Reforming a Burglar. (Harper's Magazine,)

Otago Witness, Issue 2437, 28 November 1900, Page 69

Reforming a Burglar. (Harper's Magazine,)

t lew people, remarked Judge UraJbtree, '"realise the hardships of the burglar's life — the long, dark hours, - the high price of g-oad jimmies, the poor pictures of themseh'es in the sensational newspapers: Then there - are mir-or vexations. I remember - one' night when I lived in Syracuse. I was awakened at the dark and unthinkable hour of 1.30 a.m. by a noise. It was in. the fall, and the political situation was critical. 'Ah,' said Ito myself, 'it is a delegation of my fellow citizens coming to osk me to take the reins of civil government and guide Syracuse to higher anc' saltier things.' The demonstration seemcc 1 to be mainly in the rear, which I readily accouutsd for with the explanation that mj friends had surrounded the house so that I might not escape them. I accordingly poked my head out of the second-storey back wndow, expecting to look down upon the regulation sea of upturned faces. A big, dark-coloured burglar was jimmying my laundry window. My heari, beat wildly and fluttered against the manuscript of a speech which I harl prepared for the occasion several weeks before, and which was in my nightshirt pocket. My first thought Mas to throw the manuscript at the burgbr and perhaps inflict fatal injuries. Then it occurred to me that every citizen would in a few days be needed at the polls. I witlidrew my head and tapped my brow sagely. The niarouder was already half in the window. I knew, of course, that he would make his way to the dining room in quest of my silverware. There was a door through which he must ppss leading from the laundry to the csllar stairs. As he opened this door his right ear would bo only about a foot from a speaking tube, the other end of which was in . the hall 'behind me. I determined to speak to that burglar as one man speaking to another. 'What is position?' said Ito myself. 'We are all brothers. Away with ca?te ! A man's a man for a' that.' Besides, there was his vote. He might belong to the other party after all, the so-called leformers. Perhaps [ could persuade him to come over to the side of the true reformers. As I walked along the hall the business aspect also struck me. Why not suggest to the follow that if he would give me a reasonable retainer I would defend, his in court? But the moral duty I owed him prevailed. 'I shall say things to that misguided man that may do him good,' I remarked. 'I will say this to him : "Be good, my child, and let who will be clever." Maybe it will be best to frighten him by remarking in a hollow voice: "Burgle not!" Anyhow, I'll quote the saying about Satan and idle hands.' It occurred to me, aLso, thai perhaps I could touch his artistic side by giving him -Hamlet's soliloqiiy. The idea of song liliswise struck me, and_a clear tenor rendition, per tube, of^' Where is my wandering boy to-night?' I thought, might have its effect. By this time I had reached the tube. I listened and heard his hand on the latch. The first thing, of course, in speaking through a tube to a person is to attract his attention with the whistle. My chest measure is large, and my lung capacity not inconsiderable. I threw back my shoulders and drew in a vast volume of the heavy night air. Then I fitted my lips -clos-c to the tube. I was rifervous and excited, and I blew like mighty Boreas. Tlfe strange, wild shriek of that laundry whistle, came back up the tube like the wail of a prehistoric mpnster. It suddenly struck me thai I had overdone matters and perhaps 'alarmed the- „raan. I ran to the back window. What seemed .like a dark, billowing. , endless piece of "stair carpet reached away from my laundry window, across buckyards and away into the unknown distance. It was that b-urglar seeking safety in flight. >The billows were produced' by his bounds over fences" and other high objects. 1 returned to my beoV'