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Crime Classics - ”James Evans, Fireman%3B How He Extinguished a Human Torch” (Old Time Radio, 1954) · Old Time Mystery Radio | Old Time Radio

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Good evening. This is Crime Classics. I am Thomas Hyland
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: with another true story of crime. Listen going to the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: fire in eighteen twenty six, a team of horses pulling
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the fire into of the Norwich Union Boys firehouse. Arriving
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: at a fire, the Norwich Union Boys doing what they'd
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: best like to do, snuffing out fires in Manchester, England.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: There goes one of the Norwich Union Boys right into
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the thick of it, where smoke and flame is the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: dancest chopping things, the way he was taught to do.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: The trouble is he was a novice. He hadn't learned
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: to discriminate. H help me, help me, yes, sir, tonight,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: my report to you one James Evans fireman, how he
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: extinguished a human torch.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Crime Classics a series of true crime stories taken from
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the records and newspapers of every land. From every Time,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: your host each week, mister Thomas Highland, connoisseur of crime,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: student of violence and teller of murders. Now once again
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: mister Thomas Hyland.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: The civic minded people called Manchester Cottonopolis, but those who
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: could never forget the Peterloo massacre called it the city
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of orphans, among other epithets, some in Gaelic. This massacre,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you'll remember, was simply a matter of shooting and riding
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: down and thereby slaughtering some foul and citizens who gathered
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: in a park to protest the corn laws. Mary Warden's
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: mother and father had the distinction of being trampled to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: death by the same cavalryman, and on Mary Warden's tenth
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: birthday too. And what happened to Mary Warden is this.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: She was removed immediately to mother Winnie Penn's Souls Harbor orphanage,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: where she spent the next six years learning to be
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a drudge.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Then one day, that one there Winnie Penn, Mary Warden, Ay,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: if that be her name.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: She's scraped for you and cook and on her keep.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: Of their dexterity.
• 2:38
  Speaker 6: Tell me that with the needle, her fingers fly like
• 2:41
  Speaker 6: a dooty bed.
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: How old be she?
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: She passed for twenty, couldn't she?
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: But she's only sixteen?
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: What do you say, mister Price.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: A call her to the wire. Let me have a look.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: At the Mary, Mary Warden.
• 3:00
  Speaker 6: Come stop twisting your hair, Mary, and stand you still.
• 3:09
  Speaker 6: Here's a gent thinking of taking her away from us.
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: Would you like to go with me? Child? Dyle shine?
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: Ain't me today?
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: Mary? Well, come you here, bend your head close and
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: I'll tell you a thing that it'll take away your shining.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: No, Mary, you old crows.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: Fit for the stage years.
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: I'm Mary.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: We will miss.
• 3:43
  Speaker 7: Her, my bed, my head close, you'll try to stretch
• 3:47
  Speaker 7: my ear from my head, you old golly knacker.
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: Them that don't appreciate the gentle and the loving kindness.
• 3:54
  Speaker 7: Mister, take me away from heir.
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: You want to go away with me?
• 4:00
  Speaker 7: A busket out of here before she whips the skin
• 4:03
  Speaker 7: fair off me.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: I ask you something, gild.
• 4:06
  Speaker 7: A busket out of here with me.
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: With me, yes, sir, Winnie Penn.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: Then that don't appreciate she wants to go with me
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: twenty pounds same as the rest.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: Twenty pounds. That's more than I I.
• 4:24
  Speaker 7: Want to go away, sir with you, Sir, I wouldn't
• 4:27
  Speaker 7: go with anybody else.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: Do you know, Oh? Do you now?
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 4:34
  Speaker 8: Yes, yes.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: So it was that Mary Warden was indentured to Thomas
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Price at the wage of four pounds a year. Mary
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: would be free to go her own way at the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: age of twenty one. That is, if mister Price did
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: not find her for not obeying him, and whatever was
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: his whim and he was nothing if not whimsical. Now,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: while mister Price was situating Mary in the back room
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of his factory, seeing that she was comfortable in her
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: new position and all, and let's look in on the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: firehouse of the Norwich Union Boys. A young man, James
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Evans my name, has just passed all the tests in
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: order to become a fireman.
