100 years ago in The Saratogian
Tuesday, May 22, 1917
Saratoga County is reaping the benefits of increased automobile ownership, collecting more than $6,500 more in registration fees than it did during the same period last year.
“That an enormous exchange of cars is now in progress throughout the State is clearly indicated by the thousands of vendee affidavits which are being filed in Secretary [of State] Hugo’s office,” The Saratogian reports.
The secretary’s office calculates that registrations for 1917 are already up to 85% of the total for 1916. “Before the end of the month Secretary Hugo will have registered more cars than during all of last year,” a reporter writes.
From January through April, 1,647 pleasure cars, 245 commercial vehicles and 352 “chauffeurs” were registered in Saratoga County. The numbers include vehicles belong to farmers who are “turning an honest dollar these days by carrying their neighbors to town, presumably whenever they have business there themselves.” State law requires farmers to take out special licenses for “cars that are operated for hire, even though only occasionally.”
County registration fees total $9,165.50 so far this year.
ROBBERY THWARTED
Mary Sweeney has a frightening experience at her brother’s hotel , but it effectively thwarts an attempted robbery tonight.
Edward C. Sweeney runs Sweeney’s Hotel on Railroad Place. When Mary walks into the kitchen to get an apple, “a blanket was suddenly thrown over her head and she was thrust down the cellar stairs.”
Mary is “terribly frightened” and “suffered considerably from shock,” but quickly regains presence of mind enough to yell for her brother. By that time, however, her attacker has already escaped, apparently empty-handed.
Tonight’s incident is the second appearance of an intruder at Sweeney’s in the last two weeks. Earlier, an unknown burglar walked off with half a barrel of potatoes and some quilts.
“The fact that the man was so careful to avoid being seen leads to the belief that he knew he would be recognized,” a Saratogian reporter speculates, “His movements also showed him to be familiar with the plan of the hotel, and the theory that he is a former employee is being investigated.”
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Tonight’s attraction at the Broadway Palace is a movie adaptation of Winston Churchill’s “The Crisis.” The American novelist Winston Churchill is not to be confused with the British politician of the same name, who will confuse things further by writing “The World Crisis” in 1923.
The Broadway Theater combines a “Supreme Vaudeville” bill with the Dorothy Kelly movie “The Money Mill.” The live bill is headed by The Shanghai Troupe, lauded as the “Most Sensational Chinese Novelty in Existence.”