Such a queer boy! This home is not for him. He will not have it because I am his stepmother. From the time he was seven years old he would hardly speak to his father, because I had come to the home. My other stepchildren love me. But he will not. I could not pet him. He would shrink from me. Or he would laugh. I thought all the time that when he got older it would be all right. But it was not. The older he got the less he would think of this as his home. He would always run away.”
This habit of the boy brought him into the Flatbush Court yesterday on a charge of being incorrigible.
When the boy disappeared the last time he made his way to a spot about half a mile from his home. It is in a garden overgrown with rank weeds back of an abandoned carpenter shop. The lot is at New York and Thirteenth avenues, Brooklyn.
The boy built a house of old planks, nailed together with a carpenter-like proficiency. Inside he constructed for himself a couch and a fireplace with a chimney outlet; on a peg on the wall hung a stiff whisk-broom with which the earthen floor might be kept smooth.
The youngster also put up pegs on which he hung an extra suit of clothes. He was not without an artistic sense, for he nailed to the walls cartoons and other newspaper drawings, the most prominent one being that of President Taft, with a background portraying the reception on the return of the ex-President and the lonely Taft exclaiming: “Nobody loves a fat man.” The boy was evidently in sympathy with the loneliness of the fat man.
For six weeks the youngster made his home in this hut. Scraps of dry bread were the only signs of food in the place when he was arrested. But word was sent him that one of his little stepsisters, of whom he was very fond, had been awake all night crying for his return. When he heard that he went back home. It was true about the little girl crying for him. But also, when he got back his father handed him a summons to appear in the Flatbush Police Court. At that the boy flew into a rage. He tore the summons to bits and flung them at his father. His father thereupon caused his arrest.
In court yesterday the youngster stolidly looked at his stepmother. He frowned at his father.
“Do you know,” demanded the father, “that you are arrested?”
“I don’t care,” said the boy.
“Don’t you see what a trouble you are?” insisted his parent.
The boy for answer turned to the Judge.
“I can’t live with my stepmother,” he said. “I don’t do anything wrong. I don’t want to. But I get along by myself. I’ve been living in my little hut, and I like it there all by myself, with nobody to get sore on me. That’s all. I wish I could only be left alone—that’s all.”
His Honor, with an eye on the youthful face, shook his head and held the boy in $300 bail for a further hearing Friday morning.
CRIMINAL COURT EXAMINATION
Milwaukee Sentinel
For the first time the inner history of the daring theft of the Boston store’s $3,500 pay roll from the messenger in the First National bank on Feb. 15 was told on Tuesday, when Joseph Wilson, awaiting trial for complicity, turned state’s evidence against George O. Watts, in his preliminary examination in District court.
Wilson said that Watts recruited in Chicago a quintet for the express purpose of “cracking a crib” in Milwaukee. Wilson said that the theft of the money-laden satchel was not premeditated, but that the gang had set out to “work” the banks.
According to Wilson’s story, Chester Bangs, who is now awaiting trial, cleverly sneaked the satchel at the feet of the Boston store messenger, and the other four “blanketed” him while he slipped out of the bank.
Watts, whom Wilson’s testimony clearly showed to have been an accomplice, was bound over to Municipal court. Bail was set at $9,000 despite Attorney W. H. Rubin’s plea for a lower figure.
Wilson said that the gang was composed of Watts, Bangs, Oates, Carter and himself. Of these, Oates and Carter are still at liberty. The other three have been bound over for trial.
Wilson told his story freely and fully, using considerable slang.
“Two days before this deal was pulled off I had a talk with Watts in a saloon in Chicago; he sent me a note by Oates to meet him,” said Wilson. “I had been out of jail four days. Watts asked me to come in on the scheme of cracking a crib in Milwaukee and told me that he had three other fellows to go along.
“I agreed and Watts ‘made a meet’ opposite the union depot in time to take the 7 o’clock train to Milwaukee on Feb. 15. We met there, the five of us, and came to Milwaukee.
“After we left the station we stopped in for a drink in a small hotel at the corner of the station park. Watts said: ‘This’ll be a good place for a meet if we’re piped off.’ After that we started in to work the banks. We went to the First National twice.
“On the second trip we piped the messenger filling his pay roll satchel. That was our chance. It was fixed that Bangs should turn the trick. We four sat on one of the benches near a window. In a minute Bangs signaled us to come up, and we did.
“While the messenger was looking over some papers Bangs reached under and grabbed the satchel. Then we crowded around and blanketed him until he had gotten out of the bank. Then we went out and scattered. I saw Bangs, with the satchel, hop on a street car.
“I walked up Wisconsin street and was later joined by Oates. When we got in front of the postoffice some one hollered. I turned around. It was Bangs. We joined him beside the building. He opened the satchel, and I saw it was filled with paper and silver. He kept the paper money, tied in packages, and loaded all the silver on me. Of course I did not count it, for we were right on the sidewalk.
“That noon I caught an interurban car for Racine at Clinton street. Watts was on the car. He came and sat with me.
“‘We come off pretty clean,’ he said. ‘There can’t be no “rap” to this.’ I told him it was a fool trick to carry so much silver as I had in my bundle.
“The whole bunch was on the car. When the car stopped at a corner in Racine we all got off and scattered.
“In a minute I decided that I was being trailed. I caught up to Oates and told him so. He told me to go in a saloon and find out. I did, and the fellow trailing me came in too. I went out of the saloon, saw Watts and told him I was trailed.
“‘Ding that and duck,’ he said, pointing to my bundle.
“‘Cover up and give me a chance,’ I said.
“He did, and I ducked down a side street, but that fellow was still trailing me. After walking about a quarter mile I stepped into a cigar store, for I’d made up my mind to duck that fellow. I got the proprietor to take me out in the back yard. Then I climbed over two fences and hid in a shed until dusk.
“Detective Sullivan nailed me about 9 o’clock that night.”
On cross-examination, Wilson freely told his long criminal record, which includes several convictions. He gave his age as 53 years. He said that Joseph Wilson is his real name, but that he has used three aliases.
Asked what his business is, Wilson said:
“I’m a professional thief.”
District Attorney A. C. Backus announced that he would file information charging Watts with a second offense, for which the penalty may be twenty-five years in prison.
Detroit News
Some 20 years ago a ragged little newsboy stood shivering on a busy corner in the heart of St. Louis. His last paper was yet to be sold and his free hand jingled a pocketful of loose coins. A hurrying pedestrian snatched the final copy and thrust a nickel in the hand of the boy. He did not wait for change. Five minutes later the ragged and cold and hungry boy stood with his nose buried in a volume of “First Steps for Chemists” in the musty atmosphere of a second-hand book store.
Wednesday morning the same boy, now grown to manhood, stood before the federal court in Detroit and heard a stern judge sentence him to 10 years in the federal prison at Leavenworth and affix a fine of $5,000 on three counts charging counterfeiting. It was the cause and the effect.
The boy was Harry Wilson, alias Peter Smith, said to be one of the cleverest counterfeiters in the United States.
“I loved chemistry from the time I was a boy,” said Wilson from his cell. “That was really my downfall. I was left alone in the world when I was seven and I sold papers for years. I do not know why chemistry had such a fascination, but when I was still in knee breeches and earning a few pennies a day I saved until I could buy second-hand books on the science. I studied at every possible moment, and although my English is not the best in the world, and I may misspell many words, I am familiar with the majority of chemical formulas and I can spell any chemical symbol, drug, instrument or process, Latin, Greek or German.
“I longed for a laboratory of my own. I wanted enough money to enable me to give up my life to chemical research. To achieve this I wanted a trade and engraving seemed to open the doors to a good salary, as well as allow me to come in contact with chemicals. I got a position after I had taught myself the rudiments of the trade and discovered I had a talent for drawing. But the salary I received did not seem to be enough to allow me to obtain the realization of the dreams for many years.
“One day I picked up a magazine and there was a story by Detective Burns on counterfeiting. I read it and then read several following stories. The idea came to me slowly, bit by bit, that here was a way whereby I could obtain enough to buy a private laboratory. If I could make bills good enough I thought they would continue to circulate and no one would lose. I tried it and I have failed. I am sorry, of course. I am sorry I went wrong from a standard of morals and more sorry from the standpoint of what I might possibly have done for the benefit of the world in chemical research.
“Those unfortunate persons who were convicted because they associated with me must know how badly I feel over their arrest. I do not know what they did before they met me, but I feel personally responsible for this bit of trouble and I wish I could bear all their sentences. They would never have known the horrors of imprisonment but for me. In a way they were tools that I used and I do not believe any of them knew just how serious a thing they were getting into.
“I shall be as good a prisoner as I know how, and should I be released before my sentence is completed or should I have to wait all the time, when I get out I am going into chemistry with a determination to give to the world more than I robbed it of.”
MURDER TRIAL
New York Sun
Jack Rose’s jester and the playboy of the Rosenthal murder, Sam Schepps, testified for six hours and a quarter yesterday in the trial of Lieut. Becker, and exhibited the qualities that made him the joy of the gamblers in their lighter hours.
Murder trials are not supposed to be humorous affairs and Justices bend severe glances upon flippant witnesses, but Schepps somehow dissipated the gravity of the proceedings and lightened the black tale of crime. Even the austere Judge permitted his eyes to twinkle and some of the jurors laughed outright.
Schepps was so pleased with himself, so proud of his skill in coping with John F. McIntyre, his inquisitor, so naive in his appeals to Justice Goff, so pugnacious and alert that his listeners were in smiles most of the time. He took it for granted that the court appreciated him at his own valuation, and Justice Goff seemed to regard him as an extraordinary specimen of another world, one that must not be banged about by counsel for fear of the total loss of a curiosity worth studying.
But the amusing characteristics of the State’s principal corroborative witness by no means lessened the effect of the testimony he gave against Lieut. Becker. Resisting every device of Mr. McIntyre to trap him into admitting he was an accomplice with Rose, Webber and Vallon, and insisting that he was kept in the dark and used only as an errand boy by Rose and Webber, Schepps swore that the night after the murder he talked with Becker in Becker’s house and that Becker sent this message to Rose:
“Don’t mind anything. I’ll fix it all right. They have to prove who killed Rosenthal before they can convict any one.”