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: Oh, here are.
• 5:20
  Speaker 9: Your buttons, saddi chief, and here your bat sadisea.
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: And you must keep.
• 5:27
  Speaker 10: Them polished all the time, sir. And notice the raised
• 5:31
  Speaker 10: figures on button and Budge crouched panther for always alert,
• 5:36
  Speaker 10: the rules for courtesy, the coiled serpent for neatness. Yes, sir,
• 5:40
  Speaker 10: and you're one of us, a Norridge Union Boy.
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: Chief. Yes Evans, thank you for everything.
• 5:47
  Speaker 9: And I want to tell you this that it is
• 5:49
  Speaker 9: an honor to serve under the greatest netman in the business.
• 5:52
  Speaker 10: Have your buttons thwn on, Evans, come back and we'll
• 5:55
  Speaker 10: have a game.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: Oh yes, sir, h.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Do you of course we do buttons anything in the
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: line of clothes and buttons and fabrics.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: I want these it soon on.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, then it's a farm and you are not. It's
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: union boy, Ah, Mary, Mary, this one's a not age
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: union boy and he needs his buttons so too.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: You just go through that gate, sair. Mary. I'll saw
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: him in ance, and twelve buttons.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Is the farthing gian Sir, I'll be backing the first
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: And Mary, hey to me when you're done.
• 7:07
  Speaker 7: Tirdy, tirdy for picking up for me.
• 7:11
  Speaker 11: M m, they're all over the floor, let me.
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: Prombly, fingers tremble.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: Give them to me, Give them to me. Oh, they're chill.
• 7:36
  Speaker 7: And your hands so warm.
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: Then meet me tonight.
• 7:42
  Speaker 7: Where the river Midlock turns left past Crawley's landing at
• 7:46
  Speaker 7: twelve o'clock. You want me to sneak out?
• 7:49
  Speaker 9: Do you not?
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: Does not your father let you? Oh?
• 7:52
  Speaker 7: My father, I'm an indentured servant.
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: I am, oh my.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: And James Evans sensitive boy was lost forever, this poor
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and beautiful girl no better than a slave, And all
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: day long his hands felt the touch of her hands,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and all day long he remembered the scent and texture
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: of her golden hair as she leaned to bite off
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the thread. Suddenly life became complicated, a life that before
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: this meeting had only poles and nets and ladders and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: hooks and solidarity meetings and hoses and hound mascots. Now
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: suddenly there was a woman that night by the river.
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: How did you get out?
• 8:46
  Speaker 7: As he slipt? The stole keys from him?
• 8:49
  Speaker 9: Poor Mary, Poor poor Mary?
• 8:53
  Speaker 7: Then what will you do for your poor Mary?
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: My poor Mary?
• 9:00
  Speaker 7: I am yours?
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: What shall I do for you?
• 9:03
  Speaker 7: Go to him who's bought me? And offering the price
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: he paid, pay off your indenture twenty pounds? Oh do
• 9:12
  Speaker 7: you have all that much money?
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: It's all I have.
• 9:15
  Speaker 7: Oh, then you'll be penniless, and I will, but with
• 9:19
  Speaker 7: our love will be richer than that dicky harness.
• 9:22
  Speaker 9: Yes, and I have a good job, and I'll make
• 9:25
  Speaker 9: you a good home. And then put your hand in mine. Mary, Mary, pretend,
• 9:35
  Speaker 9: pretend what that I've paid mister Price, and you no
• 9:39
  Speaker 9: longer belong to him, and that your fancies are free?
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: Yet you can think of no one but me. Oh, Mary,
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: cannot pretend it.
• 9:49
  Speaker 7: When it's reality.
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: Tomorrow I will go to him.
