The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1897-12-16
LIKES THE CRASH.


Failing Glass Makes Music for Leoni.
Throws stones Through Windows.
From the Chicago Journal.
John Il. Leoni. who for three weeks
laughed at the best detective skill Of
Chicago and in that time destroyed $780,
600 TO SIS 900 worth of plate-glass win
dows in Chicago, was brought TO the
detention hospital this morning by the
police.
He was found on the street talking to
himself, ana locked up for safe-keep-
ing.
I.eoni IS both sane and insane. He
realizes his condition, knows he has
mental loses when he talks to himself
and his mind is beyond control
He is a philosopher and something Of
n stole. He knows how he is handi-
capped by his afliosion and seems to
bear no malice toward those who dis
trust him as an employe.
1t was in November. 1893, that the
young Italian came into greatest noto-
riety. In that month he helped cut
the plate-glass manufacturers to the
amount of many thousand dollars. The
business district was the walking place
of a crank whose mania was the shat
tering of windows.
The police were put to work on the
case, but for days could not find the
man. Big windows continued to fall
with a crash. and the owners of eXpen-
sive store fronts We're almost in
panic
The detection of the perpetrator of
these deeds came about through his
mania. Leonis missiles We're small cob
blestones carefully polished and marked
with cross in chalk.
one evening he stood before a partic-
ularly tempting eXpanse of glass on
Madison street. waiting for n chance to
! throw. A man stood near him.
-, n4xF col a "a a.
! ~ To get into trouble. Go away, | want
| to break that window over there"
The man was an officer in plain
| clothes and the Italian landed in the
/ station. He was taken to the deten-
| ton hospital, and from there sent to
jefferson, from which place he was re-
leased i'm a few months.
/ AS a sculptor in soap Leoni is said to
4 have no equal. He is the only man in
1 this country who does this work sue
cessfully. and he has been valuable
/ employe to several of the great soap
/ making concerns His erratie ways,
however. have been the cause of his
losing one position after another, until
i he is now known from one end of the
country to the other.
The young sculptor was in the great
st. Louis cyclone. He was in the city
/ hospital strapped by one wrist to his
bed. when the storm struck the town
The wind blew a window in and the
broken glass fell on his bed. With q
sharp fragment he cut the strap and
jumped up in time to prevent nurse
| from running into the street where she
would probably have been killed.
1T is pretty hard" he said this morn
ing. for a man to be sane enough Il
realize that he is insane and probably
inrurable | know there are short peri
DDS, which may come at any time, Wher
do not know what l am doing.
There is no man who can equal ms
in my line of work. and | would be o
great value as an advertiser to the bis
soap makers. But | realize that they
cannot afford To hire me- They say
This man is insane and we canno
bother with him"
II don't know but the best thing tina
could happen To me would be buria
for life in some asylum for the incur
abbey insane"