Pranks

These stories were clever enough, or dangerous enough, to make it into the newspapers.

(1927) Four lads aged 10 to 12 played bandit, shooting at passing automobiles from tall grass, having a wonderful time until a hard hearted cop came by and interrupted them. Their "guns" were stout stakes stuck in the ground with automobile inner tubes attached, from which they hurled stones. Their "fort" was the tall grass near the Ellwood fire house. A passing motorist was annoyed when some of these stones broke the enamel on his car. He heard the boys giggle, so was able to locate them. He reported it to the town police and Officer Sippereley went to the scene of the ambush. He captured the machine gun nest with no opposition, and gave the boys a lecture, then reported it to their parents. And the "banditry" has not been repeated.

(1906) The International Railway Company is endeavoring to apprehend the perpetrators of a malicious prank which resulted in bruises and other injuries to the passengers of a south bound Buffalo and Niagara Falls trolley car on the Military Road in the Town of Tonawanda Thursday night. William Dueger of North Tonawanda, the motorman, was running his car at full speed when he noticed what appeared to be the body of a man on the track a short distance ahead. He instantly reversed and brought the car to a stop to quickly that some of the passengers were thrown from their seats and bruised and cut.

After the motorman and several passengers had alighted in the deep mud, they found that the would-be suicide was no more than a carefully rigged-up dummy of old clothes and straw. The dummy was placed on the track at almost the same spot where an unknown man was struck and instantly killed by a car, on which James Dayton of North Tonawanda was conductor, a few weeks ago.