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ATTACKED IN HAMILTON STORE
Mrs. Percy Cook Formerly of Welland Beaten by Thug With Hammer
[The Welland Tribune and Telegraph, 15 June 1926]
Murderously assaulted at noon Thursday by a thug armed with a hammer, Mrs. Percy Cook, 168 Gage Avenue North, Hamilton, will recover hospital authorities now state.
Mrs. Cook, formerly lived in Welland, and while residing here was employed at the Plymouth Cortege Company where she was in charge of the printing press. She left Welland for Hamilton some four or five years ago.
She was attacked in S.S. Needle’s shoe store, 653 Barton Street East, where she is a clerk, when she resisted the effort of a burly foreigner to rob the cash register.
Her assailant was Joe Barty, 378 James Street North, a powerful Hungarian steel worker, who was captured before he escaped from the store by reason of the plucky fight put up by the woman’s husband and Mr. Needle, the proprietor. Inspector Cruickshank of the East End precinct laid Barty out prone with two blows from a short-loaded “Billy.”
Barty entered the store under the pretense of buying a pair of shoes. Mrs. Cook is usually alone during noon hour. As Mrs. Cook approached to wait upon him, Barty, it is alleged struck her two cruel blows on the head with a hammer. She fell to the floor and was believed to be mortally wounded.
Powerful as Barty was, Cook and Needle, both small men, rushed upon the brutal assailant and grappled with him. He shook them off several times by sheer strength and bit and clawed like one mad. Cook was bitten badly in the nose and neck. Needle feared Mrs. Cook’s life was ebbing away and ran to the street for help. Meanwhile Cook held on the powerful foreigner and both were in a clinch when Inspector Cruickshank reached the store and used his “billy” effectively.
Mrs. Cook is said to have suffered a fracture of the skull as a result of the blows from the hammer. She was reported tonight to be improved and her recovery is expected.
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