Strange Times 81: Hungry Burglar Faints
If the title of “Strange Times 80: A Very Large Cock” doesn’t make you want to sign up for a full subscription, well, I just don’t know what to do with you.
Today brings a threatened Astor, an ejected Pastor, and two other articles that won’t fit into my rhyme scheme. Set poetry aside for…
March 22, 1921
Harry T. Lamey is convicted of threatening Man o’ War, but claims his demand of $10,000 in exchange for the horse’s life was made only “out of curiosity” to see what the animal’s owners would do.
In Montevideo, a new law to legalize duelling results in the death of Captain Melo, of the Uruguayan army.
The Canadian minister of commerce blames Canadian housewives’ unnecessary purchases of, “fruit, vegetables, eggs and textiles” for the adverse exchange rate with the United States.
The Weather: Fair and much cooler today; Wednesday, fair; strong northwest winds.
Lady Astor, the first woman to sit in the House of Commons, was 42 when she chased the man who threatened her through the streets of Plymouth, so rich and so fancy and so exquisitely British that she simply could not imagine he might actually cause her harm.
LONDON, March 22.—The papers publish an account of an unpleasant encounter which Lady Astor had with a stranger at Plymouth on Saturday afternoon.
She was accosted in the entrance hall of her residence by a man who declared in violent terms that he had served two terms of imprisonment and would return to prison in a few days on her account. Lady Astor asked him if he was threatening to kill her, and the man replied, “Yes.”
Realizing that he might attack her if she displayed any fear, Lady Astor temporized with the man and he eventually left the house, but refused to give his name.
Determined to get this information, the account proceeds, her Ladyship followed him and the man started to run. She did likewise and pursued him into some stables, where again she demanded to know his identity. Once more her courage dismayed the man, for he took to his heels and ran into a public house and out through the back of the premises, with Lady Astor in close pursuit.
Within a short distance further the man was captured, but Lady Astor expressed the wish that no legal proceedings should be taken against him.
A theological filibuster!
Bad feeling which resulted several weeks ago in violence among students of Beaulah Mission in North Bergen, N.J., the theological seminary of the Church of Jesus, formerly the Holy Rollers, culminated on Sunday in such a row between factions over the possession of the pulpit of the church that the police had to intervene and eject the reigning pastor in favor of his successor.
Last week the Board of Trustees, of which Henry D. Smith is President, decided to depose the Rev. Dr. Ernest Whitcomb and Rev. Dr. Harold M. Moss of Stockbridge, Mass., to assume its pulpit. As Dr. Moss was starting for church on Sunday for installation services, he was informed that the Rev. Dr. Whitcomb, who is blind, had gone to the church and taken a strategic position on the platform.
Dr. Whitcomb started the service at 2 o’clock, but did not end as usual. The clergyman led the singing and prayer services, read from the Scriptures and preached. The congregation began to weary, but many of them remained. Then it got to be supper time, and the Rev. Mr. Whitcomb was still holding the church. Some of his friends brought him something to eat, and he dined on the platform.
Dr. Moss lost patience and decided it was time for drastic action. And when the bell pealed for evening service, he, with church officers and two policemen, walked in. The policemen led out Dr. Whitcomb. Some of his followers did not submit so meekly, however, and the policemen arrested five. They were Cyrus M. Robinson, Maynard Ketcham, Clarence Teboe, Rex A. Thompson and Ernest F. Morris. Then Dr. Moss conducted the evening service.
The men arrested were to have been arraigned last night, but their cases were adjourned last night because of the preoccupation of their counsel.
Pity Don Wade, who should have robbed a luncheonette instead.
Fainting as a result of three days without food, Don Wade, 20 years old, of Pittsburgh, was taken prisoner early yesterday after he had cut an eighteen-inch hole through a ceiling in the offices of Van Pessler & Schleyer, livery goods dealers, at 509 West Eighth Street. He was found by Mr. Schleyer when he noticed a hole above his desk.
When arraigned in Jefferson Market Court on a charge of burglary, Wade told Magistrate Nolan that he had entered the building through the roof and had become unconscious. Wade pleaded guilty and was held in $2,000 bail for the Grand Jury.
Is this a story about women failing to help women, or the simple importance of punctuality? The balance of sympathy swings rather radically against the brusk assemblywoman when you learn the nature of the bill she is trying to pass.
Assemblywoman Marguerite Smith of the Nineteenth Assembly District is a businesslike young woman, so, when a delegation of trades union women whom she had agreed to meet at her home, 22 West 122nd Street, yesterday at 1:30 sharp, did not arrive on the minute, she started off in her car for the 2:11 train for Albany and left the women standing disconsolately on the street.
There were twenty women, representing 100,000 others. They bore a petition signed by 30,000. Miss Rose Schneiderman, President of the Women’s Trades Union League, and Miss Nora Long of the Women Upholsterers’ Union were their leaders. They wanted to protest against a bill introduced by Assemblywoman Smith repealing the law preventing women from working after 10 p.m. It is said some of the women, believing a few minutes would make no difference, tarried, and in that time Miss Smith was off.
“I can’t wait,” she called to the delegation as she was whirled off. “I must take that train.”
“There are other trains,” wailed the women, but the young Assemblywoman had vanished.