They will be burying Edson E. Phelps today somewhere or other. He died in a third floor back on Sunday, which explains why the doubled-up, little, prematurely old man was not on his camp stool at Eleventh and Main yesterday or the day before, selling newspapers.

When the newspapers yesterday published the announcement of the death of the old "newsboy" they dismissed it in a line or two. There was no mention made about Mr. Phelps, formerly a book seller with a large establishment on Delaware street, and before that the head bookman in M. H. Dickinson's great store at 620 Main street.

The writers who picked up the death of Phelps, the old newsboy, and the undertakers who got his remains, and the deputy coroner who viewed them, were not old enough to remember the days when The Journal was on Fifth street and the town ended at the Junction, where Dr. Munford was talking of putting up one of the biggest buildings in the West, which he had somebody do afterwards, sure enough, and it is there today.

In those days Mr. Phelps, the best known book seller in this part of the country and an authority looked up to from New York and the shops in Churchyard street, London, no less. Mr. Phelps, without a doubt, was the best posted man on books in private trade. He would not snap his fingers to sell a set of new stuff, but he could make T. B. Bullene go miles to look at a hand-tooled Bible, and then made Mr. Bullene buy it and, which may be news to some people interested, he got Father Dalton interested in some other rich old books and the upshot was that Mr. Bullene gave Father Dalton his precious old hand-tooled Bible, that Mr. Phelps had secured for him, one of the only three of the kind in the world.

And Mr. Phelps could walk slap bang up to the desk of Simeon B. Armour, one of the great Armours, and talk books to him. Mr. Armour said once that he understood there was a Mazarin Bible for sale. Could Mr. Dickinson find out about it? Mr. Phelps was sent for, and he told that excepting for the copies in the British museum and the Lenox, N. Y. library, the only other copy was in the hands of a rich Chicago candymaker, and might be bought. What would Mr. Armour care to offer?

Thank you, he would run up and see if Gunther would take $10,000 for the book.

Last week Phelps would say thanks for two pennies for a copy of a newspaper he was selling, and he would take off his hat for a nickel.

Mr. Phelps -- this is going back to the '80s, when Dickinson's bookstore was the literary center of the city and the public library was on the second floor of the old trap at northeast Eighth and Walnut -- handled a Breeches Bible, and he negotiated for a Caxton Golden Legend, finally terminating the deal by deciding the copy was spurious. He knew the whereabouts of the only First Psalter, Caxton movable type print, and bought over half a dozen copies of Mlle De Maupane, excommunicated though it was and hard to get through the postoffice or customs house without having all the pictures and most of the pages torn out. He thought nothing of charging a $100 commission on a two or more volume set of old works when he was Mr. Phelps, and he cried like a child last winter one cold morning when a man, instead of buying a paper which old Phelps, the newsboy, was wobbling about as an offer, slipped a half a dollar in his hand and said, "Pretty cold this morning, Mr. Phelps."

"Mr. Phelps" was getting back to the days of uncut first editions of "Pickwick Papers," second edition "Shakespeares," fully illumined "Arabian Nights," and Frank Tyler, and Cameron Mann, and when Miss Sheldley used to buy her expensive editions through Mr. Phelps.

Mr. Phelps would show his precious smuggled copies -- most of them consigned --to the biggest people of the city, and he had the right to walk into the private office of Colonel W. H. Winants in the old Armour bank and talk original plates to him.

But that was a long time ago. That was as long ago as twenty years, and twenty years are twenty decades in this rapidly revolving West.

The self-same Mr. Phelps did not dare to go into the humblest office where they let out desk room in his last years. He had the bad luck to live too long. He ought to have died when Herb Matthews, his old partner in the bookselling business in the Delaware street store, died, or when his other old running mate, Ed Burton, the stationer at Dickinsons, died. The three were the literary authorities of Kansas City. Two of them died ten years ago, and went to their graves in honor.

Phelps buried himself about the same time, but kept on breathing until last Sunday, and the longer he lived the deeper he buried himself, till he got so deep down and so far out of sight that he could come out in the open and sit on a cap stool at Eleventh and Main and sell papers for coppers, getting into greater ecstasy over a nickel than when he was Mr. Phelps and making $100 commission on a single deal. He did not have to die to be forgotten, but old-timers like D. P. Thompson, whose gallery in those days was near Dickinson's store on North Main street, turned up who remembered when Phelps, the newsboy, was Mr. Phelps, the bookseller and literary antiquarian, and the identity of the man was fixed.