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: Then perhaps tomorrow it will be reality.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: No, but no, mister Price, what's the matter with you? Farm?
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: And you can't take over an answer? Why she's a
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: good girl, and she sows like a cherub, and she
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: scrubs like an angel. And besides, I have a contract
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: with Mother Winnie Pen and I have no intention pounds,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: not an hundred.
• 10:29
  Speaker 9: But she's not meant to be indentured, not such as
• 10:32
  Speaker 9: she is louly? Is she darbling while laughter? At such
• 10:38
  Speaker 9: a time?
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: While laughter? You love her? You love her truly?
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: And without tell me, sir, what a love of the
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: poets sweet and soaring, or a pitying glove like some
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: month for them funny?
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: Or is my lover? And I wish to purchase her
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: out of bondage? Then let me tell you, sir, it
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: will never be for myself. I have plans.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: When she can sole nimbly as I like, and when
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: she cooks with smiling skillet as I like, and she
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: keeps house in a manner neatly, then I could do
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: worse than to take her as a wife. And what
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: do you say to that young fireman?
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: A pox to you, a.
• 11:30
  Speaker 7: Pox to him.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: That's exactly what I told him.
• 11:32
  Speaker 7: She wants to marry me.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: That's exactly what he told me.
• 11:35
  Speaker 7: I wouldn't marry him if they were Lord Duncan and.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: All his born. Well, then here's what he could do.
• 11:40
  Speaker 9: Simply keep you indebted to him for as long as
• 11:42
  Speaker 9: he wants, by finds by whatever.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: I'd go to the courts and they would uphold him
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: and not you.
• 11:48
  Speaker 7: Then what will you do for me?
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: Pretend what?
• 11:53
  Speaker 9: There's a world, a wonderful world. When you pretend, then
• 11:57
  Speaker 9: anything can be us for as long as long as
• 12:00
  Speaker 9: you pretend, James, I do it all the time, James,
• 12:03
  Speaker 9: I pretend that you were mine.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: Pretending is James?
• 12:08
  Speaker 7: When I leave you, when I return to my straw
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: on the draft, shall I pretend it's a palace bed
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: warm by a fire of burning oak. And shall I
• 12:17
  Speaker 7: pretend that mister Price is a prince?
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: What would you have me do of him? How you
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: have your buttons? James, Yes I have.
• 12:27
  Speaker 7: Therefore you have a good head upon you and a
• 12:30
  Speaker 7: strong back.
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: I'm not a Junian boy, Oh yes you are.
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: They make a plan and follow it. Rid me of him.
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: I will swear it. I swear it, James.
• 12:43
  Speaker 7: Yes, let's pretend there is no mister Price. Let's pretend
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: I'm free for a while.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: For a little while, And there where the river Medlock
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: turned left past Crowley's landing, the cricket sang, and the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: lovers spoke of love and made promises.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: A way to rid him is already forming in my.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Brain, which is the way the evening went. You are
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: listening to Crime Classics and your host, Thomas Hyland. Teenage
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: existence is often fraught with emotional pitfalls what could be
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: more intense? For example, and a bitter and disagreement about
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: which teenage girls should lend what to whom?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow Night on most of these same stations follow these
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: latest doings on Junior Miss, starring Barbara Whiting as Judy Graves.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: It's Junior Miss, the same fine and flighty young lady
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: that Sally Benson created in her own CBS radio series,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Remember Judy and the Terrible Wardrobe Tension. Tomorrow Night now
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: once again Thomas Hyland and the second act of Crime
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Classics and his report to you on James Evans Fireman,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: How he extinguished a human torch.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: To settle any arguments. It was Van der Heide who
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: in sixteen hundred seven invented the hose. A year later
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: he stumbled upon the principle of the suction pipe, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: putting the two together, it enabled the fire engine to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: be some distance away from both the fire and the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: source of water. Before vander Hide, the fires were fought
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: with squeezing streams of water from leather bags. It should
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: be said that in this era things mostly burned to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the ground. In the era we are concerned with the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: eighteen twenties, the city of Manchester depended upon three Newsham
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: fire engines, manned by three fire companies respectively. And the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: company that was wanted most was the Norwich Union Boys.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And the most recent recruit of this crack company was
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the crack youth named James Evans. He knew a lady
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: on bent Farthington Street who sold ducks.
