Republican farmer., 1919-08-22
ROAMS STREETS
 WEIGHTED WITH
 HIS OWN COFFIN
His Because He Bought It, and Further Because He
 Couldn't Sell IL.

New York, Aug. 1S.---Between mid night and cock crow yesterday a man roamed the streets of Brooklyn stag gering beneath the weight of a "dou- ble extra" quartered oak coffin, han dies and plate warranted to be of sterling silver and the glass of heavy plate. Int man was George White, of 65 Sackman street, Brooklyn. The coffin was his: he had bought it for S135 from a friend who had postponed his death indefinitely.
 MT. White, enthusiastic as to the merits of his bargain, started out to sell it at a profit to some undertaken. The tale of his travels and adven- lures is inscribed upon station house blotters from Dan to Beersheba, as they say in Brooklyn. No coffin in the history of the world, it is believed, ever travelled further afoot or caused more commotion doing 1t than did that double extra quartered oak bargain Of MT. Whites. Had it's ca reer not come to an untimely end at noon yesterday, it would have rivalled the coffin of Mahomet.
 The trouble was MT. White is not a professional paITbearer. Brooklyn undertakers were not in a receptive mood, and his task began to pail on him after a few blocks. Then he put the coffin down and sought the near est saloon that showed hospitable lights.
 Apparently few Brooklyn saloon keepers had the heart to close their doors against a man a-wearied of bearing his own coffin for MT. Whites stops, as recorded by the police, were frequent. Every time he stopped some late-walking vigiIante of Brook lyn discovered the coffin. Everybody who discovered it came to the imme diate conclusion that a murderer had completed his horrid task, even to buying a coffin, and was waiting only for the moon to set to bury his vic tim.
 From midnight until after dawn telephone bells tinkled in police sta tions and vexed police heutenants assured well-intentioned citizens that 1t was not murder they had dis covered but merely Mir White car rying his coffin. The first time 1t happened soon after midnight, at Broadway and Eastern Parkway, Mir. White and his coffin journeyed to the Ralph avenue police station with the mortified patrolman who discovered
  was a mystery for the detectives.
 MT. White explained the situation in dignified manner and thereafter he was not molested in his travels by the police, who figured that not mo e than one man would be carrying a coffin around Brooklyn on any given night.
 The climax came yesterday after noon when George Edwards, whose father has a warehouse at F Howard avenue, opposite the Bushwick, the atre. called the Ralph avenue police station.
 There's been a murder" said Mir. Edwards, breathlessly, and the vic tim, coffin and all, is in the lot beside the warehouse here"
 See anything of a man in a. soft hat and raincoat, name O. White?" demanded Detective Peter Thornton.
 There's quite a crowd around" :" said Mr Edwards, he may be in it--- in the crowd, I mean"
 Well for Pete's sake burn the darn thing before he gets hold of 1t again, whether he's in it or not!" shouted Thornton, then went over himself to make sure his instructions were car ried out
 Slightly battered and dented by its experiences and without its sterling silver handles the double extra was the centre of an awestruck throng. A blaze was kindled, the coffin was placed in the flames and the police stood by until the last vestige of it haI ir, nko