Name/Title
Flanagan Scrapbook: Burglary at Short Hills Post Office, page 20Entry/Object ID
2023.246.020Description
Newspaper clippings from page 20 of the scrapbook belonging to the Flanagan family (44 Mechanic Street, Millburn). Topics covered include a robbery at the Short Hills Post Office (January 11, 1902) , Dismissal of flagman Michael Flanagan at Millburn Station (1902), Employees of Fandango Mill were vaccinated in compliance with order from the company, Fire at house of Stephen Wallis on Prospect Street in Wyoming.
Transcription:
[NEW?]ARK. N. J., SATURDAY, JANUARY 11. 1902.—SIXTEEN
BURGLARS BLOW OPEN SAFE IN SHORT HILLS POSTOFFICE
Sixth Time the Place Has Been Entered—Little Booty Obtained....Resident Awakened by Dog But Intruders Escape. Dynamite Used.
For the sixth time the Short Hills Postoffice was entered early this morning by burglars, who used dynamite in an attempt to get at the contents of the safe. They succeeded in blowing off the front door, but the inside burglar-proof chest withstood the explosion. Entrance was effected by cutting out the panels of the door at the front of the building. They then smashed the glass portion of the door leading to the distribution room in the rear, where the safe was located. All that was taken was about $10 in stamps.
A large bar, such as is used for drawing spikes from railroad ties, and a halfpound sledge hammer was found in the office. These were taken from a tool box of the Lackawanna Railroad at Millburn. It is known almost positively that the work was done between 1:30 and 3:30 o’clock, as the family living next door to the postoffice was awakened by the barking of their dog, though they did not make an investigation.
Since last August the office has been located on the first floor of a new building built expressly for it on Hobart avenue in the rear of the Short Hills Casino, and almost in the centre of the village.
The work of the burglars in blowing open the safe was conducted in a manner similarly followed on the former occasions. The combination knob was knocked off and the charge inserted. The door was blown off clean from the hinges, and broken portions of it smashed a partition at the other end of the room.
Mrs. Dayton Spinning, who lives within 100 feet of the postoffice building, was awakened about 1:30 o’clock by the dog chained in her yard. She said this morning that she was unable to sleep because of the dog’s barking, and that she awoke her husband, who made a futile trial to quiet the animal. Mrs. Spinning said she thought at once of burglars, but imagined they were in the railroad station instead of the postoffice.
About 3:15 o’clock, while a freight train was passing Mrs. Spinning says she heard a muffled sound like an explosion, and it sounded as though it came from the direction of the station. This morning Mr. Spinning was the first to discover the burglary. He had unchained the dog and followed the animal as it dashed toward the postoffice. He did not enter the building, and Edward Gilroy, the second person on the scene, noticed Postmaster Lushear at his residence, a quarter of a mile away.
The postmaster found the place ransacked, and the wreckage strewn about the room. A glance showed him that the inner door of the safe was secure. But one letter had been opened. It contained no money. The register letters had been placed in the safe with the money. Mr. Lushear has notified the Postoffice Department.
Where the Differences Lies.
“Wherein lies the difference between photography and courtship?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“In photography,” he exclaimed, “the negative is developed in the darkroom, while in courtship that is where the affirmative is developed.”
She blushed, but made no answer.
“Let us,” he suggested, “proceed to develop an affirmative.”
There being no objections, it was so ordered.—Chicago Post.
Contrasts in Rhymes.
As sour as a lemon, as sweet as a nut,
As small as an atom, as big as a butt;
As brown as a berry, as fair as a nun,
As fickle as fortune, as sure as a gun;
As cold as a snowball, as hot as a toast,
As red as a turkey, as pale as a ghost;
As sober as Judges, as drunk as a prince,
As damp as a dishcloth, as dry as a quince;
As coarse as sackcloth, as fierce as a carrot.
As dull as a mope, as pert as a parrot;
As flat as a flounder, as round as a ball,
As sweet as an orange, as bitter as gall;
As white as a lily, as black as coal,
As cross as Dick’s hatband, as straight as a pole;
As merry as topers, as dull as a dolt,
As tame as a lap dog, as wild as a colt;
As rotten as pears, as sound as a roach,
As freezing as winter, as warm as a coach;
As smooth as silk velvet, as rough as a file,
As sour as verjuice, as sweet as a smile;
As sharp-sighted as Scotchmen, as blind as a bat,
As white as a sheet, as black as my hat;
As slow as old ninety, as brisk as a bee;
As shallow as fool’s wit, as deep as the sea;
As poor as old Job, as rich as a Jew,
As wrong as it can be, as right as my shoe;
As deaf as a door nail, as tall as a tree,
As stupid as you, and as clever as me.
—The St. James Gazette.
FOUND HIS HOME AFIRE.
