Monkey Trial

Nathan L. Miller, onetime (1920-22) Governor of New York, famed U. S. Steel attorney, was retained last week by Verner Reed, wealthy onetime Denverite, to defend a butler against a charge of cruelty to animals. The butler was Felix Solomon, who two weeks ago shot and killed a neighbor's monkey that had invaded the Reed estate and was threatening two Reed infants.

At the trial, which was attended by many persons of large fortune and social inclinations, onetime Governor Miller denounced the monkey and eloquently praised the menial who had murdered him. "Monkeys are wild animals," remarked Nathan Miller, "no game laws protect them, their bites are dangerous and the late King Alexander of Greece died from the effects of being bitten by an ape. This charge is ridiculous. It would be a fine country if property could be invaded by wild animals without any opportunity being provided to stop them."

Said Lawyer Miller's opponent, Assistant District Attorney de Moe: "The monkey wouldn't have bitten those children. . . ."

The jury of six men said that Felix Solomon was not guilty.

Plunge

In Manhattan, Horace F. Poor, 50, president of the Garfield National Bank, crawled out of a sick bed and wobbled to an open window. Once there, he made as if to leap out, down to the street four floors below him. As he did so, Ella Randolph, his nurse, scuttled across the room to stop him. Just as Horace Poor toppled over, she grabbed his ankles and held them so that he hung down head first, looking into the hot crowded street and waving his arms.

Ella Randolph soon began to scream and succeeded after several minutes in attracting the attention of a crowd of taxi drivers lined up at the curb below. Obeying her instructions, these piled the cushions from their cars directly under the inverted head of Horace Poor. Policemen visited a nearby hotel whence they secured a blanket; this they stretched under Horace Poor, above the pillows and cushions. With a tremulous cry, Nurse Randolph released her banker; he sped down for an instant, plunged through the blanket and lay, panting and lolling, on the cushions.

Said Horace Poor: "I was restless . . . I went to the window for air ... I must have fallen out. . . ."

Plunge

"I knew I could do it. It cost me $7,000 to finance the adventure, but I hope to get it all back and more besides." These were the first words spoken by Jean A. Lussier, 36, of Springfield, Mass., after he had dropped over Niagara Falls in a rubber ball.

Jean A. Lussier was the third human being to remain alive after accomplishing this courageous and stupid feat. First was Annie Upson Taylor in an oak barrel in 1901. Second was Bobbie Leach in a steel barrel in 1911. Sixteen years ago Jean Lussier had worked in the machine shop where Leach's barrel had been made. That was where he had received his inspiration.

His own contrivance was steel framed, nine feet in diameter, with a sealed hole in the top and a ballast to make it stay upright. After completing it, Jean Lussier had been forced to hide his ball in a barn lest the Canadian Government take it away and prevent his stunt. No less than 100,000 people gathered on the river bank, most of them hoping that the ball would break on the rocks under the 155 foot water-drop.

On the warm, calm day that Jean Lussier emerged uninjured from his ball, 106 persons were drowned in the waters of the U. S.