And Schepps added that Becker, in the darkened dining room of the apartment, wouldn’t let him smoke and said:
“Don’t light that match. Somebody is across the street and if they see a light they will suspect something. They have been trailing me all day.”
Schepps was an exasperating witness to Mr. McIntyre. He had the dimmest of memories for times and dates, but he had an extraordinary faculty for recalling previous statements, and he frequently corrected the lawyer. Mr. McIntyre resorted to the traditional methods of hectoring and storming and fist shaking, but Schepps hectored and stormed and gestured back at him. Once he called Mr. McIntyre a liar for saying he had paid the gunmen, and while Mr. McIntyre was fuming before the jury and shouting that Schepps was “a thing,” “a creature,” the witness was suavely and deferentially apologizing to the court for “language that a gentleman ought not to use.”
Lieut. Becker’s chief counsel concentrated his efforts to make Schepps say something that would indicate that he knew Rosenthal was to be murdered and that he was one of the conspirators. It was an attack of the utmost importance to the defence. A good deal of Becker’s money had been spent in an excursion to Hot Springs, made for the purpose of showing that Schepps had incriminated himself while there and had exculpated Becker.
Lawyer Hart, who was with Rose the night Schepps was with Becker, cross-examined Schepps about his conversations with Hot Springs people and failed absolutely to establish contradiction. McIntyre had tried his hand at this work previously, and had raged when Schepps volunteered the statement that one of the principal Hot Springs witnesses for the defence had been a pickpocket in New York for twenty years.
Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Hart gave up the cross-examination late in the evening, apparently running out of ammunition. Mr. McIntyre insisted plaintively that he was wearied, totally exhausted, unable to continue, which drew from Justice Goff, who has a very dry humor, the comment:
“Tut, tut, Mr. McIntyre. You talk of being exhausted. I am upward of 70 years old.”
Schepps was the only witness yesterday. It had been the purpose of the prosecution to call Mrs. Herman Rosenthal, but there was no time left for the long examination that would be necessary and Justice Goff rather reluctantly consented to adjournment. The widow of the murdered gambler will be the first witness to-day.
When Schepps appeared from the witness room at 10:30 A. M. all eyes were turned in his direction. From the first he has been one of the most interesting characters of this case. His childlike vanity, his delight at posing as an oracle among the rudely informed men and women of the underworld, his reputation for impudence and wit, his adventures dodging detectives in the Catskills and his sojourn among admiring citizens in Hot Springs had given him a kind of reputation second only to that of Rose.
He was nervous at first. His sharp eyes squinted behind his nose glasses and his glances darted sidewise. He twisted his fingers together and tried to cross his legs, a proceeding frowned upon by the court officer who stands at the witness chair.
He wore a blue suit, a black four-in-hand tie and black low shoes, and he carefully drew up his sharply pressed trousers so that his white silk socks would be exposed.
As the day went on he lost much of his nervousness and controlled his tendency to flippancy, but he became more and more pugnacious and more and more determined that counsel for the defence should not get the better of him.
Assistant District Attorney Frank Moss conducted the direct examination. The testimony was:
Q. Where do you live? A. Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Q. What is your business? A. Portrait enlarger.
Q. Do you know Jack Rose? A. Yes; I have known him for fifteen or eighteen years.
Q. Did you ever meet the defendant Becker? If so, where? A. At the Lafayette baths.
Q. Ever again? A. Yes, at the Sam Paul raid.
Q. Did you ever carry to him a message from Jack Rose? A. Yes.
Q. What was it? A. That Rose would meet him at the Union Square Hotel.
Q. Were you at Dora Gilbert’s house on July 15? A. Yes.
Q. What were you doing there? A. I was asked to go there by Rose to get an affidavit for Becker.
Then he said that, after leaving Dora Gilbert’s, he drove with his friends to Sharkey’s, where the gray car was called by telephone.
Q. Who drove it? A. William Shapiro.
Q. Who got into that car? A. Vallon, Rose and myself.
Q. What did you do then? A. We went up to Seventh avenue and 145th street.
Q. What did you do next? A. I stepped out and pressed the bell of Baker and Harris’s apartment. Dago Frank put his head out of the window and we called him out. He got into the machine and we went to Forty-second street and Sixth avenue.
Q. Who did you find there? A. Sam Paul, Leftie Louie, Whitey Lewis and Gyp the Blood. Webber excused himself and said he would be back shortly.
Q. Did he return? A. Yes; he said Rosenthal was at the Metropole.
Q. What was done then? A. They left the room.
Q. Who left? A. Gyp, Lefty Louie, Whitey Lewis and Dago Frank.
Q. What did you do? A. I stayed in the room.
Q. How long? A. About fifteen minutes.
Q. In what direction did you then go? A. I went into the Times Square drug store and purchased a soda. A short time after I got there I heard four shots.
Q. What did you do? A. I ran in the direction of the shots.
Q. Did you see Lieut. Becker that night? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Where? A. He was riding in an auto with a chauffeur at Sixth avenue and Forty-sixth street at 1:30 o’clock A. M.
Q. When you ran to the scene of the murder, on what side of the street were you? A. On the south side.
Q. Did you meet any one that you knew? A. I met Harry Vallon at the Elks Club. A great crowd had gathered and the body was lying in the street.
Q. What did you and Harry Vallon do then? A. We went to Fourteenth street, to the house where he lived, and stayed there until 6 o’clock the next morning, when we went to a house at 145th street and Seventh avenue.
Q. What was it that awoke you? A. The entrance of Jack Rose.
Q. After Rose spoke to you and you went to 145th street and Seventh avenue, did you see any one? A. Yes, we saw Lefty Louie, Whitey Lewis, Dago Frank and Gyp.
Q. Did you say anything to them? A. They wanted to know when I would bring them the money. I made an appointment to meet them at Fiftieth street and Eighth avenue.
Q. Where did you see them? A. At Fiftieth street and Eighth avenue.
Q. Prior to that time had you seen Webber? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you receive any money from him? A. No, sir.
Q. Did you see anything passed by Webber to any one else? A. I saw Webber pass money to Jack Rose.
Q. Was that money presented to the gunmen at Fiftieth street and Eighth avenue? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who had it? A. Jack Rose.
Q. What did he do? A. He passed it to Lefty Louie.
Q. Did you go away then? A. Yes.
Q. Did Lefty Louie? A. Yes, and took the money with him.
Q. What did you and Rose do? A. We went to the home of Harry Pollok on Riverside Drive.
Q. How long did you stay there? A. I stayed for dinner.
Q. Then where did you go? A. To the Lafayette Baths.
Q. The next morning, what did you do? A. I went to Pollok’s and remained about four hours. I then went downtown and later returned to Pollok’s. I stayed until about 10:30.
Q. Where did you go next? A. I went to Lieut. Becker’s apartment.
Q. Did you see Becker? A. Yes.
Q. Where was that? A. At the Belleclaire apartments.
Q. How did you happen to go there? A. Jack Rose sent me.
Q. Repeat the conversation you had with Becker. A. I told Becker that Jack Rose was sick and worried, and that he sent me to him to see what he was going to do. Becker said Rose was not to worry. He said: “Don’t mind anything. I’ll fix it all right. They have to prove who killed Rosenthal before they can convict any one.”
Q. What then? A. Then I left. As I was about to leave I pulled out a cigarette and started to light it. Becker said, “Don’t light that match; somebody is across the street and if they see a light they will suspect something. They have been trailing me all day.”
Q. Was the apartment lighted or dark? A. It was dark.
Q. Did Becker say anything else? A. Yes. He asked me if the gunmen had been paid and I told him that they had. Then I left.
Q. Then what did you do? A. I went back to Pollok’s.
Q. Did any one arrive while you were at Pollok’s? A. No; somebody was there before I got there.
Q. Who was that? A. Mr. Hart.
Q. Who do you mean? A. Attorney John Hart, who is sitting there.
The witness nodded toward John W. Hart, who has been Becker’s lawyer since before the murder of Rosenthal.
Mr. Moss had no further questions to put to the witness and the direct examination ended at 11:02 A. M., having occupied only twenty-seven minutes.
[The report of the cross-examination and other details of the day’s proceedings in the trial followed under separate heads.]
Duluth Herald
Commercializing his remarkable faculty for imitating a paralytic has proven to be the downfall of Charles F. Koch, 45, the black sheep of a respectable German family residing at Rosedale, Iowa. And because his game of faking injuries and collecting large sums from railroad companies and other corporations has been detected and exposed, Koch must look forward to serving a term of years in the Minnesota state penitentiary.
It took a jury just nine minutes in Judge Fesler’s division of the district court yesterday to find Koch guilty of the crime of grand larceny in the second degree under an indictment which charged him with having defrauded the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad company out of $1,000 on a fake personal injury. The jury retired at 3:36 o’clock and returned with a finding of guilty at 3:45 o’clock.
The same blank, fixed expression which has characterized Koch since his trial began did not change one iota when the verdict of guilty was read in his presence. He maintained the same expressionless attitude of indifference as to what was going on about him and seemed to be unconcerned as to whether he would be acquitted or not. The crime of which he stands convicted is punishable by imprisonment in the state penitentiary from one to ten years.
On Oct. 14, 1914, Koch was a passenger on No. 61, of the Duluth & Iron Range, a mixed train leaving Duluth at 11:30 p. m. On arriving at Two Harbors at 12:45 a. m., he left the coach and as he did so, according to his claim, his raincoat, which he carried on his arm, caught on an angle cock or brake staff and he was thrown to the depot platform and suffered an injury to his back. As a result, he claimed, his lower limbs, bowels and bladder were paralyzed. Examination by surgeons seemed to indicate that he was permanently disabled, and on Dec. 7, the company settled with him for $1,000 for his alleged injuries. Koch, who had been moving with great difficulty on crutches, immediately left the city and at once discarded his crutches.