• 15:51
  Speaker 8: Is a plump wood, James Ladd enough meat and fatty
• 15:54
  Speaker 8: on him for bread and spooning, Sophy, pluck him for
• 15:57
  Speaker 8: you before you can say, Jack Renison saved him for you?
• 16:00
  Speaker 8: Id did knowing?
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: As are you like your bird? Come fride, Sophie. What
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: you want James, lad a favor?
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: No?
• 16:09
  Speaker 8: What could a handsome lad like you be wanting? With
• 16:12
  Speaker 8: twelve buttons, a gleam and a badge of shining? What
• 16:16
  Speaker 8: could you be wanting?
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: Lad? There's a girl?
• 16:19
  Speaker 8: Ah, then you'll be needing another duck and you have
• 16:23
  Speaker 8: no money to pay poor Sophie, and you're going to
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: stand and wheedle and make poor so that at all,
• 16:31
  Speaker 8: and you don't want something from poor Sophie, and for
• 16:35
  Speaker 8: which you're not going to pay her, in.
• 16:37
  Speaker 9: Fact, is what I want. I'm going to pay you,
• 16:39
  Speaker 9: good boy. Here's a girl and she's indentured to mister Price.
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: Now which mister Price?
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: May that be the cloth man in Marsden Square? Know him?
• 16:49
  Speaker 8: Boys a pigeon nana about?
• 16:50
  Speaker 9: Go to him, Sophie and ask whether you can borrow
• 16:53
  Speaker 9: this girl of his, this Mary Wharton, for the day
• 16:56
  Speaker 9: for some work you need done.
• 16:58
  Speaker 8: What kind of work will that be?
• 17:00
  Speaker 9: Cleaning? Sort in the feathers for ticking and pillows? And
• 17:03
  Speaker 9: I'll give you the money to pay him, will you
• 17:06
  Speaker 9: do it? Go to him, Irah for today and keep
• 17:10
  Speaker 9: it your house tonight and deliver her back tomorrow.
• 17:13
  Speaker 8: And money to keep my mouth shut for whatever's going
• 17:16
  Speaker 8: to happen.
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: It's ten pounds for all of it.
• 17:20
  Speaker 8: You're a one nincha gimes.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: Will you do it? A course?
• 17:25
  Speaker 7: A course, dear ladder course?
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: Now then you see how it's done. Yes, And let's
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: see you do it. Now here's the cloth.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Put the thread through here and there, then loop over
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: and then through here and there, loop then right through here.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: The machine is ready to sew.
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: Now you do it, Mary, well, I want to mister Price.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: Eh, good, good, good, good.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: You've done it, girl. You know how to make a
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: single thread chain on a sewing machine. I'm glad I
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: am a Mary.
• 18:32
  Speaker 7: Yes, mister Price.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Your fingers will not be stuck with holes anymore.
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: The reason I bought this machine.
• 18:40
  Speaker 7: You're concerned for my fingers, mister Price.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: For your fingers and your hands and your air.
• 18:48
  Speaker 7: What are you trying to say to me, mister Price?
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: You're comely. I noticed this first when you were behind
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: the wire. Mother Winnie pens.
• 18:58
  Speaker 7: But I'm just an dent should maid, sir? And the
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: way you speak to me as if I were a
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: maid who's being.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: Wooed, Mary Mary.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Docsanagees once none to day, I know, mister Price. Hey,
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: now last, good Morrow, Antisophium. We've met enough without your beds.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: But carry off what.
• 19:22
  Speaker 8: I didn't climb these stairs for just a selling No, indeed.
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: Hello, lass, Hello, I heard that.
