Miscellany, Dec. 10, 1934

Ride

In Brooklyn, N. Y. moans from a dumb-waiter stuck in its shaft brought a call for police at 4 a. m. For one hour 27 men sweated & strained, finally got the moaning dumb-waiter to the roof. Out flopped Ford Jensen, 6 ft. 3 in. Explained Ford Jensen: “I just went for a ride.”

Demonstration

In Camden, N. J., Francis B. Weaver, president of the State Board of Tax Appeals, sought to demonstrate in court how his wife choked him by yanking his necktie. “Like this,” he said. He jerked his tie tight, choked, sank gasping to the floor. Soon he was unconscious. An attorney cut the necktie, revived Francis B. Weaver.

Cache

In Brooklyn, N. Y. one day last month Death rounded out 18 years of solitude in her two-story house for 79-year-old Spinster Louisa Herle. When her safe yielded but a paltry $100,000, relatives immediately began a search of the house. On the top floor they found not a cent. Under mouldering linoleum in the kitchen they got $4,300. In the two basement rooms which Spinster Herle used they found tucked away bank books showing deposits of $37,000. Behind a wall leading to the cellar they found a nest of tobacco tins crammed with $6,225. Buried under plaster, junk, and old furniture in the cellar they found a score of packets containing uncashed checks and bonds worth $7,417. Finally under a pile of ashes, wrapped in newspapers, they happened on a safe-deposit box. In it were 79 passbooks and three mortgages, altogether worth $513,000. Spinster Herle’s relatives continued to dismantle her home inch by inch.