Chapter V: Criminal and CIVIL Courts (1)

=Type of story.= As all forms of judicial procedure are included under court news, stories of this class cover such matters as police court news, criminal trials, civil suits, divorce suits, bankruptcy, wills and other probate court matters, decisions of higher courts, and findings of judicial officers. Since much court news is of a routine character, the matter-of-fact informative news story is a frequent medium for presenting it. This does not imply that such news is necessarily dry and uninteresting, for by bringing out salient and significant phases of such matters as decisions of higher courts, legal documents, wills, and bankruptcy cases, as well as of criminal and civil suits, the facts of the news can be made of interest even to the casual reader (cf. “Supreme Court Decision,” p. 88, and “Opinion of Attorney General,” p. 90). Criminal and civil cases often have a strong human interest element that, if rightly developed, may be a valuable part of the story (cf. “Criminal Court,” p. 83, and “Supreme Court Decision,” p. 89). The little comedies and tragedies of the police court have long been favorite subjects for entertaining and appealing human interest stories (cf. “Municipal Court,” p. 78, and “Forgery Case,” p. 78).

=Purpose.= To give fair and accurate publicity to significant phases of the administration of justice is the obvious reason for the publication of court news. Court proceedings, like those of legislative bodies, are activities of important branches of government and hence are matters of public concern. In reporting sessions of these bodies, the writer’s aim should be to direct the reader’s attention to those details of the proceedings (1) that are significant to him personally, (2) that affect the interests of the community, and (3) that relate to the welfare of society as a whole.

The wide-spread publicity given by newspapers to the punishment inflicted on wrong-doers tends to deter others from similar illegal acts, and thus aids in accomplishing the chief object of punishment. “The wages of sin is publicity,” as one editor has expressed it. What has been said of the value of constructive stories of crime applies with equal force to stories of criminal trials.

Destructive, or anti-social, influences, opposed to the best interests of organized society, are found in those court stories--particularly those of criminal and divorce cases--that play up disgusting or scandalous phases of such trials in order to gratify the morbid taste of some of their readers. Another evil connected with the newspaper’s treatment of court news is the so-called “trying the case in the newspaper” by means of news stories and editorials published before or during a trial. Some newspapers undertake to prove the innocence or the guilt of an accused person by printing whatever evidence they can secure, even though some of it would be excluded from the trial under the rules of evidence. In this way they create public opinion and arouse public feeling to such an extent as to prevent the accused person’s having the fair trial to which he is entitled.

=Treatment of material.= To find matters of general significance and interest, particularly when they are buried in legal technicalities and verbiage, and to present them clearly and attractively without sacrificing accuracy, are the main problems in handling court news. The task is not an easy one, but it is worth doing well, for court news, if well treated, can be made interesting and significant even to the casual reader.

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.

* * * * *

POLICE COURT CASE

_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.

* * * * *

MUNICIPAL COURT

_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.

* * * * *

FORGERY CASE

_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.

* * * * *

CRIMINAL COURT

_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._]

* * * * *

GRAND LARCENY CASE

_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.

* * * * *

SUPREME COURT DECISION

_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.”

* * * * *

SUPREME COURT DECISION

_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.