• 19:29
  Speaker 8: You were a one for cleaning.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: Oh what's this? What's this?
• 19:33
  Speaker 8: I need a cleaning girl, I do, oh, and of
• 19:37
  Speaker 8: money to pay for her a pound till tomorrow morning.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Oh ah, well, a pound's a pound, and in the
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: pockets it sound, I always thinks.
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: What do you say, girl? What do you say? Mary?
• 19:49
  Speaker 7: Whatever you want?
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: And tomorrow when you come back, we can take up
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: the conversation we were having.
• 19:57
  Speaker 8: Yes, here's the pound, then, mister.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Pry, I have a good cleaning for Auntie Sophie.
• 20:03
  Speaker 11: Girl.
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: Well, will indeed come along, loss, Auntie Sophie. Yes, Lass,
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: James Evans sent you to me, La La, to take
• 20:22
  Speaker 7: me away for a night and a day. Lo no long,
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: He's a one, isn't he? Loll loll him and his
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: twelve brass buttons. Oh my, I sewed them all on,
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: all of them, Oh my, ducks.
• 20:42
  Speaker 8: And bitches, bitches and duc supermar.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: That night, that very night, fire fire, fire in the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: cloth factory of mister Price. How it started, No one knew,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: but the hue and cry went up, fire high, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: there was flame and smoke and shouts of alarm. And
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: first on the scene, you guessed it, the Norwich Union Boys.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And first running up the steps, you guessed it. James
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Evans acts in hand, first in the factory loft. The
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: vision obscured. He went to work, very good boy with
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the acts.
• 21:41
  Speaker 10: Help me, help me.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: Mister Price caught on fire. Help me, where are you hurt?
• 21:48
  Speaker 12: Me?
• 21:48
  Speaker 10: Help me?
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: They saved most of the factory. The Norwich Union Boys
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: did the fustian vats, the sewing machine and the main bales.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: The one thing they didn't save, which lowered their score
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: considerably was mister Price. He was found in some ashes
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: with an axe wound in his head. Then suddenly everyone
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: turned on the Norwich Union Boys careless with the acts.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: They were called wanton and worse murderers. So an investigation
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: was held and it was soon determined that James Evans
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: was the fireman shopping closest to where the body was found.
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: And then what happened?
• 22:45
  Speaker 9: Well, Chief, it was smoky and the flames were fairly
• 22:48
  Speaker 9: looking at me buttons.
• 22:49
  Speaker 10: And Rossiter says he heard someone cry out as if
• 22:53
  Speaker 10: to say, help me, help me.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: There was such clamor and excitement, Chief mums Le.
• 22:57
  Speaker 10: Lassiter said he thought he saw through the smoke, of course,
• 23:03
  Speaker 10: human torch.
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: Possibly, when you admit it, it is.
• 23:07
  Speaker 10: Possible that there was an outcry, and it is possible
• 23:10
  Speaker 10: that there was a human toil, yes, sir. And you
• 23:14
  Speaker 10: also must admit it that you were close by wielding
• 23:18
  Speaker 10: the acts.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: Yes, sir.
• 23:19
  Speaker 10: Therefore it is possible that you delivered the ax blow
• 23:22
  Speaker 10: which found its mark in mister Price's head.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: Yes, sir. There is a noise, you know, a nasty noise.
• 23:32
  Speaker 10: People speak of the Norwedge Union boys and sneer people
• 23:37
  Speaker 10: speak of wanton murder.
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: Yes, sir.
• 23:41
  Speaker 10: Therefore, for the good of the Norwedge Union, you understand.
• 23:46
  Speaker 10: Therefore I must report this to the police and hand
• 23:49
  Speaker 10: you over to the sir.
