Strange Times 144: Three Husky Lookouts
Strange Times 144: Three Husky Lookouts
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Today brings an overenthusiastic pastor, an indifferent sheriff, and a sore loser with a gun. Come and go as you please on…
May 24, 1921
River oil set alight by a speeding motorboat ignites the wooden hull of the famous USS New Hampshire, a tourist attraction and training ship which is expected to be destroyed by the fire. (I had to read this article twice to confirm that the fire is unrelated to the recent burning of the Panhandle State. Quit being so confusing, The Past!)
The Weather: Partly cloudy today, rising temperature; Wednesday warmer, probably showers; east winds.
Another entry for the Strange Times dictionary! Gretna Greene, n. 1. A Scottish parish famous as a home for quickie marriages performed by blacksmiths over an anvil. 2. Any location where marriages can be arranged with a minimum of fuss.
WINONA LAKE, Ind., May 23.—Whether a Presbyterian pastor can conduct a Gretna Green centre and continue to be in good and regular standing, will be decided by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which is holding its 133rd session here. The case is before its Judicial Commission, and that body will report tomorrow or Wednesday.
The Rev. John H. McElmoyle, Pastor at Elkton, Md., is accused of conducting the Gretna Green. Among the members of the Judicial Commission is ex-Governor James P. Goodrich of Indiana. A book of 200 pages of evidence is in the hands of each member.
Elders of his church wanted Mr. McElmoyle dismissed from the pastorate. The case was taken to the Presbytery of Baltimore. From that body it was taken up to the Synod of Baltimore, and from there it was sent to the General Assembly, the highest court of the Presbyterian Church.
Mr. McElmoyle, according to the printed evidence, married 1,445 couples in one year. Sometimes he had as many as fifteen weddings in one day. The evidence says he had hack drivers to bring couples—many of whom were not of age—to his house. There is a story that a funeral at which he was to officiate had begun, when a hack was seen to drive up in front of his door. He left the funeral, skipped over to the house, performed the ceremony, and then went back and continued the funeral.
The evidence states that his wedding fees averaged one year $4 a ceremony, raising his income several thousand dollars.
This story is a classic case of a buried lede. Too much is made of the fact that the Sheriff paid a debt to a man who’d beaten him at poker. That’s an honorable thing, frankly—it would be far worse if the lawman refused to pay. The real eyebrow-raiser is mentioned in passing in the final paragraph—namely that the Sheriff let prisoners “come and go as they pleased.” Perhaps he was an early prison abolitionist? Or maybe he really just didn’t care.
ALBANY, N.Y., May 23.—It was brought out today at the investigation of affairs at the Rensselaer County Jail at Troy that when one of the prisoners at the jail was discharged the Sheriff, whose affairs are being investigated by the State Prison Commission, gave the prisoner a check for $50, which one of the witnesses testified the prisoner had won playing poker.
Chairman John S. Kennedy, Henry Solomon of New York and Charles Rogers of Hudson conducted the investigation. John Selley Jr., the Sheriff, has been accused of permitting gambling in the jail, and also that his management was lax. He was accused of taking the prisoners out on joy rides, often going to New York and Philadelphia with them.
Under Sheriff George T. Morris testified that when Herbert Craig left the jail the Sheriff gave him a check for $50. This, the witness declared another jail employee told him, had been won by Craig playing poker with the Sheriff.
James Costa, formerly a janitor at the jail, testified that the Sheriff knew there was gambling going on in the jail, but that Selley didn’t care. Costa told the committee that when he informed him that the prisoners were gambling Selley replied:
“I don’t care how much they gamble.”
Costa said some of the prisoners were permitted by the Sheriff to go and come as they pleased. He said that one time he saw the Sheriff take $50 away from a prisoner named Edward Masher and that to his knowledge the Sheriff only returned $10.
This must be the longest blind item in the history of the news. What was the gunman’s name?!
The “bones” rolled against one of the best known gunmen in Queens last Sunday and he departed from a crap game in a stable near Munson Street and Astoria Avenue, Astoria, $100 out of pocket. At one time while this unsuccessful gambler was there as much as $8,000 was on the table. His eyes glistened as he departed, but several hundred “high rollers” from Manhattan and other boroughs went ahead with their play, confident that the three husky lookouts at the door would protect them from interruption.
About 10:30 that night an automobile swung up to the door and this gunman, with a platoon of reinforcements he had recruited, demanded admittance. The lookouts objected, but a pistol cracked and, though the bullet buried itself in the stable door, resistance ended.
A moment later the gunman and his aids hurried out, their pockets bulging with the $1,800 they had swept from the table and another $1,000 or so in watches, trinkets and money taken from the players.
The police of the Astoria and Hunters Point Precincts were reluctant to admit yesterday that they knew the Long Island City Sabbath had been desecrated with a crap game and that it had ended with a daring hold-up, but it was admitted finally that an investigation was afoot. Since it would be embarrassing to any of the participants to make a complaint, it was hinted that the investigation was not a very vigorous one and that it was probable that the gunman would go unscathed of the law as a result of his coup.
