Business: Big Mick from Down Town

Mother Machree . . . . . . . .$1,000

Kathleen Mavomneen. . . . . . . 500

My Wild Irish Rose. . . . . . . 400

Where the River Shannon

Flows . . . . . . . . 300

Come Back to Erin. . . . . . . . 200

A Little Bit of Heaven. . . . . . . . . . . . 200

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. . . . . 100

Morton Downey, Rudy Vallee and other high-priced crooners were doubtless astonished last week to learn that comparatively unknown singers in Broadway night clubs had been paid such prices for the past 13 years. But Messrs. Downey & Vallee must have been relieved to know that it was not the nightclub proprietors who paid. Exposed as anonymous benefactor to dozens of night club crooners was one George D. Phelan, 39-year-old employe of J. S. Bache & Co., Manhattan brokers.

It was the custom of Mr. Phelan to give large dinners at expensive restaurants. Sometimes he entertained 80 or 90 guests. During the course of the evening Mr. Phelan would grow sadder & sadder. He would request the house crooner to sing an Irish song. During the singing Mr. Phelan invariably wept. He then tipped the singer according to the copiousness of his tears. On the basis of these tips was compiled the above wage scale. The beneficiaries, who did not know Mr. Phelan’s name, called him simply “The Big Mick from Down Town.”

One day George D. Phelan, whose salary was recently cut from $100 to $60 per week, confided to Cashier Alfred L. Goldman of J. S. Bache & Co. that he had stolen $695,000 from the firm’s petty cash fund in the past 13 years. He told Cashier Goldman he was confessing “because I know I can’t continue these thefts forever.”

For a month Embezzler Phelan helped auditors to straighten out his books. Last week he was arraigned on a charge of stealing $1,900, his last peculation. Said he: “I haven’t enough money to hire a lawyer, but if I can get out on bail I may be able to find some.” A truckman furnished$20,000 bail.