CHILDREN GOT FREE PEANUTS.

The New York Times
April 26, 1900

It All Happened Because a Locomobile Scared a Horse

A steam locomobile that made more noise than a freight train was the means of giving children playing in Mount Morris Park, near the Fifth Avenue entrance, a feast of peanuts, candy, and apples yesterday at the expense of an Italian vendor.  For weeks past an Italian whom the children all know as George has taken up his stand at the corner of One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue early every morning and has captured their pennies daily.

About noon yesterday a locomobile was seen tearing down Fifth Avenue at a furious rate; a big bay horse, hitched to one of H. C. F. Koch & Co.'s wagons, reared as the machine passed it and then started to dash down the avenue.  Against the curb was George's two-wheeled pushcart, and the wheels of the heavy top wagon, slipping on the asphalt pavement, swung around and struck the pushcart with a crash that could have been heard a block away.

The horse was thrown down by the force of the collision and some of its harness broken, while the contents of the wrecked pushcart were scattered in every direction.  The sight of numerous youngsters chasing rosy apples and gathering up peanuts by the hatfull quickly brought George to his senses and he began to shout "Police!"

To cap the climax the burning charcoal in the peanut roaster set fire to a can of kerosene also on the pushcart, so that between the youngsters, the fire, and the kerosene there was only a remnant of the stock left.

What became of the locomobile, which caused all the trouble, nobody seems to know.