Son of Mrs. Browning, of East Madison, Rouses Family in Time to Save Them from Flames.
Special Dispatch to the EVENING NEWS.
MADISON, Jan. 20.—On Saturday night at about 12 o’clock fire was discovered in the house owned by Mrs. William Browning at East Madison by one of her sons, who had been out of town and was just returning home.
He found the whole lower part of the house was in flames. One of the sons jumped from an upper window and Mrs. Browning had to be carried out.
The building, which was insured, was burned to the ground. Nothing was saved.
MILLBURN (Newark Evening News, Monday, January 20, 1902)
The Millburn Township Committee will meet to-night.
The entertainment held recently by the Millburn A. C. and the Springfield B. B. O. netted $40.
The Lackawanna Railroad officials have dispensed with a day flagman at Millburn. Michael Flanagan, the flagman, has been placed on night duty.
Pride of Success Council, Daughters of Liberty, will observe its sixth anniversary a week from to-morrow night.
The employees of the Fandango Mills have been vaccinated, in compliance with the recent order of the company.
FIRE AT WYOMING (Newark Evening News, March 19, 1902)
The house of Stephen Wallis, on Prospect street, Wyoming, was partially destroyed by fire about 10 o’clock to-day. The flames were started by an alcohol lamp in a room occupied by a nurse girl. The second floor and attic was gutted, causing a loss of about $1,500.
The fire departments of Millburn and Wyoming responded. When they had the fire almost out some person opened a window, causing a draft, and the blaze started anew.
President Roosevelt’s Bright Child.
“If stories about Mr. Roosevelt are in order I may narrate a little domestic incident," said a political friend of the President, as quoted in the New York Times. “One evening at dinner Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt were discussing an old programme which she had preserved, and both referred to the entertainment, saying how much they had enjoyed it at the time. The youngest child listened very closely, and at length burst forth in genuine grief and disappointment.
“ ‘Why didn’t you take me?’
“ ‘Hush, my dear,’ said paterfamilias. ‘That was before your mother and I were married.’
“They thought no more of the incident. A few days later the tot was telling some wildly improbable tale to the eldest. Mr. Roosevelt, who overhead the weird narrative, demanded sharply:
“ ‘When did you do all that?’
“ ‘Oh, that was before you and mamma were married,’ replied the tot with the utmost gravity.”
Said He Was Looking for Relatives (Newark Evening News, January 20, 1902).
A well dressed man, about forty years of age, was found acting queerly on Hobart avenue, Short Hills, in front of the high school early yesterday morning. He was unable to tell a coherent story, apart from saying he had wandered about Short Hills all night in search of relatives, who he claimed lived in Short Hills, and that he was from Court street, Brooklyn. He was taken in charge by Henry Wittkop, who put him aboard a New York train.
The Cuckoo Clock.
Ebenezer Billings called on Angelina Brown,
And stayed and stayed and stayed until her face was in a frown.
She fidgeted and looked fatigued and yawned behind her hand.
But Ebenezer Billings didn’t seem to understand.
He said about three thousand things of no account and then
He blandly smiled and started in to say them all again.
When Angelina’s cuckoo clock upon the mantel near,
It lifted up its voice and said ten times
“Br-r-r cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo!”
But Ebenezer never flinched; he waited till the bird
Was done with its cuckooing, when he didn’t say a word
About how late ‘twas growing, but he just kept talking on
As if he meant to talk until the coming of the dawn.
Poor Angelina! How she wished that he would go away;
She knew her pa would raise a fuss because she let him stay.
Eleven came and then the clock, still faithful to its trust,
It yelled as if it firmly meant to make him go or bust—
“Br-r-r cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-ooo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo!”
However, Mr. Billings did not mind the clock a bit,
But talked till Angelina—oh! she nearly had a fit.
She knew her father listened in the chamber overhead.
And thoughts of what might happen filled her very soul with dred.
She yawned, and in a way that meant ‘twas growing very late,
Yet Ebenezer talked right on, unmindful of his fate,
Till midnight came, and then the clock, it sort of cleared its throat,
And looking straight in Billings’s eye it fairly shrieked each note—
“Br-r-r cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-ooo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, cuck-oo!”
Then Ebenezer roused himself and started for the door,
But halted ere he reached it just to whisper one word more,
And there he stood and talked and talked till Angelina, she—
‘Twas awful!—but she wished him at the bottom of the sea!
And then—her pa appeared and brought his number ‘leven feet.
Poor Mr. Billings landed in the middle of the street
And as he rose and brushed his clothes and slowly limped away
He heard the little cuckoo clock call after him and say—
“Br-r-r cuck-oo!”
—Nixon Waterman in The National.Collection
Flanagan CollectionAcquisition
Accession
2023.246Acquisition Method
Gift
