SHOUTS MURDER IN YIDDISH.
Smitzle's Drop Into Salt Barrel
Calls Out Police.
Charles Smitzle, who sells kosher meat to his co-religionists under the careful supervision of the rabbi in a store at 1603 East Eighteenth street, is undersized, so he stood on a salt barrel last night when he went to light the gas lamp. If he was just short there would never have been a feature to this simple act in a thousand years. However, he is also fat and just as he stood on tiptoe to apply the match to the jet the barrel collapsed.
It happened that Smitzle was alone in his store at the time of the accident, but two of his patrons were in the act of coming in and heard the crash coupled with an exclamation in Yiddish.
"Something has gone wrong with Smitzel," said one of them.
They pushed the door in and saw Smitzel arise out of the debris with a bloody nose. They took note of the wrecked condition of the store and thought they remembered that the word Smitzle had used was "murder." They then rushed out in search of a telephone.
Report that on top of several holdups and assaults that had occured earlier in the day a lone Hebrew was killed by highwaymen in his place of legitimate business produced a sensation in No. 6 police station. Sergeant Michael Halligan immediately dispatched a patrol wagon loaded with officers. When they arrived at the address on Eighteenth street Smitzel had succeeded in lighting the lamp. He had used the meat block and it had held. The blood on his nose and been washed away and the treacherous barrel converted to kindling.
