Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1916 — Miracle in Gotham Court as Deaf Mute Speaks [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Miracle in Gotham Court as Deaf Mute Speaks

NEW YORK —Two apparently able-bodied men begging on the subway concourse of the Brooklyn bridge during the rush hour attracted the attention of Detective Callaghan of the mendicant squad. One man had his arm thrown

behind his back and his coat over it to make it appear as though his arm had been amputated. The other man was making motions and holding out a card on which was printed: "I have a wife and four children in Vermont. God has deprived me of speech. Please help me.” Callaghan placed the two men under arrest and took them to the Tombs police court for trial. The “|lumb” man, who had written his name as George Drhry, fifty years old, gave

every appearance of being deaf as well. The other man, James Murphy, was very Indignant at his arrest and Insisted he was not begging. When arraigned before Magistrate Corrigan they both pleaded not guilty and when Callaghan told of the circumstances, leading up to the arrest Murphy shouted: “It’s a lie. I didn’t do it.” So boisterous did he become in his denial that he began jumping around and one particularly vicious stamp of his foot landed on the tender toes of the deaf and dumb man. “Ouch!” shouted the deaf mute. “Get off’n my foot, you great big slob, or Til mop the room with you 1” Whereupon the frightened cripple" leaped about with the agility of a tenyear old to escape the angry “mute.” “What marvelous cures!” exclaimed the magistrate. “Now, I must send you both to the workhouse for a period of convalescence.”