• 23:50
  Speaker 9: Yes, it was an accident. I admit I felt mister Price. Oh,
• 23:56
  Speaker 9: I thought he was a flaming bale of rags, and
• 23:59
  Speaker 9: I took it the bad part to chop it apart
• 24:02
  Speaker 9: from the good part, as I'd been taught. I must
• 24:05
  Speaker 9: tell you, sir, I put out the fire. If the
• 24:09
  Speaker 9: fire happened to be a human torch and I could
• 24:11
  Speaker 9: not know it, then if it happened to be a torch, well, sir,
• 24:14
  Speaker 9: I put it out as I'd been taught.
• 24:17
  Speaker 7: Oh Now, And.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Two weeks later in court that was the boy's defense.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: And while he said it, I.
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: Was putting out a fire.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And while he said it. He looked so handsome standing there,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and so brave, twelve brass buttons and his shining badge,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: with a shaft of morning sun twisting through his curls.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: The stance he took, he seemed somehow a symbol, as
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: if he stood between a hungry fire and a helpless child,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and if he had but to wish it, the fire
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: would go out like that. As a matter of fact,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: just after the jury brought him the verdict, the judge
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: made a statement.
• 25:05
  Speaker 12: I must commend the gentlemen of the jury for the
• 25:08
  Speaker 12: verdict they have rendered. Not guilty, they have said James Evans,
• 25:14
  Speaker 12: approach the bench closer, boy, boy, fireman. I imagine often
• 25:30
  Speaker 12: what it is to face the flames. Sometimes, e sometimes
• 25:35
  Speaker 12: I must tell you this. When I hear the clangor
• 25:38
  Speaker 12: of the fire engine, I hasten to where the conflagration is,
• 25:42
  Speaker 12: and I stand and watch the consuming as the tongues of.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: Flame leap up, leap up.
• 25:49
  Speaker 13: He what a brave man you must be to walk
• 25:52
  Speaker 13: into those infernos. I know you must be brave, for
• 25:55
  Speaker 13: I only stand and watch an eye shiver. Ha, how
• 26:00
  Speaker 13: it must be to be like you are the hero
• 26:03
  Speaker 13: of the flame master of it, slayer of it. You
• 26:08
  Speaker 13: are a hero boy, and that you Oberzellous, have made
• 26:13
  Speaker 13: a mistake and put X to a human being should
• 26:16
  Speaker 13: not be held against you. If you will approach yet closer,
• 26:21
  Speaker 13: I will shake your hand.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And later the judge, Judge Wilcox was his name, married
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the two lovers, James Evans and Mary Warden, and became
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: a great friend of the family. The three of them
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: would sit there in front of the fireplace and just
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: stare at the flames for hours.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: In just a moment, Thomas Hyland will tell you about
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: next week's crime classic, James Evans. Tonight's Crime Classic was
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: adapted from the original court reports and newspaper accounts by
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Morton Fine and David Friedkin. The music was composed and
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: conducted by Bernard Hermann, and the program is produced and
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: directed by Elliot Lewis. Thomas Hyland is portrayed on radio
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: by lou Merrill. In Tonight's story, Alistair Duncan was heard
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: as James, Betty Harford as Mary, and Ben Wright as
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: mister Price. Featured in the cast were Paula Wenslow, Florence Walcott,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: and Richard Peel. Bob Lamann speaking here again is Thomas Hyland.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Next week Rome, Italy in the year fifteen hundred. At
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: that time a girl's brother did a favor, a big favor.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't easy. It's listed in my file, says
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Chaserer Borgia, his most difficult murder. Thank you good night.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: We can tell you in a great many words, or
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: in just three words, what makes CBS radio news first
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: and foremost with most Americans. Let's do it the short
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: way this time. Those three words or names rather are Murrow, Thomas,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: and Trout, because Edward R. Murrow, Lowell Thomas, and Robert
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Trout are just three of the reporters you hear regularly
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: at the Star's address. Because American knows and trusts these
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: men and the great CBS Radio newsroom that backs them
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: up with a worldwide network of reporting. America listens most
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: to CBS Radio for its news as well as its entertainment.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: America listens most to the CBS Radio network
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: No