Strange Times 118: Big Jam Mystery
Strange Times is a newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. If you like it, you will probably like Westside Saints, my latest Jazz Age mystery novel, as well.
Today brings two stories of mischief most teen. Get your mitts sticky on…
April 28, 1921
Murielle Corneille, a New Yorker on a South American cruise, prevents her ocean liner from docking in Uruguay after refusing to allow quarantine officials to euthanize her dog, whom she inherited from a brother killed during the war. “I would rather you would kill me than kill that dog,” says Corneille. After much dispute, the dog is allowed to live provided it remains in her cabin while the ship is in port.
Congressman Appleby of New Jersey proposes the introduction of a 2-and-a-half-cent coin, bearing the likeness of Theodore Roosevelt.
As the Communist party celebrates the election of 200 women to the Moscow Soviet, stories circulate of more than 60,000 Jews slaughtered by White Russians in Gomel.
The Weather: Generally fair today and Friday; moderate, shifting winds.
This first story doesn’t quite make sense, but I love it anyway for its echoes of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist. And I quite appreciate the way the second story, which was included in the paper under the same headline, closes on a note of foreboding and implied revenge.
The Great Jam Mystery, a singular affair that had been engaging the attention of the best minds of Bronx detectives since Sunday morning, has been solved. Detectives Meyers and Hegney unraveled the perplexing problem, the facts concerning which are these:
It was a tranquil Bronx Sunday morning, and in the neighborhood of Alex Deitch’s grocery at 945 East 165th Street folks were hurrying to services. News dealers were delivering the wrong paper to slumbering households. Bottles of milk were being stolen, and tired phonographs were competing with piano rehearsals.
Also in the neighborhood of Alex Deitch’s grocery store scores of children were eating jam. If only one or two children had been eating jam, nothing would have been thought of it. But when scores do it, it is a police matter. So reasoned Meyers and Hegney.
For four days the detectives followed the jam trail. They questioned many jam eaters, who in most causes refused to pause to answer. But somebody must have “snitched,” for yesterday Adolph Harts, 15 years old, of 56 Intervale Avenue; Pasquale de Ponteo, 14, of 1029 Kelly Street, and Paul Botta, 13, of 1030 Kelly Street, were arrested. The trio admitted taking the jam from Deitch’s store, the police say, and “divvying with all the kids” they knew.
Sunday morning, too, was chosen by two lads in the New Jersey State Home for Boys, Jamesburg, N.J., as the time to “go somewheres.” Dawn gave just enough light for “Billy” Kelly, 12 years old, and his pal, Sigmund Kundzit, 13, to spot and slide past the watchman, who slept between their dormitory and freedom.
Soon they were trudging along the highway leading to Jamesburg and skirting the shore of Lake Manalapan. Tied to a stick was a fishline, and hand over hand “Billy” pulled in the line. On the end was a two pound perch, and Billy and Sig were subduing it when the rightful owner, Charles Cruger of Jamesburg, appeared and collared both the fish and the boys. The boys are back home again, watchfully waiting.