Affidavits showing that foreign residents of the West Bottoms had entrusted $300,000 and lost it in the Croatian bank, operated by Frank Zotti & Co. of New York, were sent yesterday morning to the district attorney thre by Father M. D. Krmpotic of St. John's Croatian Catholic church, Fourth street and Barnett avenue, Kansas City, Kas.

The Frank Zotti & Co. bankers handled money for the Croatians and other Austrian peoples in the United States who had friends in the old country to whom they regularly remitted at the week ends. When the company closed doors last week, it is alleged that the books showed no instance where the money had been remitted further than the bank. The total deficit amounted to over $1,000,000, affecting many thousand Croatians all over the country, a it is a comon custom with them to send part of their weekly wages to Austria.

"I am representing my countrymen to the best of my ability in this very important matter," said Father Krmpotic last evening. "Some of them are, of course, very ignorant of our banking system and when they received letters from the old co untry telling of hte failure to receive needed money, they thought the remitance had been lost somehow in the mails, and never distrusted the bank.

"I know many Croatians here who are out as much as $4,000. Not only are they suffering from the loss of this money, but relatives in Austria, who were in very bad circumstances, are still suferring. Many of them plunged deeply in debt, thinking the money would finally reach them in a budget accompanied by an apology from a mail clerk somewhere along the route."

Father Krmpotic is teacher, doctor and interpreter as well as Catholic priest to his countrymen in the West Bottoms. He is highly respected by them in his diverse capacities.

There was the liveliest kind of mixup between detectives in No. 2 police station last night and for a moment it looked as though blood might be shed.

At 10 o'clock last night, William Bradley, a Union depot detective, Carl Demmett, a Rock Island detective, and Charles Lewis and Frank Lyngar, city detectives, brought two prisoners, George Stryker and Fred Reed, into No. 2 police station and charged them with attempting to pass a bad check on J. A. Merritt of Savannah, Mo.

Gum opium was found in a sack of tobacco carried by Stryker and Desk Sergeant Harry Moulder told Jailer Long to look in the men's shoes to see if they had any "dope" concealed there. The prisoners were taken to the back of the room.

Then the sergeant asked Bradley who the arresting officers were. Bradley, who was standing in front of the desk replied:

"Bradley, Demmett, Lewis and Lyngar.

Lyngar was standing at Sergeant Moulder's elbow.

"Bradley had nothing whatever to do with the arrest" said Lyngar.

"You're a liar!" shouted Bradley, and started to go around the desk toward Lyngar.

Detective Lewis was standing in Bradley's way and he pushed the depot detective back. Bradley struck Lewis and the two clashed. Lewis drew his revolver and tried to hit Bradley with the butt end, but Bradley knocked the weapon out of his hand.

Sergeant Moulder tried to hold Bradley and there was a mixup of officers in the thick of which Policeman Joe Kelley was discovered with his left hand clutching Bradley by the throat and his right hand shaking a club in Bradley's face.



In the meantime the prisoners, who had been interested spectators of the fight, suddenly concluded that a police station filled with fighting officers was no place for them, and they bolted for freedom. Jailer William Love saw them going and he made a grab for them. Immediately there was a lively triangular struggle that did not end until J. P. Johnson, a Gamewell operator, hastened to Long's assistance. By this time everybody in the station house, including the prisoners, was red faced and perspiring freely. And nobody was in a good humor. The prisoners offered the excuse that they feared they might get shot if they remained int he station.

Lyngar and Bradley have always been rivals. Both work at the depot, but Bradley is employed by the depot and Lyngar is paid by the city.

The prisoner, who gave his name as George Stryker, is said to be "Whitie," a well known confidence man. It is said that he and Reed tried to borrow $20 from Merritt on a bad check for $1,350.

Merritt was on the Frisco Meteor, due to leave here at 9:30 p. m., when these men came in the car and made themselves acquainted. Reed told Merritt that he had the dead body of his brother at the depot and couldn't get the body out because he owed $20 express charges. Reed wanted to ship the beloved relative on the Meteor. Stryker was introduced as the hard hearted express agent. He said that if Reed would get $20 he would let the body go, and not before.

Reed had a check for $1,350 and finally he offered to leave this with Merritt as security for a $20 loan. Just then the detectives arrived and a Savannah, Mo., citizen was saved.

Dr. D. M. Monie of West Pittston, Pa., who was with the detectives when the arrest was made, was attempting to identify a man who had agreed to sell his ticket to Chicago. He wanted to go to St. Louis, so accepted the kind offer of a new found friend who "knew a man who would pay well for a ticket to Chicago." Dr. Monie did not find his man or the ticket.