The railroad authorities secured a warrant for his arrest and after detectives had chased him through several cities of the Middle West, he was arrested at Tonopah, Nev. He was brought to Duluth under an extradition process and stood trial on the charge. During the course of his trial much of his past history, and a more or less unbroken story of his operations, were brought to the light of day.
Koch was born forty-five years ago in Germany and emigrated to this country when a boy of 15, settling at Rosedale, Iowa. He married when a young man, but, after his wife had lived with him ten years, she secured a divorce from him on the grounds that he had been convicted of a crime and committed to the Iowa state penitentiary. This was in 1903. She remarried. Koch’s parents are old and respected residents of Rosedale.
In 1903 Koch joined the army, enlisting in the state of Washington. Two months later, however, he was discharged on account of “chronic anaemia and debility.” In 1906 he claimed that he had been injured while working at Missoula for the Northern Pacific, brought suit for $50,000 and recovered $5,000 in the lower court. The case dragged on six years in the Montana courts and judgment was finally reversed in January, 1912. A portion of the time Koch spent on a poor farm, supposedly a down-and-out cripple, forced into the almshouse by the law’s delay. He went by the name of C. F. Post.
In July, 1911, at Portland, Or., posing as C. F. Pantle, he secured from the Portland Light & Power company a sum of money on a fake injury. On Feb. 16, 1912, at Breckenridge, Minn., under the alias of C. F. Jones, he secured $4,500 from the Great Northern Railway company for injuries claimed to have been sustained in falling from a passenger coach step. On Aug. 12 of the same year, as Clarence F. Main, he again tried to work this game, but unfortunately ran up against the same claim agent at Great Falls, Mont., who recognized him as an impostor and had him arrested. He served four months in the Montana penitentiary.
On Feb. 28, 1914, at Hampton, Iowa, he claimed that he was injured while alighting from a train, and on May 9, 1914, collected $600 from the Minneapolis and St. Paul Railway company. On July 23, 1914, while crossing a railroad crossing at Grand Rapids, Mich., he was injured, he claimed, and he later extracted $1,600 from the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad company. His latest offense was the affair of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad company.
Koch will be brought before Judge Fesler later for sentence. Those who are familiar with Koch’s history declare that whiskey brought about his ruin and that as soon as he made a good haul while operating his game he would spend it all for liquor.
Brooklyn Eagle
That an employer is not responsible for the acts of his servant that cause damage to another when those acts are not committed in furtherance of the master’s business, was the decision of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Division, when it reversed a case which the lower court had decided against a Manhattan department store. The reversal in favor of the department store was given by the court on an appeal taken by the attorney, Abraham Oberstein, of 299 Broadway, Manhattan.
This case is of considerable importance to employers, for the reason that their employes often get into altercations with employes of other concerns, damages sometimes ensue, and then the question arises whether the employer is responsible for the acts of his servant. As the justices of the Appellate Division view the question, the issue is not whether an inflicter of damages was in the employ of a certain firm, but whether he was promoting the firm’s interest in inflicting the damages. If he was, then the master is responsible, providing it was within the scope of the employer’s duties, and if it was not, then the master is not responsible, no matter how grievous or serious the injury inflicted may be.
Adolph Miller, through his guardian, instituted suit for assault against Attorney Oberstein’s client. Miller was a driver in the employ of another concern, and was about to deliver goods at the store when one of the latter’s drivers asked for the berth Miller was entitled to. Miller refused. The other driver, he alleges, assaulted him. Then he directed suit against the department store concern, under the employers’ liability act. The lower court decided for Miller, but Lawyer Oberstein appealed and the Appellate Division reversed the decision, saying that Miller’s suit should have been dismissed.
The opinion, written by Presiding Justice Gildersleeve and concurred in by Justice McLean, says:
“The test of liability in such cases depends upon the question whether the injury was committed by the authority of the master, expressly conferred, or fairly inferable from the nature of the employment and the duties incident thereto. The mere statement of this rule answers the question in favor of the defendant in this case. The act of the driver was a wilful and malicious act. It was not done in furtherance of his master’s business and was in no way connected with or incident to the performance of any of the duties intrusted to him as a driver, or which could be considered as promoting the defendant’s interests. The rule as stated in Gervin vs. N. Y. Central R. R. Co., 166 N. Y. 289, is as follows: ‘If a servant goes outside of his employment and, without regard to his service, acting maliciously or in order to effect some purpose of his own, wantonly commits a trespass or causes damage to another, the master is not responsible.’ The plaintiff failed to prove any liability on the part of the defendant and the defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint should have been granted.”
Duluth Herald
Eighteen months have elapsed since little Florence Lemoine, a pretty, dark-eyed dancer of 18 years, fell from a sidewalk on West Fourth street and sustained an injury to her back and spine which has left her a helpless and lifelong paralytic. Unconscious of her true condition and hopeful of the future, the once popular little vaudeville performer lies on her cot at her father’s ranch near Moscow, Idaho, planning theater engagements she will never fill and dreaming of new gowns and dances.
Yesterday the Minnesota supreme court handed down a decision which affirms the judgment of the district court of this city where, a few months ago, a $5,000 verdict was obtained against the city of Duluth in her favor. A jury last April awarded her damages in that amount, but the city asked for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Judge Kesler denied the motion and an appeal was taken by the city to the supreme court, the municipality denying its liability. The higher tribunal held that the city was liable.
On Aug. 17, 1913, Florence stepped off a sidewalk on the lower side of West Fourth street between Lake and First avenues west. The accident occurred during the evening while Mrs. Jane Lemoine was escorting her two daughters, Florence and 15-year-old Grace, to the Happy Hour theater, where they were filling an engagement. The sidewalk at this point is elevated several inches above the abutting property and at the time of the accident was unprotected by a rail.
Florence slipped and fell on her back. Her injuries at first were believed to be of a slight nature. Later surgeons pronounced her suffering from spinal trouble and paralysis of the lower limbs. She was taken to her room at the Frederick hotel, where the Lemoines were stopping, and there remained until after the trial of the suit against the city last April. The Lemoines left for Moscow, Idaho, about six months ago. Denny & Denny, attorneys for Frederick Lemoine, the girl’s father, who brought suit on behalf of his injured daughter, recently received word that the girl’s condition was not much improved. She is still in bed. Since her accident Florence has been of a cheerful frame of mind, probably because her true condition has been carefully withheld from her.
At the time of the accident, the two girls were appearing in a singing and dancing act at the local theater. Both are talented in their line and their appearance in Duluth was during their second season on the stage.
The Lemoines, up to five years ago, lived in Baltimore. The two girls appeared in a number of amateur theatrical performances in that city and there received their training for professional work. In 1910 their father, who was then suffering from a nervous breakdown, moved West, taking his family with him.
After the Lemoines had settled in the West, the children became much in demand at church socials and amateur theatricals on account of their talent along that line. Later, the girls were offered a vaudeville engagement with a song and dance act. At first the mother refused to allow her daughters to go on the stage, but after a flattering salary had been offered, she finally consented. She accompanied them on their tour as chaperone. The season was about half over when Florence met with her accident. The father remained on the ranch in Idaho because of his poor health.
During the trial of the case last April, Florence was brought into the courtroom on two occasions, both times on her cot. She nervously twitched at her bedclothes and at her jewelry while she told the story of the affair as she remembered it. She told the jury that she was spending most of her time now drawing sketches and that until she got well enough to get back to the stage she expected to devote her time to art.
The two girls were earning from $75 to $140 a week with their act, according to testimony which was adduced at the trial.
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISION
San Francisco Chronicle
The Supreme Court of the United States has decided in the case of Mrs. Ethel Coope Mackenzie of San Francisco that the federal expatriation law of 1907 is constitutionally applicable to women that continue to live in this country after marrying foreigners as well as to those that marry foreigners and live abroad.
The ruling settles finally a test case that has become internationally famous in suffrage circles. In effect, it is much more sweeping than the bare recorded fact would indicate, including in its wide range a host of women, in and out of states where they have the vote, who are married to men not citizens of the United States.
It means, applied locally, simply this: A woman born in California, herself a citizen of the United States with the right to vote, automatically relinquishes her citizenship and that right the moment she becomes the wife of a foreigner, whether the foreigner is a resident or not.
Mrs. Mackenzie, who brought the test case, is the wife of Gordon Mackenzie, known on the concert platform as Mackenzie Gordon, the Scotch tenor. Her husband, who is a nephew of the late Sir Morell Mackenzie, a famous English surgeon, has been a resident of San Francisco for the last twelve years. He has lived in this country for more than twenty years. She was herself born in California, the daughter of J. F. Coope of Santa Cruz, a well known California pioneer. But the fact that her husband, born a British subject, has never taken out citizenship papers in this country, makes Mrs. Mackenzie, by the ruling of the supreme court, an alien in the eyes of the law of the United States.
A curious feature of the unusual case is that Mrs. Mackenzie was one of the most ardent of the workers for suffrage during the campaign which resulted in the women being given the vote in California.
The ruling affects also, in sweeping fashion, a large number of other women socially prominent in San Francisco. It includes Baroness Van Eck, who was Miss Agnes Tillman and who is still a resident of this state; Baroness Von Brincken, formerly Miss Milo Abercombie, also living here; Countess Von Falkenstein, who was Miss Azalea P. Keyes; Mrs. John Hubert Ward, who was Miss Jean Reid, and a great number of others.
Mrs. Mackenzie, who, since her marriage to the famous tenor in August, 1909, has been living at 2832 Jackson Street, was among the first to appear at the polls after the state had enfranchised its feminine population. She was refused the privilege of voting. The California courts, in which the case was instituted, decided against her. Now the ruling of the highest tribunal in the country upholds the lower courts.
“It was something of a shock,” she said, “to learn that after two years of hard work to bring suffrage to California I could not enjoy the right I had helped to give other women. Investigation showed, of course, that I could gain my citizenship and my right to vote, and also retain my husband, by his application for naturalization papers, but I did not wish to accept citizenship on those terms, and so I brought a test case.
“My husband kindly delayed his citizenship until my case might be presented in the courts. Now that it is decided, he will become a citizen. This means that I shall be received back into the fold, but only because I am his wife.”
