National Affairs: A Date at The Dance Hall

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The Cockeye, Squint and Gentile were convicted of the murder a year later. For months, they sat in the death house at Sing Sing while their lawyers battled up to New York's highest court. Then Squint Sheridan sent down word that he was ready to sing. Dunn and Gentile, he swore, had had nothing to do with the killing; he alone had planned it. It had been carried out by two men, but one of them was dead now and the other was not to be found.

The court listened to him for two days, called him a liar and observed: ". . . the well-known trick ... of substituting for guilty participants dead men whose lips are sealed." There would be no new trial for any of the boys.

Last week New York's Court of Appeals agreed: the three men must die in the electric chair. If all goes well, Johnny Dunn and his pals, losers in the deadly game that still goes on on the waterfront, will have to keep a date in The Dance Hall—the last-night cells that lead into the death chamber.

* Loan sharks who exact a dollar weekly for every five they lend.