Manhattan Technique

Some Europeans still believe that there are wild Indians in Indiana and buffaloes in Buffalo. Most Europeans still believe that Chicago's streets echo daily with gangster gunfire. No such ignoramus is Emile E. C. Mathis, French motor car tycoon who has visited the U. S. many times. Last week he and handsome Mme Mathis were in the U. S. again. One evening in Manhattan they made a gay night of it at swank restaurants and night clubs, winding up with scrambled eggs & coffee at famed Reuben's ("That's All") all-night restaurant on 58th Street, hard by the Plaza Hotel where they were staying.

About 4:30 a. m. they emerged to find rain pouring. They took a taxicab and drove around the block, dropped the Princess Therese de Caraman-Chimay at the Savoy-Plaza, then went on around to the Plaza, just across Fifth Avenue. As their cab paused, waiting an opportunity to turn in, a car drew up alongside. A man with a pistol leaped out, covered the taxi driver. Two others opened the door of the cab and leaned in. One made a grab at a necklace of square-cut emeralds and diamonds, the most obvious item among several hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry that Mme Mathis was wearing. The jewels dug into her neck and she screamed. Furiously M. Mathis, who is 52 and does setting up exercises every morning, made a dive at the robbers. All three fell into the street and rolled on the wet pavement slugging one another. Mme Mathis began to scream. One of the robbers broke loose and again tried to snatch her jewels. She kicked him repeatedly in the face. For several minutes the battle on the pavement continued, M. Mathis getting in some good licks, while Mme Mathis screamed louder and shriller. Foiled, the robbers suddenly fled.

When M. Mathis turned to the taxi driver and demanded to know why he had given no help, the cabby grumbled:

"I ain't trying to be no hero."

Next day Manhattan's police commissioner demanded a report from four police precincts which meet at the spot to determine why no patrolman had reached the scene during the several minutes the battle had lasted. Reflected M. Mathis, who obligingly detailed and diagrammed his adventure for the press: "If they had employed more politeness and gone about things more reasonably, they might have succeeded. If they had immediately produced revolvers I would have instructed my wife to hand over her jewels, preferring not to take the risk of being shot. Moreover the jewels were insured. But they attacked the problem brusquely and the first thing I knew I had administered to them a push."

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