Concerning the effect of her test case, Mrs. Mackenzie stated that she had just heard that a Mackenzie Club had been organized in Oregon, for the purpose of “looking into the matter.”
Wisconsin State Journal
Excess fare cannot be charged of passengers on the railroads of Wisconsin when tickets are purchased on the trains, unless provision is made to refund the amount of overcharge.
This is the effect of an opinion rendered by Attorney General F. L. Gilbert today. Prior to the passage of the two-cent fare law the Northwestern and St. Paul roads charged 10 cents in addition to the regular fare when the fare was paid on trains. This practice was temporarily discontinued when the two-cent fare law was passed, because of the heavy penalty provided for violations. An attempt has been made to find out if the railroad commission would not permit this additional fee being charged. An opinion was asked of the attorney general. He said:
“It seems to me that the plain spirit, intent and purpose of the law in question was to establish a maximum passenger rate beyond which common carriers could not, in any event, go and retain the excess as their absolute property.
“I am therefore of the opinion that such excess fare cannot be legally collected from a passenger unless provision is made for refund, or an act of the legislature is passed allowing the collection and retention of said excess as a penalty for failure to purchase a ticket at a point where facilities are provided.”
About two weeks ago, Lloyd W. Bowers, general counsel for the Northwestern and Burton Hanson, general solicitor for the St. Paul, brought this matter before the commission. During the course of a conference, the railroads claimed that the old law allowing an excess fare to be charged had not been abrogated. The attorney general held differently.
INSANITY CASE
Chicago Herald
Baptiste Bardoli is on his way.
Over in Italy, on a big estate at Lenno, near the shores of Lake Como, Baptiste’s aged father is waiting to see him—that is, he was waiting to see him when Baptiste last heard, about three months ago.
Baptiste was on his way to Italy last June when he left his home in Oakland, Cal., provided with some $200 in cash, long green tickets for the train and small red tickets for the boat—clear to Italy.
Baptiste also took with him two large bottles of Zinfandel. The bottles were wrapped in twisted straw, through which the red wine could be seen sparkling inside the green glass.
The traveler arrived in Chicago without the bottles but with the contents. Policemen met Baptiste at the railroad station. They stopped him from biting the iron fence of the train shed. They took him to the Harrison street police station.
A man wearing a white coat came in and looked at Baptiste. The man took a yellow sheet of paper and wrote as follows:
“June 30, 1914.—I have examined Baptiste Bardoli and believe him to be insane and recommend his commitment to an institution. He is on his way from Oakland, Cal., to Italy and arrived in Chicago on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company. Respectfully,
Alfred Leroy, M. D.,
Assistant City Physician.”
Baptiste was taken to the detention home. On July 2 a jury composed of one physician heard testimony concerning Baptiste’s actions and returned a verdict to the effect that Baptiste was insane—that he had “alcoholic hallucinosis”—that he manifested suicidal and homicidal tendencies and had about $96 on his person.
County Judge John E. Owens appointed Walter F. Sommers, an attorney, conservator for the money, and turned Baptiste over to the Chicago State Hospital for the Insane at Dunning.
Baptiste “came to” on July 4 and called for his trousers. He was denied. He protested his sanity. He admitted his temporary inebriety, but swore that he had no more bottles of green glass wrapped in straw. It was no use.
Baptiste wrote letters to the Italian consul. He implored the doctors and pictured for them the father who was waiting to see him on the shores of Lake Como. About a month ago he convinced the Dunning authorities of his sanity, and they began to arrange for his release.
Investigators at the office of the Italian consul declared that they tried to get Conservator Sommers to turn over some money to Baptiste, so that he could be released. They say Attorney Sommers replied that under the Illinois law he had been appointed for a year, and as far as the court records showed, Baptiste was still insane. Moreover, it was vacation time, and there was no session of the Probate Court.
Yesterday Judge Owens entered an order restoring Baptiste to his civilian rights. Probate Judge Gregg ordered the restoration of the funds held by the conservator. The funds were restored. He was freed from the asylum.
In Illinois the records, however, will show until a year has passed that Baptiste is insane and that he can only conduct business legally through his conservator, who can’t be removed for a year.
But Baptiste is happy—he’s on his way to Italy.
PROPOSED LAW SUIT
New York Sun
For why should the Kaminoka Strumolova Sick and Benevolent Association pay out money for burying a man who is not yet dead? For why that hearse, $8; that headstone, $35; those two funeral coaches for $11 when Leon Welfish, the dear dead one, is alive already and in his own town of Kaminoka, Galicia?
Not for often will the Kaminoka Strumolova Sick and Benevolent Association make such a fool of itself and those money spendings for the hearse, the headstone, the funeral coaches and all the rest making of Two Hu-u-ndred dollars!—to the court here by a lawyer the Kaminoka Strumolova is going for recovering. To the court by Lawyer William Schneider the Kaminoka Strumolova is going and make for getting back all that money because Leon Welfish did not have the use of it, being not at all dead and buried.
Aye-yah; it is all right enough for the hospital people in the place at Central Islip to say that there was mistaking in sending Leon Welfish to be buried by the Kaminoka Strumolova when it was not Leon at all who had died, but some one else. It’s all right to say these things, but that does not pay back the moneys for such a comfortable funeral that some one else enjoyed. Oh no. The State of New York by the courts will have to pay back those moneys for those mistakes. It is to the Court of Claims in Washington that the lawyer is going to make the State to pay up these losses by the Kaminoka Strumolova.
Listen.
Came to this country from Kaminoka, which is in Galicia, which is of Austria, Leon Welfish, a young man who did not have great strength but who was honest and who would never try to cheat anybody. Came Leon Welfish by New York and he worked as tailor until one night when he didn’t work, but fell down on the sidewalk by Lewis street and they takes him to Bellevue. They looks at him for three days—observations, they calls it—and then they sends him to the State hospital for poor insane ones at Central Islip. Leon goes and everybody is sorry that he is one of the poor insane ones.
But then, before Leon Welfish is by the hospital very long, comes the immigrationers from Ellis Island and they say Leon Welfish is unfit for being in this country and never should have come by New York. Back he goes to Kaminoka, Galicia; so say these immigrationers.
Everybody believes that Leon Welfish must go back to Kaminoka, and his friends by Rivington street are mourning that such a good boy goes home. Then one day—it was the 5th day of August, two years ago—comes to one of Leon Welfish’s friends by Rivington street this message from the hospital:
“Leon Welfish is dead. Pleurisy makes it. Shall we bury him or do his friends make the buryings?”
Of course it is to be that the Kaminoka Strumolova, which is the society belonging to Leon Welfish, shall make the buryings. Leon was a member standing good and every member has for his money a good burial or good doctors when in sickness. So says the Kaminoka Strumolova, “We make the buryings.”
They makes. It costs all the $8 for hearse, $35 for headstones and the rest of those $200 which belongs to Leon Welfish for being a dead member of the Kaminoka Strumolova. Nobody sees Leon Welfish before the buryings, for the hospital people sends it so no one sees. All of the society makes of itselves assessments for paying the funeral and three members of committee wear white gloves and rides in those for $11 hacks to Mount Zion Cemetery.
Leon Welfish’s papa and mamma, which are by Kaminoka yet, gets a letter from the Kaminoka Strumolova which says Leon is dead and has a good buryings for $200—a very good buryings—and very sorry to have to say these sad tidings. Then Leon Welfish’s papa and mamma make mournings by their dead son, and all of his friends by Kaminoka make mournings.
Comes to Kaminoka then one very dark and rainy night Leon Welfish, who was sent home by the immigrationers. Comes Leon and knocks at the door of his papa and mamma’s house.
“Hello, my papa; hello, my mamma!” says Leon when they opens the door, and Leon’s papa calls for police and Leon’s mamma has a fit on the floor right in front of him.
After that Leon Welfish and Leon’s papa and mamma make a great rage because he was dead and is not really dead. They make writings to the Kaminoka Strumolova to know for why was that mistake made. Strumolova makes investigations and now it goes to court by a lawyer.
SUIT FOR SEPARATION
New York Telegram
Alleging that for the sake of her three children she had endured verbal and physical abuse of violent character for seventeen years, Mrs. Clara Hansen, of No. 10 Western Parkway, to-day filed suit for separation in the Supreme Court against her husband, Harry L. Hansen, worth a million, and half owner in the Schmidt and Hansen Brewing Company of Newark. Mr. Hansen makes his home at No. 190 East Ninety-ninth street.
Accompanying the affidavits of Mrs. Hansen is a deposition from her sixteen-year-old son, Oscar, in which he corroborates many of the stories of beatings and other abuses alleged by his mother, and makes the statement that his father’s treatment of himself was such that he was glad when his mother established a second home and took the children with her. In addition to Oscar, the Hansens have a daughter, Nellie, thirteen, and another son, Henry, twelve years old.
Mrs. Hansen was represented in the preliminary court proceedings by Mrs. Harriette M. Johnston-Wood, of the law firm of Wood & Wood, No. 2 Rector street, a well known leader of the suffragist movement.
In the papers filed Mrs. Hansen states that she was married to Harry L. Hansen in this city in 1897 and that they went from New York to Washington to begin their honeymoon trip. Three days after the wedding, she alleges, while they were still in Washington, her husband became violently angry and, after choking her, threw her against the furniture in their room.
Later, at the Grand Hotel, at St. Augustine, Fla., he refused to talk to her, she asserts, and they returned to this city without speaking to each other. Their first home, she says, was established in a house owned by Mr. Hansen, at No. 99 East Eightieth street, and there, she sets forth, he beat her frequently and repeatedly swore at her, and said, “I hate your peaceful face; I’m tired of it.”
Before Oscar was born, in 1898, she further alleges, her husband accused her of being on friendly terms with the tradesmen who came to the house. After the boy was born he told her that, since he had an heir, he had no further use for her and, opening the front door, said, “This way out.”
In 1900, she says, while she was in Berlin with her husband, she was compelled to go to a sanitarium, and later, when they were in the Alps, he left her and went to England, where she finally located him.
