“If Thine Eye Offend..."

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31866, 19 December 1968, Page 6

“If Thine Eye Offend..."

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) NITEROL (Brazil). A 46-year-old Brazilian Negro with a habitual criminal record hits followed literally ; the Biblical exhortation—“if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Jose Rodrigues Dias, genI erally known as “Uncle Joe” or “Rich Mout” (because of I his many gold teeth), deliberately blinded himself in order to end a long career of compulsive theft. Now, with eight years

served of a 30-year-sentence, he is waiting in the Rio de Janeiro state penitentiary for ; a pardon from President Artur da Costa e Silva. , His story has been told in i the popular pictorial weekly, , “O Cruzeiro," which interviewed “Uncle Joe” in prison. . He told how he had j deliberately blinded himself by putting caustic soda into i his eyes in order to avoid temptation to steal. "Happier Now” Dias says he is now a happier man and attends evangelical church services every week, guided by a policeman as he picks his way along with dark classes and white stick, and wearing the open-toed clogs of the poor. “Uncle Joe,” born in the Minas Gerais state town of Engenho Novo, began his long criminal record as a child. He has been arrested 41 times and has escaped 20 times—ls of them with at least temporary success. He has been shot and wounded three times in brushes with the police. “I have no family, no ; friends,” he said. But he i claims to have been married) once and to have had eight common law wives. Religious Tracts Arrested in 1958, and tired of life, he attempted to commit suicide. While recovering in a prison cell, he was given religious tracts and first conceived the idea of ending temptation by obliterating his sight. “I cried a lot,” he said. “But I came to the conclusion that there was only one solution—to pray to God to make me blind because a blind man can do no evil.” But other escapes, robberies and recaptures fol-

lowed before he finally put his vow into practice while serving his sentence. Now his cell door remains open, and there is no more thought —or possibility —of flight. The state authorities have already approved a petition for his pardon and sent it to Brasilia for a presidential decision.