15-Year-Old-Boy Struggling with Girl Stenographers Killed on Birthday
Fell on Sharp Ink Eraser
'The Girls in His Department of the Metropolitan Insurance Company were Trying to Kiss Him - One Arrested
George S. Millitt of 425 Pleasant Avenue, an office boy employed in the Department of Applications of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, on the third floor of its new building, in Madison Square, was stabbed yesterday in the left side, apparently as the result of skylarking in the office, and died in the ambulance on his way to the New York Hospital.
The police say the boy died without explaining how he received his wound. Miss Gertrude Robbins of 168 West Eighty-first Street, a stenographer employed in the same office, was arrested later at her home, and was locked up first on a charge of homicide. As there was no evidence to connect her with Millitt's death, however, the charge was changed so that she was held merely as a material witness. At midnight, after a brief preliminary inquiry by the coroner, she was paroled in the custody of her counsel.
The accident was surrounded by a great deal of secrecy. The police first knew of it when Policeman Blass, on post in Twenty-third Street, noticed shortly before 5 o'clock an ambulance in front of the entrance to the Metropolitan Life building. He went to make inquiries but received nothing but evasive replies to his questions. Then he walked upstairs and found Millitt lying on the floor of the applications department in the midst of the crowd of excited persons.
Dr. McClure had been summoned from the New York Hospital soon after 4:30 o'clock. He found the boy unconscious and prepared to take him to the hospital. He was suffering from a wound just below the heart, caused, it was said, by a sharp ink eraser which the lad carried in his pocket. The boy died before he reached the hospital without recovering consciousness. An autopsy has not yet been made, but it is supposed that the cause of death is internal hemorrhage.
Policeman Blass learned that Millitt was 15 years old yesterday. He was the son of a widow and had been in the employ of the company about two months. He seemed to those used to the accustomed to the usual run of office boys almost perfect. His manners were good and his fair hair and fair complexion made him the pet of all the girl stenographers.
Yesterday he came down and remarked that it was the anniversary of the wreck of the Maine. He explained that he knew it because the ship had been blown up on his birthday and that he was 15 yesterday.
At once the girls began to tease him. They told him that on such an occasion he deserved a kiss, and every one of them vowed that as soon as office hours were over she would kiss him once for every year that he lived. He laughingly declared that not a girl should get near him, and he was teased about it all day.
As 4:30 o'clock came, and the day's work was over, the girls made a rush for him. They tried to hem him in and he tried to break their line. Suddenly, he reeled and fell, crying as he did so, "I'm stabbed!"
At once the joking stopped. Miss Robbins, when she saw what happened, ran to the boy's side and tried to help him. She knelt by him, but the sight of the blood was too much for her and she fainted. Somebody hurried to the medical department of the company and called Dr. Thomas H. Willard, one of the staff examiners. He did what he could for Millitt, and it was he who telephoned the ambulance.
Miss Robbins was soon brought to and told to go home. Most of the other girls had already departed, and when Policeman Blass arrived there were present besides the doctors and Millitt, C. D. Jerolaman, R. H. Nash, E. H. Price, George F. Abbott of 2442 Lorillard Place. The Bronx, and C. B. Brooks of 774 Union Street, Brooklyn.
None of these would tell Blass anything about how the accident happened, and it was only by chance that he learned that Dr. Willard had had Miss Robbins under his care.
Blass went away to the new West Twentieth Street Station to report to Capt. Hayes. The Captain, McConnell, Walsh, and Trajan of Inspector McCluskey's staff, were sent over to the Metropolitan Insurance Building. When they got there, they found the office locked up and everybody gone home.
The police managed, however, to locate Miss Robbins from the directory. They say that her home address was refused to Blass at the office, so they determined to try whether Mrs. Harriet E. Robbins, a widow of 168 West Eighty-first Street, could give them any information about her. Her daughter, Miss Robbins, admitted that she was the girl they were seeking and agreed at once to accompany them to West Twentieth Police Station. She is 23 years old. She was not told at first that Millitt was dead.
Miss Robbins did not give the detectives any detailed account of the occurrence, but told them simply that the boy was popular with everybody, and that one of the stenographers had been joking him about his birthday. She said, according to the detectives, that she had been one of those who approached him, and that as he tried to avoid her she noticed in his hand something that looked like a stick six inches long. As he fell, she said, she believed that this entered his side.
The "stick" of which she spoke is assumed by the police to be a knife ink eraser, which the New York Hospital authorities found in Millitt's outside coat pocket. It had a very sharp edge, and would make exactly the kind of wound which killed him. There was a cut on the inside of the coat, and the edge of the knife was coated with blood.
Mrs. Robbins accompanied her daughter to the police station and William R. Phelan of 302 Broadway was called in as her lawyer. When Miss Robbins was arraigned before the desk, she maintained her self-possession and answered quietly the regular questions. She was sent to the old Tenderloin Station and walked up Sixth Avenue with her mother, the detectives following a few paces behind. When she was asked by Capt. O'Brien if she had any statement to make, she replied that by advice of her counsel she had nothing to say.
John R. Hegeman, Jr., Assistant Treasurer of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company called late last night at the West Twentieth Street Police Station. He told the police he was quite sure that Millitt's death was a regrettable accident. He had himself obtained employment for the boy two months ago, he said, and he understood that he was doing well in the office, and was popular. Mr. Hegeman said that the ink eraser found in the boy's pocket was of the regular pattern supplied to employees of the company.
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