To escape his abuse two years later, she went to Philadelphia, and in 1909 she went to Europe with her daughter, returning later at her husband’s earnest requests. The final separation, she states, took place in 1911, when she established a separate home for herself and her children.
In the deposition made by the son Oscar, he states that on several occasions he saw his father beat and abuse his mother. The boy also states that his father had violent fits of temper on an average of once a month and that on one occasion, when he became displeased with the boy, he drew a knife and destroyed the wireless apparatus which the child had spent an entire winter in building.
Mrs. Hansen asks for $200 a week temporary alimony and $25,000 counsel fees. She states that the brewery in which her husband is interested turns out 750,000 barrels of beer annually and that he has other sources of income.
DIVORCE CASE
Detroit News
The story of the married life of Dr. Arthur and Mildred S. Smith, from 1900 to 1913 reads the same as that of any struggling young physician in a large city. But—
In 1913 the physician found fortune smiling on him and he turned to look at his wife and his gold. She had faded during those years when $1 was made to last longer than $10 would now.
“I am just in his way now,” said Mrs. Smith to Judge Van Zile, while testifying in her suit for divorce. The doctor filed his bill several months ago and she filed a cross-bill.
A younger girl, with golden hair, red cheeks and lips has come between the doctor and his wife, according to Mrs. Smith.
“I filled in all right when someone was needed to slave and dig the dirt out of the office floors and dust the furniture,” continued the woman. “He didn’t have time to look at me then to see whether I looked good to him or not.
“We worked mechanically, shoulder to shoulder. I played my part and he played his. The business and my husband’s bank account would lead anyone to think that it was a success.”
Mrs. Smith, a little woman, her eyes filled with tears, seemed to reflect a moment and then continued:
“Perhaps it is a success. It seems that success must be measured in dollars and cents no matter who gets the gold. He undoubtedly is happy, but—I—I am a wreck.”
Mrs. Smith said that when her baby was born her husband told her not to stay in the hospital too long as she was needed in the office. She says that she left the hospital in three weeks and the child died at the end of five weeks.
“It was always so,” she continued. “He always wanted me in the office and I was willing to stay. It was only a few years ago that he went abroad, and I remained at home, as we both agreed that it would cost too much for us both. Then he took several other equally expensive trips, but he never asked me to go.”
Mrs. Smith said she and her husband had always been active in the Summerfield Methodist church, and that her husband even carried his dislike for her to the church, urging her not to go to any of the meetings, either social or religious.
“I was active in home missionary work,” said Mrs. Smith, “and he told me that it didn’t look well for me always to be mixing in with the church affairs. I told him I couldn’t conscientiously drop my church work and wouldn’t.”
Mrs. Smith declared her husband had told her he couldn’t afford to live with her any longer as she wasn’t so attractive as another girl he knew and her company tired him instead of affording him rest and comfort.
“His father also told me that I might as well get out right away as Walter had to have some one younger and more attractive,” she said. “The old father said: ‘You don’t fit into Walter’s station in life and you might as well get out without a fuss, as you will have to move some time.’”
Mrs. Smith testified that her husband’s practice is worth between $400 and $600 a week, and that he owns three automobiles.
“I just rode in one of them, however,” she added. “The office girl rides in them most of the time.”
Dr. Smith stated in his bill that his wife had an ungovernable temper and that she called up his patients and advised them not to consult him. The doctor further stated that these and other things ruined his health and his business.
Mrs. Smith was given the decree.
RECEIVERSHIP PROCEEDINGS
Chicago Tribune
Inflated reports of sales by managers of branch houses, extending over a period of three years, and resulting in a misleading annual statement, it was said yesterday, were responsible for the receivership proceedings for Robert Z. Link & Co.
The Chicago banks which were the principal creditors of the corporation discovered the character of these statements a few days ago in an audit of the books, and at once took steps to protect creditors.
The other explanation advanced for the crisis in the company’s affairs came from Secretary William H. Arthur.
“In the panic last fall,” he declared, “poor people, who are the firm’s principal customers, could not afford to buy even the cheapest fish. They became vegetarians. If we could have tided over our financial difficulties until after Lent we would have weathered the storm. Trade was just beginning to pick up.”
Developments of the day were as follows:
Receiver William T. Harrison, learning that fish, oysters, and other sea foods were lying in the cars, took measures to obtain the fullest powers in conducting a business based upon transactions in perishable products.
Four Chicago banks that hold nearly $2,500,000 of the firm’s paper, some of it accepted two months ago, held a conference and discussed reorganization of the company.
Minority creditors prepared to organize.
Efforts were made to find out what the company did with the proceeds of $1,000,000 worth of preferred stock issued last October. Officials say it was used to take up short term notes and to buy warehouses and plants to prevent competition. Creditors believe exorbitant sums were paid for the plants.
Ancillary receivers were appointed for branch plants of the company in various parts of the country.
Receiver Harrison issues a statement practically exonerating Link brothers for blame for the financial straits of the Company.
An official of one of the four Chicago banks which hold nearly $2,500,000 of the firm’s paper said that the receiver was appointed after the banks had learned that some persons connected with Robert Z. Link & Co. had issued misleading statements concerning its volume of business. The Link brothers are not believed to have known anything about these false statements.
The company, it appears, has a number of ambitious managers of its branch houses in various parts of the country. Each manager gets a percentage on his total sales. Some of them, to obtain the commission, it is asserted, juggled their reports in such a manner that their total sales appeared to be much larger than they really were, and the annual report was in consequence misleading. The company had no system of checking up these reported sales, and it was not until the bankers put an auditing firm upon the books, after they suspected something following the issuance of the last annual statement, that the discrepancies were discovered.
The fact that the last annual statement does not account for new money, the proceeds of the last stock issue, also is being investigated.
Secretary Arthur had a different explanation to make.
“The panic of last fall, and vegetarianism to which the poor were reduced when thrown out of employment,” he declared, “are responsible for most of our troubles.
“It is a well known fact that the company supplied two-thirds of the oysters, fish, and all sea food eaten in this country. The bulk of this trade is among poor people. The company’s chief business has been in fish that retails at 8, 10, and 15 cents a pound, especially in large cities. We depended most upon our business in fresh water fish—the largest in the world in herring, lake perch and such cheaper varieties. This trade came from working people.
“When the working people were thrown out of employment and stopped buying fish, our trade fell off tremendously. It has just begun to pick up, and if the bankers had not taken alarm and had given us a little more time, we should have come out all right.”
Mr. Arthur said that the $1,000,000 acquired in the last issue of preferred stock had mostly gone to pay short term notes.
Receiver Harrison in the afternoon went to Lake Geneva to hold a conference with Judge Kohlsaat, who had been originally selected as the judge before whom the receivership proceedings were to be held.
“I wish to secure the fullest authority for conducting the business, which is based so largely upon perishable products, so that there will be no loss,” said Mr. Harrison. “I already have that power, but I want to have it specified more clearly.”
Representatives from several railroads called on Mr. Harrison before his departure to ask what should be done with quantities of fish that were standing in the cars on sidetracks. The company has $600,000 in available cash to carry on its business. It is estimated that $1,000,000 will be needed.
Mr. Harrison made a statement in which he said:
“From the examination of the books of Robert Z. Link & Co. that has been possible since my appointment as receiver I should say that the Link family owns about 60 per cent of the preferred, and about 50 per cent of the common stock. When the $1,000,000 of preferred stock was issued within the year, it would appear that the Link family paid their assessment on this stock and took their full pro rata, and I cannot find that any transfer of any of their shares has been made.”
ASSIGNMENT
New York Times
Henry W. Williams, who carried on a banking and brokerage business at 33 Wall Street, assigned yesterday for the benefit of his creditors, to Mark T. Cox of the firm of Robert Winthrop & Co. Mr. Williams was the publisher of Williams’ Investors’ Manual, and is a director in several other concerns.
No figures were given out yesterday as to the extent of his liabilities, but it was said by a representative of important banking interests that no complications involving other Wall Street houses need be expected as a result of the failure. First estimates put the loss at between $5,000,000 and $10,000,000, but as the part which H. W. Williams & Co. has played recently in the money market has been steadily diminishing, it is believed that the liabilities will amount to from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000. Hawkins & Delafield are the attorneys for some of the principal creditors of the firm.
Lewis L. Delafield of this firm conferred yesterday afternoon with John L. Cadwalader of Strong & Cadwalader, the attorneys for the assignee. They gave out this statement after the conference:
Henry W. Williams, transacting business in the State of New York under the name of H. W. Williams & Co., has made a general assignment for the benefit of creditors to Mark T. Cox of Robert Winthrop & Co. There are no preferences beyond such as the statute gives to employes.
A superficial examination justifies the belief that if the creditors, who are few in number, will co-operate in enabling the assignee to effect a favorable liquidation of the assets, a large sum will be realized for their benefit. Written assurances of important financial assistance to such creditors as will co-operate to that end have been given.
Neither Mr. Cox, the assignee, nor Messrs. Robert Winthrop & Co. are interested as creditors or otherwise in the assigned estate.
None of the lawyers yesterday would make an estimate of the extent of the failure. Some surprise was expressed at the wording of the deed of assignment filed in the County Clerk’s office. It read: “H. W. Williams, trading as H. W. Williams & Co.” as though the assignor had no partners in the firm. The latest corporation directories give the firm’s personnel as H. W. Williams, Frederick A. Farrar, W. N. Phoenix, Franklyn W. Hunt, Charles F. Cushman, and Henry V. Williams. Of these Messrs. Farrar, Hunt, and Cushman live near Boston, where the firm had a branch office.
It was said at the office of Hawkins & Delafield that Henry W. Williams some time ago filed the necessary deed with the County Clerk authorizing him to use the firm name after his partners had resigned their interests. No information could be obtained as to when the dissolution of partnership took place.
It is understood that Mr. Williams’ resources have been dwindling for some time. His firm engaged in several unprofitable consolidations, and in the slump in stocks of March, 1907, it was reported that the concern was hard hit. The October panic found it again in bad shape to meet a financial storm.
