One Middle Village Man Locked Up, Other in Hospital – Conflicting Stories Told

One man in a cell and another in a hospital with a fractured skull and expected to die, is the result of a fight which took place about midnight last night on Dry Harbor Road, at the crossing of the Long Island Railroad, in Glendale, Queens. The spot is on the dividing line between two police precincts, and the reserves of both station houses were turned out in the effort to capture the assailant. The injured man is Tony Michaels, 22 years old, a carpenter, whose home is at 8 Barnum Avenue, Middle Village. His alleged assailant is Henry Zirk, 24 years old, a well-to-do farmer, residing at Metropolitan and Juniper Avenues, Middle Village. 

Michaels is in the German Hospital with a possible fracture of the skull and several scalp wounds. He is not expected to live, and at a late hour last night the coroner was notified to take his ante-mortem statement. One report of the occurrence is that the altercation occurred as the men were on their way home from where they had spent the evening in a saloon on Van Camp Avenue, near Dry Harbor Road, in company with several other men. The proprietor of the place says that they had no quarrel in his saloon and what they disagreed about while walking together is not known. Michaels was found in the roadway badly beaten. 

A hurry call for an ambulance brought surgeon Meyer, who hurried Michaels to the German Hospital. Zirk was arrested at his home in Middle Village by the police of the 285th precinct. He is charged with felonious assault. He will be arraigned in the Flushing police station today. Another report is that Zirk and two friends were going home when they were held up by Michaels and two companions. The general fight is said to have been ensued, during which, as alleged, Zirk seized the club to defend himself and struck Michaels. His friends say he acted only in self-defense. – Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 22, 1908