Irwinton bulletin. (Irwinton, Wilkinson County, Ga.) 1894-1911, September 08, 1911, Image 1
VOLUME XVI. LIVING NOW IN SHADOW OF DEATH At the window. Three times have these sig nificant words come. And three times has Death fol lowed in their wake. To the three victims who have each in turn received this strange mes sage of death there may be added a fourth, a brother of two of those who have already died and a nephew of the third whose life has been taken, declares the New York World. He, In fact, lives with the fear of death so strong in his heart that no amount of assurance can dissipate it. To the words of those who seek to allay the fear that is slowly but sure ly overpowering him; that Is making of a strong man a weakling, his an swer is always the same: "I am as a hand that Is hopelessly raised when Death’s sickle is swing ing." It Is an answer familiar to the ears of those who know of the bloody ven dettas of Sicily. And it is an answer most fitting, for the man stands in fear of a Sicilian vendetta. Crimes Justice Cannot Reach. No crime o» series of crimes has presented in years all the strange, mysterious, well-nigh Inexplicable features that are found in the Cardi nelli vendetta, as it has come to be known. Three times has the assassin or assassins sent one message, a warn ing of approaching death, and three times has Death approached, struck and made his escape. It is now seventeen years and a few months since the Cardinelli family left a little town in the southern part of Sicily. There was the father, Fran cesca, his wife, his brother Giovanni, and his three sons, Giuseppe, Bar told! and Vincenzo. Francesca, his wife and Vincenzo are still alive. The others are dead and It is Vincenzo who stands, as he says, “like a hand that is helplessly raised when Death’s sickle Is swinging." Another, there was, who left Sicily about the same time as did the Car dlnellis. He was a friend. In Sicily he had been a neighbor. In this coun try he again became a neighbor and the friendship of the olden days was renewed. Others, too, from time to time, left their farms, their homes, and sold their household belongings and jour neyed to the land where things were free, where money was plentiful and where one might live without work ing. Story of The Other. And the others had known the Car dlnellls and the Other, who, In this story at least, must go unnamed. What, then, more natural than that the CardinelHs, the Other, and the others be friends here in the country of their adoption? And so it was. That much the police have learned in their efforts to solve the mystery of the Cardinelli vendetta. It is not so many years ago that New York was startled as it had sel dom been before or since by a pecu liarly atrocious murder. The victim’s ©he Snutnimi bulletin. NUMBER 50. body was discovered, jammed in a barrel, in the early hours of the morn ing. The "barrel mystery,” as it has ever since been known, was by no means easy of solution. It took the trained sleuths many weary hours of pains taking work to finally trace the vic tim’s history to Buffalo, and eventu ally to lay their hands upon the men whom they had charged with the crime. Finally Found Solution. The success that did crown the ef forts of the police in that case came about through their knowledge of a violent quarrel that had taken place within the innermost circles of a des perate band of counterfeiters. While all had gone smoothly the murderers and the victim of the “barrel" case had been friends. The moment there arose a sign of trouble the first step was to seal forever' the lips of the victim who knew and who was angry and who might tell. And in the Cardinelli vendetta the solution, if it is ever found, will be found by precisely the same methods. There c-ime a time about four years ago when the Other seemed to grow tired of the ways in which the Car dinellis were doing things. The others evidently sided with the Other The gang was broken up. It was only a short time after that a friend of the Cardinellis, one they had made since they came to this country, received a blackmailing let ter from the Black Hand. The man was sore troubled. In his first moments of apprehen sion he went to Giuseppe Cardinelli, whom he trusted, and told him. Giu seppe needed but a single glance at the Black Hand letter to kr.ow from , whom it came. Straight to the Other -went Giuseppe. Ho told him the man he was trying to blackmail was a friend of the Car dinellis and that he must leave the man alone. The Other only smiled. A week or so later Giuseppe receiv ed a Black Hand letter warning him . to mind his own business. That was । the beginning of the Cardinelli ven । detta. Then came the first letter of warn ing. Giuseppe and his young wife and baby lived at 241 Hamilton ave . nue, Brooklyn. One day the mall man । brought a sealed, bedraggled looking letter to the house. When Giuseppe . opened it he turned pale, and without a word walked out of the house. Only six words stared out at him across the single page of note paper on which the letter was writtne. But the words were a message of death. All that met the gaze of the man . who was already dead was this short but terrible message. “You will die —at the window.” And Giuseppe Cardinelli did die. though not at the window. It was less than twenty-four hours after the let