Mr. Williams began business in 1865 as H. V. & H. W. Williams, and became widely known as the publisher of Williams’ Investors’ Manual. In 1880 he entered the banking business as a partner in the house of Anthony, Williams & Oliphant. A year later this concern was succeeded by Williams, Oliphant & Co. It was, however, as a member of the house of Williams & Greenough that Mr. Williams attained his greatest prominence in Wall Street. He was particularly active in leather and ice, and is said to have made about $5,000,000 by his operations in these lines.
In 1899 the firm was dissolved, and Mr. Williams continued in business as H. W. Williams & Co. Since then he has been interested in a number of consolidations which have turned out to be heavy drains upon him. Among these was the Colonial Sugar Company, which has since been absorbed by the Cuban American Sugar Company.
Mr. Williams formed the Colonial concern by merging a number of Cuban and Louisiana sugar properties in which he was interested. The venture was unprofitable, and it was said last night by an officer of the company that Mr. Williams’ firm had dropped between $300,000 and $400,000 in it.
Another of his interests was the Newton & Northwestern Railroad of Iowa, which has since been taken over by the Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern Railroad. Suit was brought against him recently by Howard Willetts on account of the investment which he had made in the road on the recommendation of Henry Williams & Co. Mr. Willetts is suing for $243,000, the price of 200 of the bonds of the company, on the ground that the line is not earning enough to pay its fixed charges. The case is still pending.
Other concerns in which Mr. Williams has had large interests are the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company and the United States Casualty Company, of which he was a Director, and the Postal Telegraph Cable Company of Texas, of which he is President, now a part of the system of the American Telegraph and Telephone Company.
For some years H. W. Williams & Co. has maintained an office in Boston. It has dealt exclusively in bonds, bidding for local, as well as Massachusetts State, and city issues. The last issue in which the Boston branch figured was that of the United States Envelop Company of Worcester, Mass., which issued $2,000,000 worth a couple of months ago. The firm has also invested heavily in American Telephone Company and Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad bonds. Boston bankers do not consider that the failure will have any important effect on other houses.
Outside of financial circles Mr. Williams occupied an important position in society and was an art lover. His house at Tuxedo Park has been known as one of the finest examples of modern country residences. His town house, 1 Lexington Avenue, facing Gramercy Park and exactly opposite to the residence of the late Stanford White, one of his warm friends, has been renowned for its rich and artistic decorations.
Mr. Williams was a liberal supporter of music, and helped many students to follow their profession. He is, however, best known as a book collector. For years he spent large sums on rare editions and fine bindings. He brought together a library with hardly an equal in America. Among his special treasures were a first edition of Thomas à Kempis’s “Imitatio Christi,” Higden’s “Polychronicon,” and some rare Americana. His collection was estimated as worth between $200,000 and $300,000.
A few months ago it was announced that this library was to be sold at auction. It was the first intimation to the world at large that Mr. Williams was in financial difficulties. The sale began on Nov. 12, and the first day’s offerings brought in $19,000. Some of the leading book collectors of the country, such as J. Pierpont Morgan and Senator Henry C. Lodge, sent representatives, and by the time the first two sections had been disposed of $75,000 was realized. It is understood that the three other sections are still more valuable.
Five years ago Miss Edith Williams was married to Capt. James K. Modison of the Warwick Regiment of the British Army. It was one of the most brilliant social functions of the year, the best man being Sir E. Stewart Richardson, and the ushers Pierre Lorillard, R. Monroe Ferguson, Arthur Derby, Frederick C. Havemeyer, Jr., J. Insile Blair, Jr., J. M. Waterbury, Jr., Henry V. Poor, and Roger Poor. The bridesmaids were the Misses Violet Cruger, Janet Fish, Muriel Robbins, and Helen Cutting.
Note—The way in which the human interest can be brought out in what might ordinarily be considered routine news, is shown by the second of the following two stories.
PATENT AWARD
(1)
New York Times
The Board of Examiners of the Patent Office decided that the man who made the hydroaeroplane possible was not Glenn H. Curtiss, but Albert S. Janin, a poor cabinet maker of Staten Island.
In 1910 Mr. Curtiss began testing a canoe device to carry the planes on the water till the momentum necessary to lift them was obtained, but it did not work.
In the controversy that followed the use of the present device, which consists mainly of outrigging to keep the planes on an even keel, it came out that Mr. Janin had really produced the device in 1909, about a year before Mr. Curtiss had failed to raise his machines at Hammondsport.
Thomas A. Hill, a lawyer, of 233 Broadway, took up Janin’s claims and put them before the examiners of Interference of the Patent Office. Mr. Hill alleged that on July 3, 1910, Curtiss tried four times in vain to raise his plane from Lake Keuka; also that Curtiss admitted the failure. It was shown that drawings of the successful device now in use were made by Janin long before this date, and that he tried to build a machine to test it in operation, but couldn’t get the money.
Mr. Curtiss contended that the device was his, and that it had failed at Lake Keuka because the motors were not strong enough to do their share of the work. In deciding against Mr. Janin the Examiners of Interference said:
While he (Curtiss) was thus engaged Janin was sleeping on his rights, from which slumber he did not awake until after the achievements of Curtiss had been widely published.
Then the case was taken before the Board of Examiners, who found for Mr. Janin. Their opinion reads in part:
He (Janin) is a poor man, evidently struggling for a sufficient income to meet his current living expenses. From what his witnesses testify, it is apparent that he was continuously striving to raise funds to develop his ideas, which were regarded by many as illusionary.
It also came out that Janin, in the years he was working on his water flyer, was the butt of many, who looked upon him as unbalanced by one idea.
Concerning the statements of Curtiss that his motors were not powerful enough, the Examiners said:
An excuse of this kind for failure to make flights could probably be advanced in good faith by hundreds of inventors of aeroplanes, who have been seeking patents for the last forty or fifty years.
Mr. Hill said yesterday that Janin’s success probably would make him wealthy; also that an order for 200 hydroaeroplanes is awaiting any manufacturer who can furnish security that they can be delivered. He said the order was from one of the belligerents in Europe, but did not know which.
“The Curtiss factory,” he said, “can turn out about ten planes a week at a cost of about $7,000 each. But no matter who turns them out they will have to pay a royalty to Mr. Janin.”
(2)
New York Evening World
Albert S. Janin, cabinet maker, the other night took off his apron in the shop in which he has worked eight hours a day for the last fourteen years at Rosebank, Staten Island, walked up to the foreman and resigned his job.
He didn’t quit in a huff—a fact that was plainly attested by the manner in which the foreman wrung his hand and his fellow workmen crowded around him, their faces beaming.
“Congratulations, Al,” said the foreman simply. From somewhere in the crowd spoke one of Janin’s intimates:
“The ‘Bug’ has made good. Whaddaya know about that?”
“Well,” rejoined Janin, good-naturedly, “it no longer will be Janin, the cabinet maker, or Janin, the Bug, the dreamer and the impostor. I guess the handle to my name has been pretty firmly established as ‘Janin, inventor of the hydro-aeroplane.’”
And that night the modest little 5-room Janin flat was the scene of a celebration the like of which has never been seen at Rosebank. Most enthusiastic of the guests were men who, for the last ten years, have scoffed at the strange looking winged craft in the Janin back yard, which, the poor carpenter persisted, would some day be recognized by the patent office as the first flying boat.
Rosebank went on the map to stay at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, when word was received from Washington that the board of examiners-in-chief of the patent office had decided unanimously that the man who made the hydro-aeroplane possible was not Glenn H. Curtiss, but Albert S. Janin, the poor cabinet maker of Staten Island. For four years the powerful Curtiss interests had fought the claims of the obscure and almost penniless carpenter, through the patent office and to its highest court—the board of examiners-in-chief.
He would not have won out probably had not Thomas A. Hill, a patent lawyer of New York, taken the case, out of a sense of justice, without compensation. As a former president of the Aeronautical Society of America, and at present a director, Mr. Hill went into the litigation to see fair play.
Just how it feels to a struggling workman, whose $5 a day is barely enough to provide the necessities of life for a wife and seven children, to find himself suddenly famous with a fortune within his grasp, Janin tried to explain.
“We put it over, didn’t we, mother?” Janin beamed, affectionately patting his wife. “If it hadn’t been that she stuck to me—believed in me, when all the rest were poking fun and scoffing—I never would have made it.”
“And if it hadn’t been,” Mrs. Janin interrupted, “that after your hard day’s work for almost every night in the last ten or fifteen years, you burned the oil at your work bench until long after midnight, you never would have made it.”
“The best part of this invention is that, unlike a whole lot of others, it’s going to bring us money—gobs of it,” Janin broke in. “For years we have felt the pinch of poverty, but thanks to Mr. Hill and his work in Washington, I guess that day is past. You know the decision of the patent office gives me a royalty on every hydro-aeroplane turned out in this country dating from the day a few weeks hence on which my patent is printed and issued by the government. Mr. Hill tells me that the royalty can be fixed arbitrarily by the inventor. The failure of any of these companies building hydro-aeroplanes to come to terms, of course, would be followed by an infringement suit, but we don’t expect any such difficulty.
“What will I do with the money? The first thing will be to get a home of our own with plenty of ground around it for the kids to play in. No more of these flats for us. But we are going to stay right here in Rosebank, where my wife and I were born and brought up. You know we were sweethearts, even at old public school No. 13, around the corner. Most of the kids are now going to that same school. The oldest girl, Antoinette, who is now 14, can realize her ambition to go to normal school and take up teaching, if she wants to—but she don’t have to now.”
AN ADOPTED CHILD
Kansas City Star
The Patrick Sullivans had a bad three hours last night.
You see, it was only a month ago that theirs was a childless family. Mary had grown up and was teaching and there were no babies around the house. Then they found a 1-month-old baby boy, abandoned in St. Aloysius’s Church, and adopted him. The cheery household it has been since then!
But yesterday a young woman arrived at the Sullivan home, 961 Walnut Street, and said that she was the baby’s mother, and that the baby’s father had only abandoned him temporarily because they were then in desperate straits, but that everything had come out all right financially and now wouldn’t the Sullivans give her back her boy?
