POMP AND PAGEANT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19845, 20 May 1927, Page 2

POMP AND PAGEANT

GANG LEADER’S FUNERAL HUGE BILL FOR FLOWERS. The most impressive funerals in Chicago for the past four years have been those of three leaders of the underworld. With the full pomp and panoply of ’•gangland,” and a military firing party, Vincent Drucci, known as •‘The Schemer,” w r ho was shot dead by Detective-Sergeant Daniel HeaJy, was laid, to rest in Mount Carmel Cemetery. He had served with the American Expeditionary Force in France, and had an honourable discharge from the Army. The funeral was comparable in lavish expenditure to that of the notorious vice-lord, Dion O’Bannion, who p-crished in a running automobile fight with machine-guns between tw r o rival gangs. Drucci’s funeral had the addci’l (iignity of an armed escort from Fort Sheridan, which fired a volley over his grave. A big crowd gathered round the mortuary parlour as the silver casket, bearing his remains, was borne to the funeral carriage. One report stated, that the Church took no part in the obsequies. Members of the family and intimate friends repeated prayers, led by the undertaker. The Stars and Stripes draped the coffin, which was preceded by 12 automobiles, bearing flowers, sent by Drucci’s associates. The Chisago Tribune’s report gives the following 11 notables of gangland” as being present: —George Moran. Fur Sammons, Joe Saltis, Dingbat Oberta, Maxie Eisen, the Gusenbcrg brothers, Pete and Frank, and "Potatoes” Kaufman. The coffin was valued at £3OOO, and the flowers at £7OOO. The watchers bared heads as "taps” was sounded, and the volley fired over the grave. Sergeant Healy has since received anonymous letters threatening his life, and his house is under police guard day and night. With the prevailing "complex” for glorif; ing " . ” an increasing oody of public opinion is demanding the trial of the police officer on a charge of murder.