WARNED BY THE BLACK HAND.
Grand Avenue Italian Grocer Gets
Threatening Letter Demanding
$300 on Pain of Death.
A letter signed "Black Hand Socialist" was received yesterday by Tony Jordan, an Italian, who has a grocery store at 507 Grand avenue. He took the letter to police headquarters at 8 o'clock last night and asked for protection. The letter is as follows:
"Mr. Tony: You better pay us $300 or we kill you. Be sure be Second and Grand avenue 12 o'clock a. m. (Signed) BLACK HAND SOCIALIST."
Lieutenant Ryan turned Jordan and the letter over to Benjamin Goode and John McCall, plain clothes men. They arranged to meet Jordan at Second and Grand a few minutes before midnight last night, but Jordan did not appear. He evidently was badly frightened, as he locked his grocery store and left the building.
Other Italians heard of the letter last night and there was a general alarm sent out by them. They gathered in groups in Little Italy last night to talk it over. The frequency of these letters and the efforts made to blow up one or two places has caused extreme nervousness in the Italian settlement.
No "Black Hand Socialist" appeared at Second and Grand avenue at 12 o'clock a. m. (midnight), so far as the officers were able to learn.