The Sullivans wouldn’t. Not last night.
That’s when their bad three hours began. If their hearts were wrung so at abandoning a baby not their own, what must be the mother’s feelings? That won the day.
Papa Sullivan went to Judge Hinton this morning. He, had been to him last week to adopt the baby legally. Now he wanted to know if that legal process would stand in the way of his returning the baby to its mother. Judge Hinton said it would not prevent such action, and he believed that it would be best to give the child to its mother. But he didn’t look at Papa Sullivan when he said it. Men don’t like to see each other wet-eyed.
“She’ll come back,” said Papa Sullivan, “and she can get him.”
Judge Hinton this afternoon made an order at the request of Mr. Sullivan declaring the adoption of the baby by the Sullivans void. The request was made on the ground that the mother had appeared and had shown herself capable of properly caring for the child. The mother did not appear in court. No further action will be necessary. The mother need only go to the Sullivan home and get her baby.
Note—The provision in the will given in the New York court story making bequests to Chicago nurses, formed the basis of the local story in the Chicago paper; both stories follow.
WILL ADMITTED TO PROBATE
(1)
New York Sun
The will of Walter H. Hammond, the wealthy butterine manufacturer, who was shot dead in the Pennsylvania station in Jersey City ten days ago by Peter Grew, who had a fancied grievance against him, was admitted to probate in Jersey City yesterday. After making a number of specific bequests, including amounts of $500, $250 and $100 to thirty-seven old employees, the residue of the estate goes to the next of kin, share and share alike. Col. Robert A. Hammond is one of the brothers.
Col. Willard C. Ward, who drew the will on October 1 last and filed it yesterday, said that he didn’t care to discuss the value of the estate, as he believed that the bequests indicated about what the value is. He wouldn’t give an opinion as to the value of the butterine business or how much of the estate will be left for the four brothers, two sisters, two nieces and a nephew after the bequests have been settled. The estate is believed to be worth at least $800,000, and probably $1,000,000, as Mr. Hammond is said to have owned much property in addition to his butterine business.
Mr. Hammond leaves his entire holdings in the firm of Hammond & Person, of which he was practically the only stockholder, to three legatees. They are Miss Alice C. Hagan, daughter of a Jersey City policeman, who had been his private secretary for many years and was said to have been engaged to him; Dr. Oscar Bauer, his physician and one of the executors of the estate, and Henry C. Berger, superintendent of his butterine plant.
One of the first bequests provides for the payment of $25,000 to Anna Louise Cooley of New York city as soon as possible. Of this amount $500 is to be paid at once and the balance at the rate of $100 a month. Sarah B. Johnson and Mabel E. Wilkins of Jersey City, employees of the firm of Hammond & Person for many years, receive $1,500 each. Nellie P. Hamilton, a stenographer in the office of Col. Ward, who assisted in drawing the will, gets $250. Gertrude M. Burns, a daughter of Henry Burns of 314 Devine avenue, Jersey City, where Mr. Hammond lived for seventeen years, receives $500. John J. Jones, manager of Mr. Hammond’s butterine company, gets the shares in the American Butter, Cheese and Egg Company that were owned by Mr. Hammond. Concerning one of the bequests the will says:
During several days’ illness in Chicago I was a patient in the Presbyterian Hospital, where I was faithfully nursed by the trained nurses. I desired to recognize the care I received at their hands. I therefore give and bequeath to the following members of the Illinois Training School for Nurses: Nellie G. Burke, $500; Minnie C. Phillips, $500; Jennie Van Horn, $1,500.
This illness occurred about six years ago, when Mr. Hammond had typhoid fever. His physician, Dr. Bauer, was with him at the time, and was also ill.
In making the bequests of from $500 to $100 to thirty-seven employees, who include men and women working both in the office and in the butterine plant, and truck drivers as well, the will says that they are remembered for their faithful services to the corporation of Hammond & Person.
The will allows the executors five years in which to make payment of all the legacies, and the remainder of the property, real, personal and mixed, is bequeathed “to the next of kin and their survivors.” The relatives named are Robert A. Hammond of New York, and Samuel A., Frederick D. and Franklin A. Hammond of Pittsburg, brothers; Josephine Block of Greensburg, Pa., and Anna Emma Dell of Los Angeles, Cal., sisters; Paul Martin, nephew, and Gladys Brown and Madeline Martin, nieces, all of Pittsburg and children of Mr. Hammond’s deceased sister, Sadie Martin.
The total cash bequests amount to $41,710, of which $10,460 goes to the thirty-seven employees named together.
Col. Robert A. Hammond, who was in Jersey City most of the afternoon yesterday, said when he returned to his office at 16 Broadway that he was acquainted with the provisions of the will and had been at Col. Ward’s office during the afternoon. He said he was to see the will at 9 o’clock this morning, and was not aware that it had been admitted to probate.
“No one has any cause for complaint over the will,” said Col. Hammond. “It was just what might have been expected from the fairest, smartest boy that ever walked the face of God’s green earth. No more generous chap ever lived than that boy, and if he had not remembered his employees as he has done it would have been most unlike him. His relatives do not begrudge the money he has left to those he chose to reward.
“There has never been the slightest break in the cordial relationship between Walter and myself or between him and any other member of the family. All this talk that has come up since my brother’s death is pure foolishness. I am the oldest and the head of the family, and the relationship between Walter and me has been almost that of father and son. I gave him his first start in life when he was a boy. I have never asked anything from him or from any one else in my life and I do not ask it now.
“Walter was the pleasantest, sunniest boy you ever knew. He did not sit at the right hand of Mr. Parkhurst, but nothing ever came up to smirch his record during his lifetime, and nothing will come up now that he is dead.
“We are all sorry that our best brother was killed and our thoughts are not on the provisions of his will, but on seeing that the man who shot him down without giving him a chance for his life is made to suffer the full penalty of his act. My entire time from now on will be devoted to that purpose. There isn’t the slightest doubt that I will get my brother’s murderer. I haven’t been wasting any time since Walter’s death.
“I know that the man who murdered my brother has been sleeping well every night and eating three square meals a day. I don’t propose to permit him to escape with an insanity plea. I have been going over the testimony of seventeen witnesses with the prosecutor and helping to get it into shape. My experience in that line makes me of some assistance, and I intend to see the prosecutor every day if necessary, in order that full justice may be done to my brother’s murder.”
(2)
Chicago Evening Post
Three Chicago nurses came into their reward to-day for faithful services and devotion six years ago to Walter H. Hammond, a wealthy butterine manufacturer of Jersey City, who was shot dead on Nov. 17 in that city by Peter Grew, who had a fancied grievance against him.
Under the terms of his will, which was filed yesterday in Jersey City, $500 is bequeathed to Miss Nellie G. Burke, 981 Carroll avenue, a like sum to Miss Minnie C. Phillips, 14 Green Tree street, and $1,500 to Miss Jennie Van Horn of Chicago, who is now with a patient in Japan.
While in the city on a business trip six years ago, Mr. Hammond was taken ill with typhoid fever at the Annex. His physicians, Dr. J. B. Herrick and Dr. Frank Billings, had difficulty in finding nurses who suited the patient. At length Miss Burke was sent for and placed in charge of the case, and she selected for her assistants Miss Phillips and Miss Van Horn.
“I remember Mr. Hammond very well and the circumstances attending his illness,” said Miss Burke to-day. “He was seriously ill and for a long time it was a question as to his recovery. We made every effort to save him and felt a keen personal delight when we knew we had won. He had always, up to the time of his death, remembered all of us, sending us presents and flowers at the holidays and in many ways showing his deep gratitude.
“We were notified by his secretary immediately after his death, but until to-day we had no idea that he had remembered us in his will. I had charge of his case two months and then had to take another patient. Miss Van Horn was with him five months during his convalescence.”
In the little apartment at 14 Green Tree street there was a sound of laughing and dancing feet. Answering the ring of a visitor Miss Phillips opened the door with such a smiling countenance as to obliterate any memory of downcast skies.
“I have just heard of Mr. Hammond’s great kindness,” she said. “Just think of $500; why it’s a nest egg for a fortune! He has always done so many nice things for us girls ever since we cared for him, but to think of his remembering us in his will! I was with him several months and we grew to be great friends after the crisis of his illness was past.
“He often came to Chicago, and frequently would call us up on arriving and arrange for us all to go to the theater, or to dinner. He was by far the most grateful patient any of us has ever had.”
SUIT TO BREAK WILL
New York Herald
An effort to obtain approximately one-half of the bequest of about $2,000,000, left to Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt for the promotion of the cause of woman suffrage, by the late Baroness de Bazus, who was Mrs. Frank Leslie, was begun in the Supreme Court yesterday by two step-grandchildren of the Baroness. They ask $400,000 each and allege that $200,000 is due to each of two other step-grandchildren.
The plaintiffs in the two actions, which are brought through James H. Westcott, of No. 40 Wall street, are Mrs. Lonetta Leslie Hollander and Mrs. Florence Leslie Weissbrod. Both are grandchildren of Frank Leslie by his first wife, Mrs. Sarah Ann Welham Leslie. They allege that by an agreement made between the Baroness and Frank Leslie December 1, 1879, she promised, in return for receiving his entire estate, to distribute by her will two-thirds of it among the children of his first wife or their heirs. This agreement, they allege, she entirely disregarded in the document which left the large residuary estate to Mrs. Catt.
William Nelson Cromwell and Louis H. Cramer, executors of the estate of the Baroness, are the defendants in both actions.
Frank Leslie was born in 1821 and in 1854 established the publishing business which at one time issued thirteen periodicals. In 1841 he married Miss Sarah Ann Welham. There were three children by the marriage, Frank Leslie, 2d; Alfred A. Leslie and Scipio L. Leslie. Mrs. Hollander is the only child of Scipio L. Leslie, who was married in June, 1875, and died in February, 1879. Mrs. Weissbrod is the only child of the late Frank Leslie, 2d, who was married January 5, 1874. Alfred A. Leslie, who was married in August, 1868, and died in August, 1905, had two children, Frank Leslie, 3d, and Arthur Leslie.
