Miscellany: Aug. 18, 1930

Match

In Weehawken, N. J., John Moyer, Negro, went into a workmen’s outhouse, lit a cigaret, dropped the match down the sewer. Benzine in the sewer exploded,, leaped out and seared John Moyer, ignited grass in the surrounding field. Racing through the sewer the flame blasted the covers off 156 Weehawken manholes, causing residents to scurry to their cellars. Firemen were summoned to put out a blaze on an Erie R. R. freight loading platform, started by the burning grass. A chicken crate factory started burning down; two firefighters were overcome. A paper factory also caught fire. Match-thrower Moyer was expected to die.

Dye

In Ansonia, Conn., eight small boys astounded their parents when, after swimming in the Naugatuck River, they returned home with green hair, green eyebrows, green eyelashes. Cause: dyestuffs dumped in the river by woolen mills.

Doll

In Denver, Gloria Utter, 5, and Rose May Etheridge, 6, argued over the possession of a rag doll. Gloria sulked off to her father’s garage, returned with her father’s gun, shot and slew Rose.

Ball

In Brooklyn, Charles Herzog and Fritz Vogel wrote to rubber companies asking for a big rubber ball in which they proposed to sail to Europe with no motive power or steering device other than the wind. They planned to take food and water for three months. They said they had been watching how Herzog’s small daughter’s toy balloon floated at the beach. Two concerns were interested.

Sandfleas

At Riverside Heights, N. J., Thomas Bart, his wife and two sons went to the cellar to spray sandfleas. Spontaneous combustion ignited the insecticide, blew the roof off the house, knocked in one wall, causing the first floor to cave in. The Barts were all seriously injured.

Bough

In New York. Samuel Finkler, 25, took his girl friend Sarah Berkowitz into Bronx Park at night to spoon. Hearing the big bough under which they were reclining crack she sprang away, saw Samuel Finkler crushed and killed.

Turpiludicrous

In Los Angeles, the following advertisement appeared in the personal columns of the Los Angeles Times:

MAN, Oxon, will utterly abandon his ideally enlightened self to the diligent pursuance of any task not altogether turpiludicrous. Will not suffer his already-disgusted self to consider programmes redolent of get-rich-in-a-hurry schemes. Romantic ladies kindly neutral. Address X.