Murdered for a Cent

1910

A quarrel over a single penny led to a murder in Hoboken the other day. A man from Nebraska, who stopped at a hotel in Hoboken while awaiting the sailing of the steamer for Europe, put a penny in the slot of an automatic music box in the dining-room of the hotel, but the box refused to pour forth the expected ragtime tune. The Nebraskan became indignant and upbraided the German porter. The latter explained to him that it required a nickel and not a penny to set the mechanism of the music-box in motion, but that explanation did not satisfy the man from Nebraska. He became abusive and when the porter threatened to put him out, he pulled a revolver from his pocket and shot the porter dead.