Yale Echoes

Last June Frankie Uale (Yale), Brooklyn gangster & beer-running brigadier had his head riddled with bullets (TIME, July 9).

In September Tony Lombardo, racketeer, writhed to death on a Chicago pavement (TIME, Sept 17). It was agreed that his murder was retaliation for the Uale killing.

Michael Abbatemarco, supposedly Uale's successor in Brooklyn, has been heard to scorn bodyguards with the fatalistic philosophy that if he was going to be killed he could not avoid it. Last week he quit a card game in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, at 4 A. M. He drove away in a glossy coupe. One half hour later the car was stopped, the motor running. Michael sprawled limply over the wheel. Three bullets were in his head, one in his chest. A shadowy figure walked off across a vacant lot, dropped an automatic pistol.

On the Trail

Detective Thomas J. Tunney of the New York City police department, brother of retired Fisticuffer James Joseph Tunney,* was put on the trail of two unknown young men who had robbed an automobile of a $8,474 payroll, in the bright morning sun, near an entrance to Central Park, Manhattan. The young men were very bold about it, told the old man and the girl bookkeeper who were guarding the payroll to "Shut up." Detective Tunney, recently promoted, has a reputation of getting his man.

Hertz's Horses

Screaming their mad cries in the streets of great U. S. cities, swooping, circling in angry and despairing arcs, manned by a rude, desperate soldiery, taxicabs are to be seen, making indirect money for their inventor, John Hertz. With this money John Hertz, propelled by the gracious irony which controls the careers of capitalists, buys himself horses. Some of the horses he gives to his wife, a lady Republican of note; he keeps them in his Leona Stables, at Gary, Ill.

It was in Chicago that Yellow taxis, in 1915, made their first appearance; it was in Chicago that they multiplied most rapidly; and it was in Chicago last week that Yellow cabs waged with their rivals. Checker cabs, a fierce, fantastic warfare. The cause of the war was of course to be found in business and labor rivalries. The Yellow cabs belong to the Yellow Cab Co., of which Mr. Hertz is president; it employs drivers, giving them a percentage of their cab earnings. Oldest in Chicago, it has the best and most numerous stands. The Checker Cab Co. is newer, has poorer stands; it leases its machines to drivers, who are unionized (Chicago Yellow drivers are not); the drivers must prowl around Chicago for fares. Checker drivers as individuals have fought the Yellow drivers as clansmen and as scabs; soon forgetting their business rivalry, the chauffeurs fought for love of fighting and out of the hatred which is bred in taxicab drivers by the rigors of their profession. They turned at each quickly in their cars, driving them as Hector drove his chariot; they bombed garages and used guns, like gangsters.

Last week, a night fire blazed in the Hertz stables; a onetime jockey brought famed Reigh Count. Anita Peabody, and many another blindfolded out of burning stalls; eleven horses burned to death, screaming as they did so; the $300,000 stables turned into charred beams and ashes.

Citizens of Chicago were thus reminded that the ugly men who have supplanted the silk-hatted drivers of hansom cabs, were at war again. Policemen, whom taxi-drivers mortally hate and fear, could find no more definite clues to the burning than the likelihood that Checker cabbies had planned a mortal strategy. The sluggings, thefts, bombings, bumpings into and off, the strange noises of speedy warfare in the streets, continued in Chicago.

*The Tunney brothers have a sister who is a nun.