Trapper

At The Bronx's New York Zoological Park appeared Rupert Merkl, 52, Bavarian-born, Ossining, N. Y. farmer, claiming he had invented a snake trap. Said Curator of Reptiles Dr. Raymond Lee Ditmars: "Impossible. I have never seen an effective snake trap and I know of no poison that will lure one."

"Yah. Look," said Inventor Merkl. He produced a yard-long wire cage with open ends and a live mouse in a smaller cage inside. Dr. Ditmars produced a rattlesnake.

The snake took one look at the mouse, slithered in one end of the cage, tripped a centre pan which crashed down heavy mesh doors at both ends, trapping the snake. Dr. Ditmars released the snake. The snake did it again. Said Dr. Ditmars: "Astonishing. I have discovered the snake trap. Make me up a batch for my trip to Trinidad late this summer."

"It was the Depression," explained Inventor Merkl. "Nothing to do. I swear I make a trap to catch anything. First I figure and figure. Then I improve and improve. All 100% humane traps. No one gets hurt. The animals, they like it. They sit there inside, nice and quiet, and look out. Only the coon, he woof at you when you come. They go in my traps. I guarantee.

"If you need a mouse for the snake trap, I have a mouse trap, to catch the mouse to catch the snake with. I catch a copperhead snake first time I try. Always tell a copperhead because he smells like cucumbers. Now I make a trap for alligators. But not for elephant. He walks away mit."

To reporters Merkl explained that he had been trained in Germany as a copper wire net maker, started making traps to catch rats and weasels that were killing his Ossining hens. The American Humane Association gave him a prize for the most humane animal trap and Merkl went into business in his shed making traps by hand, far more slowly than his two sons could sell them. "I have to punch and rivet by hand. If only I had a spot welder. I make about 150 small traps a week. I can get orders for 1,000. Oh, if I had only a spot welder."

Try In Helena, Mont., having exhausted nearly every other way of getting out of the county jail, Trusty Louis Francis picked up a prison telephone, got a wire to the sheriff, said in a pompous voice, "This is Governor Frank Cooney. You let Louis Francis out now. I just pardoned him." It did not work.

Mad In White Plains, N. Y., Mrs. Elizabeth T. Ross, high school teacher, was thoroughly mad. Suing for divorce, she charged Alfred C. Ross, certified public accountant, with 71 specific acts of cruelty, including 36 generally unhusbandly habits. Samples: He stayed in the bathroom for an hour and a half while dinner was waiting; he left an abusive diary lying around; he told guests they had obviously come just for the free meal; he took his vacations by himself; he called her extravagant and spent money on fishing tackle. Alfred Ross's countercharge: She had called him "a coward, pansy, bald-headed nincompoop, sap, thief, bum, crazy nut."

Fisherman Near New Britain, Conn., small boys strolled to the shore of Hart's Pond, saw a man standing in the water up to his eyes, a cigar butt clenched in one hand, a fishing rod in the other. The man, Arno Kerver, paint contractor and local politician, was dead of heart failure, his body still buoyant after three hours. An eight-inch bullhead still thrashed about the pool at the end of Arno Kerver's line.

Church In Glassboro Lawns, N. J., when the Negro congregation of the Church of God discharged the Rev. Clarence Davis, 55, they had an idea he might make off with the church, a 14 by 20 ft. prefabricated building which he had paid for himself. They watched him until 4 a. m. Sunday morning. Satisfied by his snores, they went home. By church time church, hymn books, pews and fixtures, all but one small piano, had vanished. Arrested on a charge of grand larceny, Pastor Davis refused to say where he had put the church.

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