ter came to his house that the Other and two or three of the others came ■ to his house. On their faces were ; smiles. In their brown eyes was no IRWINTON, WILKINSON COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1911. sign of anger. They had come, said the Other, that they might talk things over. Lured to His Death. "It was not good that they should be enemies,” said the Other. “Each knew too much of the others. Would not Giuseppe come out of the house, take a little walk and talk things over?” Giuseppe did. He kissed his wife and his baby and went out with the men. An hour later the body of him who had been Giuseppe Cardinelli was found on a bench in Coffey park, Brooklyn. A sharp knife had all but severed the head, an equally sharp stiletto had found its way into a dozen different places on the body. The police conducted an energetic search for the murderer or murderers of Giuseppe, but their efforts were seemingly fruitless. The Cardinellis were not inactive. They did not need to guess who had done the deed. They knew. The Oth er and the others, they were the ones. Giovanni, the uncle, was the most active of all the Cardinellis in his ef forts to avenge the death of his nephew. How he did it he would not tell the police, but Giovanni got word from the Other that he must die. “You will die —at the window,” read the message. Giovanni was not frightened. “It is the Other,” he said, “but I will do to him what he would do to me.” Brave words, but empty. . Police Could Do Nothing. Two weeks to a day, or Jan. 18, 1909, after Giovanni received his word of warning, he was sitting beside the frosted window’s in the rear of the lit tle poolroom he maintained at 28 Coles street, Brooklyn, when he was shot dead. Quickly the police reached the spot. Back across the yard whence came the shot that had killed Giovanni went the police, straight to a house front ing on the next street. But there the trail stopped. But if the police did not know then, they do now, that the Cardinellis knew who had fired the shot, even though they would not tell. “It is the work of the Other,” said the Cardinellis.’ “The Other must die.” Little Is known just how much the Cardinellis have retaliated against their enemies. Yet no great stretch of imagination is required to picture the other side of the story. Back no later than March of this year a particularly sinister-looking Si cilian w'as found lying badly wounded in the gutter of a street in the Latin quarter of St. Louis. In his body were forty-three distinct knife wounds. It was days before the police of St. Louis were even able to force the man to tell his name and admit that he had come from New York. Other than that he would not tell. Why or how he had been injured, of that he would not speak. Who had attacked him? He knew, but he would not tell. “I know; and 1 fix him,” was all he would say. In due course of time, thanks to good nursing and a marvelous consti tution, the man recovered and left the hospital. The next day he disap peared from St. Louis. The Cardinelli Side. Was that one incident in the other side of the Cardinelli vendetta? The police say it was. Were it not, how, ask the police, did the Cardinellis in New York know, even before a word was published in any newspaper, that the Other had been stabbed forty-three times in a street of St. Louis? For the injured man was the Other. And then came the third warning to the Cardinellis. Bartholdi Cardinelli lived in a mod est fiat house at 344 E. 21st street, New York. Right next door lived his father, his mother and his brother. Two years and more had passed since the death of Giovanni. In the Interim the Cardinellis had escaped all harm. The vendetta for them, at least, had apparently ceased to exist. And then came the warning: “You will die—at the window.” The message did not seem to inter fere with Bartholdi’s occupation as a barber. To and from his work he went, apparently as care-free as any man could possibly be. Bartholdi even dared to sit on the front steps of the house In which he lived in the early hours of the even ings. But once he set foot across the threshold of his own home—then all was changed. There, and there only, did danger lurk for him. For two weeks Bartholdi Cardinal- H’s form never showed at a window of his home, either by day or by night. And then came —death. The night was particularly hot. The small rooms of the flat were stuffy and oppressive. Suddenly Bartholdi rose from his chair, walked to the win dow —fell back dead. A pane of glass lay shattered on the floor and five gaping wounds made by as many crudely shaped slugs of lead showed in his body. Five minutes after the shooting the entire block was surrounded by po lice. Not a house, not a roof, not n cellar escaped their search, but the slayers were not to be found. We Got to MOVE! Why not come in and look at the low prices" we are making on our present stock of goods. Did You Ever Move? The trouble and expense attached===the worries—are many. We’ve got lots of goods —stuff that will just help you over the summer=== and as it’s late we are going to cut the price—then, too, we don’t want to move these goods. Come, let’s look these values over. If you do we sure will sell you your needs. Our new home after Sept, i, entire “Ohlman Building.” Your friends, W. S. Myrick & Co. SI.OO A YEAR.