Following the death of his first wife, Frank Leslie married the Baroness May 1, 1875. She was then Mrs. Miriam Florence Peacock Squires. Her first husband was David Peacock, her second Ephraim G. Squires. There were no children by any of her marriages. Before her marriage the Baroness had been employed in the publishing business of Frank Leslie. She was born in 1828 and entered his employ in 1860. Her maiden name was Miriam Florence Follin.
Frank Leslie became financially involved about September 8, 1877, according to the two complaints now on file. It is alleged that he assigned the greater part of his property March 20, 1879, to Isaac W. England for the benefit of his creditors under an agreement whereby he was to receive the property back again in three years if the business had succeeded in clearing all indebtedness. It is said that the business did not clear the debts but that Mr. Leslie died before the property could be returned.
Mr. Leslie also agreed with his wife, it is said, to leave his entire estate to her on the condition that she would use the income and dispose of the principal in her will as follows:—One-third in any way she desired; one-third of the remaining two-thirds to each of the three children of Frank Leslie by his first wife or to their issue.
The complaints allege that the Baroness received everything which she possessed from Frank Leslie, who died leaving about $1,000,000. This was increased by her to at least $1,800,000, it is said. The plaintiffs do not ask that the agreement, which is not produced in connection with the complaint, be fulfilled. They seek instead $400,000 each as damages and allege that $200,000 is due also to Frank Leslie, 3d and Arthur Leslie.
WILL
Springfield Republican
The bequest of a bit of the wool of Mary’s lamb to the Somerville historical society in the will of Mrs P. H. Derby, which was entered in the probate court in this city yesterday, brings to light the interesting information that the nursery jingle, “Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow,” had a basis in fact. The piece of wool in question was given to Mrs Derby in 1880 by Mrs Mary E. Tyler, the original of the little lamb jingle. It is a piece of yarn tied in a bow and fastened on a piece of paper with pale blue ribbon. Under it is written the words, “wool from Mary’s lamb.” It seems that when the Old South church of Boston became involved financially one of the ways hit upon to raise money was suggested by Mrs Tyler. She took a pair of old wool stockings that her mother had knit for her from the wool of her pet lamb, and that she had never worn, but kept in memory of the departed lamb. These were cut up into lengths and made into bows, like the one that was in the possession of Mrs Derby, and sold for 25 cents each. The result was that $200 was realized, and thus the little lamb helped to save the Old South church.
The story of Mary and her lamb is authenticated and the incidents bear a close relation to the events of the poem, or rather, jingle. Mary E. Sawyer was born in Sterling, March 22, 1806, and the house in which she was born is still standing. She had two sisters and four brothers, none of whom ever had themselves immortalized in rhyme as Mary did. Mary’s father was a farmer and kept sheep. One cold morning in March, 1814, just about 100 years ago and one year over, twin lambs were born in the Sawyer sheepfold one of which was to be known in nursery rhyme for time immemorial. Like all geniuses, she—for it was a girl—displayed the vagaries of it before she was many hours old. So much so in fact that her mother would have nothing of her. Little Mary, age eight, took pity on the young thing and asked her father if she might have it, not thinking of the greatness that would come of this charitable deed. She fed and tended it, and the two became very fond of one another.
It was but natural that the lamb should in time come to have a thirst for knowledge, and, as the first stanza of the jingle has it, “It followed her to school one day,” “Which,” we are told, “was against the rule,” and, as might be expected, “it made the children laugh and play, to see a lamb at school.” It seems that the teacher laughed too, and everything was lovely for a time. But discipline had to be maintained, and:—
So then the teacher turned it out,
But still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did appear.
All of which is strictly true to fact. It appears that when Mary arrived at the school the teacher had not come yet and so the mischievous Mary hid the pet in her desk, which was a box-like affair. When school began and the children were called out for their classes, the lamb trotted out to have a hand in the proceedings. And this, alas, caused it to be put without the pale.
Now it happened, so strange are the immutable workings of fate, that a young man of 17, a freshman at Harvard, by the name of John Roulstone, Jr., was visiting the teacher at the school that day. The incident inspired him, and a short time after he wrote and sent to Mary the jingle that is so well known. The ideal way to have the thing work out would have been the marriage of Mary and the budding genius. But no, he died a few years later, never having seen Mary again, so far as there is any record.
The strain of being a celebrity was too much for the lamb and after bearing up bravely under it for two years it gave up the struggle, got in the way of a bull on Thanksgiving day, 1816, and was gored. It died an hour later, with its head on Mary’s lap.
In 1835 Mary was married to Columbus Tyler, superintendent of the McClean hospital for the insane at Somerville. She became a matron at the institution, a position she held for 35 years, and several years after her husband died. She died in Somerville, December 12, 1889, and was buried in the Mt Auburn cemetery, near Boston, the same cemetery in which the poet, Longfellow, is buried. The glowing example of what happened to Mary ought to inspire little children to be kind to dumb beasts that they too may some time taste the fruits of immortality.
Besides the lamb’s wool bequest, Mrs Derby left the following legacies to various charitable institutions: Springfield branch of the woman’s board of missions, $300; Norton memorial fund of the same organization, $200; Congregational women’s home mission society of Massachusetts, $300; trustees of the national council of the Congregational churches of the United States, $3000, to be applied to ministerial relief; Massachusetts society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, $200. Certain books from Mrs Derby’s library are bequeathed to the Springfield city library association and the remainder of the estate is to be divided equally between her two nephews, Dr Edward C. Booth of Somerville and Harry D. Booth of Albany, Ill. Charles A. Gleason is named as executor without bond.
Note—How the same piece of news may be treated in different ways is illustrated in the following two stories.
VALUE OF AN ESTATE
(1)
Chicago Tribune
Doubtless Michael Kennedy’s schooling never progressed to the point where he reaped the manifold intellectual bounties of McGuffy’s second reader. That venerable text book explains school ma’ams. Their purpose is to teach the young idea to shoot, it says.
Consequently there were those who believed Michael misguided when he opened up his shooting gallery in a basement on North Clark street near West Erie street. There Mike—for the consideration of 5 cents for five shots—taught the young idea marksmanship after a fashion of his own.
“Mike, the ne’er-do-well,” they called him for years. But a smile was Mike’s only answer. He went right on loading rifles for whoever came and painting out the bullet marks on the white targets in the gallery.
On May 23, 1913, Mike died. Public Administrator James F. Bishop took charge of the estate, hoping he would get enough out of it to bury the target tender. Mr. Bishop was surprised when he found that Mike, the “ne’er-do-well,” had a snug bank account—some $400.
Another surprise came yesterday when Administrator Bishop announced the result of his seventeen months’ investigation into Mike’s affairs. It was learned that the “ne’er-do-well” left a nephew in Blackburne, Lancashire, England, named as his sole heir. In a safety deposit vault Mike had $42,000 worth of bonds—the products of teaching the young idea to shoot.
(2)
Chicago Herald
“Mike” was a shiftless guy. Any of the bunch would tell you that. Of course he always had money. But then, too, he was always giving it away. He’d lend you anything he had if he knew you, and many’s the “bo” who got the price of a bed from him.
Mike at one time was known as Michael Kennedy, but that was not during the time he kept the shooting gallery in North Clark street. He was a rough fellow, and not very affable with strangers. But he’d go a long way for a pal.
He had his place of business in a basement room. He slept there, and entertained his friends there when not busy loading rifles for his patrons. And everybody said that he could have a good home if he were not so shiftless.
Well, “Mike” died a year ago last May, and it was found he had $400 in the bank. The county buried him and charged $106.75 to his estate. The fellows he had befriended went to the funeral and said “We told you so.” But they agreed that Mike was a good fellow.
Public Administrator James F. Bishop was appointed to take care of the shooting gallery owner’s estate. He started an investigation.
He discovered that Kennedy had a nephew in Blackburne, Lancashire, England, and that the shiftless, open-hearted, free-handed “ne’er-do-well” had just a little over $42,000 worth of gilt-edged stocks and bonds in a safety deposit vault in the Masonic Temple.
The amount was turned over to the nephew, James Kennedy, yesterday.
Receiver William T. Harrison, learning that fish, oysters, and other sea foods were lying in the cars, took measures to obtain the fullest powers in conducting a business based upon transactions in perishable products.
Four Chicago banks that hold nearly $2,500,000 of the firm’s paper, some of it accepted two months ago, held a conference and discussed reorganization of the company.
Minority creditors prepared to organize.
Efforts were made to find out what the company did with the proceeds of $1,000,000 worth of preferred stock issued last October. Officials say it was used to take up short term notes and to buy warehouses and plants to prevent competition. Creditors believe exorbitant sums were paid for the plants.
Ancillary receivers were appointed for branch plants of the company in various parts of the country.
Receiver Harrison issues a statement practically exonerating Link brothers for blame for the financial straits of the Company.
Henry W. Williams, transacting business in the State of New York under the name of H. W. Williams & Co., has made a general assignment for the benefit of creditors to Mark T. Cox of Robert Winthrop & Co. There are no preferences beyond such as the statute gives to employes.
A superficial examination justifies the belief that if the creditors, who are few in number, will co-operate in enabling the assignee to effect a favorable liquidation of the assets, a large sum will be realized for their benefit. Written assurances of important financial assistance to such creditors as will co-operate to that end have been given.
Neither Mr. Cox, the assignee, nor Messrs. Robert Winthrop & Co. are interested as creditors or otherwise in the assigned estate.
While he (Curtiss) was thus engaged Janin was sleeping on his rights, from which slumber he did not awake until after the achievements of Curtiss had been widely published.
He (Janin) is a poor man, evidently struggling for a sufficient income to meet his current living expenses. From what his witnesses testify, it is apparent that he was continuously striving to raise funds to develop his ideas, which were regarded by many as illusionary.
An excuse of this kind for failure to make flights could probably be advanced in good faith by hundreds of inventors of aeroplanes, who have been seeking patents for the last forty or fifty years.