Litchfield enquirer., 1878-08-15
SHOT BY A BURGLAR.
JOHN D. cAxDER, EDITOR OF THE BRIDGEPORT STANDARD WOUNDED BY A BURGLAR
 GADaTNGA


 This Summer resort is unusually peaceful
 and orderly and little troubled by thieves and
 other criminals Consequently the struggle
 with burglar at an early hour this morning
 in which guest at hotel was shot, has start
 led the people and caused much comment and
 some excitement The event took place at
 the Temple Grove Seminary, brick building
 used asa school for young ladies in winter and
 a hotel during the summer months. It is
 pleasantly situated in one of the most promi-
 nent and thickly populated parts of Saratoga,
 only short distance east of Broadway, the
 main thOroughfare. It is at the corner of
 String and Circular streets, and one of the
 fronts looks upon the Indian Camp and Park.
 Tres abound in the vicinity, the streets are shaded and cool, the grounds in the rear of the hotel-seminary are spacious and attractive, snd altogether it is one of the pleasantest quar- ters in Saratoga There is room in the build ing for nearly 100 boarders and it contained about eighty at the time of the burglary and attempted murder. Of course, all the occupants were thrown into the greatest consternation and alarm at the the time. The coolest and calmeSt person in the house appeared to be the man who was shot by the burglar.
 This was John D. Candee, of Bridgeport, Conn, editor of the Standard in that town. He arrived in Saratoga, Monday afternoon,
 
 ten years old They occupied two connecting rooms On1he second floor in the rear part of the hotel About one o'clock yesterday morn- ing. MrS Candee, who is an invalid and sleeps lightly, was awakened by the movement of closet dOOr in their bedroom. She aroused her husband and asked him to shut the closet door. He did so and was soon asleep again. In about fifteen minutes Mrs. Candee's attention WAS directed tO the closet door again by hear 70 a,.1 ol.o alxR with fright to see a man looking intently at her from the closet. The intruder had opened the door again a little way. She instantly rOased her husband saying, Wake up there is a man in the room."
 Mir. Candee is nearly sixty years of age, but he is man of large frame and much muscular power. and also a man of great courage. He was unarmed, but he immediately sprang from the bed and seized the burglar, who had step ped from the closet, probably intending to es- cape Mr. Candee pushed him through the doorway into the next chamber, and closed the door, not thinking at the moment of the fright that would be caused to his child, who was sleeping in that room. The child scream cd, and he rushed into the room, grappled with the burglar again and forced him down. A pistol shot was heard, but Mir. Candee did not know that he was wounded, and did not relax his hold. The burglar did not shoot again. Possibly his pistol only had one bar rel Mir Candee's child says that the fellow cried, ''If you don't let me go, Fiji kill you," but Mir. Candee did not hear these words. Af- ter holding the man down few seconds it oc. cured to him to unlock the hall door of the room, in order that others might enter and the burglar be secured. He had not cried for help, all his attention being taken up with the struggle. The screams of his wife and child, however, rang through the house.
 Mir. Candee unlocked and threw open the door into the hall, and then turned back to the place where he left the prOstrate ruffian. The room is a small one, and he did not think the man could elude him in the moment required to open the door. Before leaving the over powered burglar he had felt of the blinds in the window, and got the impression that they were fastened. The night was very dark and | no objects could be distinguished in this cham | ber. In the room occupied by Mr. Candee | and his wife lamp had been burning dimly, | and by it's light Mrs Candee had been able to | see the burglars face in the closet, though not | to distinguish his features. The instant MT. | Candee lOOsened his grasp and turned toward | the door, the burglar escaped through the win dow. The blinds were not fastened, as Mir. | Candee had thought. In fact the thief had entered through that very window, by means of a ladder which he had found on the grounds The clerk of the hotel, whose room was on this side of the house, heard a noise, and look ing out, saw dark object descending. The ladder slipped and turned, and the burglar al- most fell When he reached the earth, he fled at great speed to Regent street, and thence to Union avenue.
 Mrs. Candee, while her husband was grab bling with the Uffian, had opened the door leading from her room into the hall. Her cries had brought the watchman of the hotel to the door with q revolver in his hand but he did not enter, fearing, as he said, that in the darkness he might shoot the wrong man. The whole house had been aroused by the tumult, and there was the greatest confusion for short time. Men and women in scanty attire rushed wildly to the place where the noise was heard to learn the cause of the alarm. In the two rooms were evidences of the desperate encoun- ter. A large chair and other furniture had been shattered, things had been dashed about, there were blood stains on the wall and floor and Mir. Candee was bleeding from the head, face and neck. A surgeon found pistol ball in his neck. It had entered under the ear and penetrated about two inches, following the curve of the neck somewhat. It was near the surface and taken out easily. It was a bullet of a size and weight that apparently indicated the use of pistol about midway in calibre between the smallest size and the regulation army revolver. Mrs. Candee, however, caught a glimpse of the pistol and says that it looked small it made only slight noise. Mir. Can- dee was also wounded in the forehead and the face, seemingly by blows from the pistol In the excitement of the struggle he did not know anything about his wounds and had no idea that there was bullet in his neck until the surgeon found it. His injuries arc not se- rious, and he takes the whole matter lightly He talks without excitement and very good humoredly about the whole affair. His wife, however, is much affected by the shock.
 It will be very difficult if not impossible, to trace the burglar. Mir. Candee could not give a full description of him. He says, however, that he was man of about medium height possibly little below it, with a rather full and round face. He could not tell whether the burglar wore any beard or whiskers, or wheth- CT his face was smoothly shaven. He was somewhat over the average weight probably, being neither fat or lean, but his bones being well covered with flesh. He did not show l much muscular power in the struggle with Mr. Candee. The latter got the impression that | the ruftian was negro, but Mrs. Candee is | positive that he was not or if he had negro | blood in his veins he was not black. He had | black or very dark hair, she thought. He left | foot prints in the ground in his flight One of these is we'll defined. It is that of a man with a stocking on but no shoe. The toes are long, and the marks of them show plainly where the front of the foot sank in, as .le fugitive spr ang forward Some persons who have examined the tracks think they are those of negro, but the foot seems to have been too small for that of negro. The bur glar obtained nothing by his bold crime If Mrs. Candee had not been aroused so easily, however, he might have secured property of considerable value, which was in the room.- W. r. Tribune, Aug. Sth.
 The dreadful stories of outrages by tramps, which are so frequent this summer, are caus. ing much nneasiness A New York lawyer | writes to the Springfield Republican as fol. | lows; '1 see by the papers that shocking | outrage has been committed near Brattleboro. Vt, by tramp, and letter from that place | confirms the statement. When there two | weeks ago, found that it was thought neces- | aarY that YnlIng ladies walking in the ccnntr.,