They Pull “Lost” Tire From Road Once Too Often— One Tries to Strike Woman in Auto
“April first is gone and past, but Norwood’s pests are caught at last.”
This childhood refrain might easily be applied to seven of Norwood’s young men who paid $15 each in the District Court this morning for baiting auto-mobilists with an automobile tire and indulging in loud guffaws as the victims. attempting to salvage the supposed lost tire, suddenly saw it whisked into the roadside bushes.
All above voting age, Winfred Eckhardt, Edison Eckhardt, Grover C. Balduff, Samuel Balduff, Wolfret Balduff, Frank Verderber, Carl Eppich, Joseph Eppich and Lester Fitzpatrick paid the court $15 apiece this morning upon order of Judge Clifford B. Sanborn.
The technical charge against the practical jokers was placmg an obstruction in the highway. Mr and Mrs George A. Martin of Boston were the chief witnesses and the Norwood Police Department the complainant.
According to the testimony of Martin, he and his wife were driving an automobile from Providence to Boston the evening of Aug 19. Passing along Walpole st. Norwood, he saw an automobile tire lying in the middle of the road and backing up his machine, was about to get out and pick it up when a stout cord attached to the tire was pulled and derisive laughter manated from the roadside bushes.
The plans of the jokers went awry however, for the tire became entangled in the steering gear of the Martin car. Fearing that their instrument of merriment might be lost to them, one of the group jumped upon the running board of the machine and attempted to strike Mrs Martin. Her husband, fearing a holdup, reached into his pocket, fished out a flashlight, which he flourished as though it were a revolver. The ruse frightened the horde of jokers as they escaped.
The Norwood police had received many complaints, and Fitzpatrick, one of the defendants, was fined an additional $15 for perpetrating the joke on the evening of August 17. He appealed from the latter fine.
