Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-03-05
BURGLARS WITH EDUCATION
One Who Played Classical Music, Another of Literary
 Taste,

X E < One can understand that, here and there, there may exist a burglar who,
 when he has done his burgling, "loves
 to lie a-basking in the sum-" but it Is
 quite g shock to one's preconceived
 ideas to hear of burglars who have a
 passion for music and art, or who
 beguile their leisure by reading Hor-
 ace and Xenophon.
 Only a few weeks ago the tenant of
 a villa in the outskirts of Hamburg
 was reused from his slumbers by
 strains of exquisite music which pro- ceeded from an adjoining sitting-room.
 Going to the door of the room. we
 we learn, she saw a ragged, disrep-
 utable man seated at the piano and
 playing Handel's Messiah with re-
 markable skill. Other pieces followed, all played with mastery and feeling
 which held the unseen auditor spell. bound, until suddenly the man broke off with a shrill discord, and, throwing himself across the piano, burst into bitter tears.
 When the owner entered the room the musician siarted up in alarm and attempted to escape. Finding this im- possible, he confessed that he had en- tered the house with felonious intent, but, seeing the plano, on which he was in happier days a professional per- former, he could not resist the tempta- tioE of reviving old memories until his feelings had finally overcome him.
 In another recent case a resident in the Rue Montmartre, Paris, was star tied in the early hours of the morn ing to hear sounds of laughter ap. parently proceeding from the room be- heath him, which was his library. Stealing quietly downstairs and peep ing through the partly open door, he was amazed to see strange man com. fortably seated in an armchair, book in hand, and chuckling audibly as he read.
 So absorbed was the reader that, be- fore he had any suspicion that he was being watched, he found himself seized from behind by pair of strong arms, and finding resistance useless he ca pitulated. He confessed to his captor that he was an actor who had fallen on evil days, and had entered his house with burglarious intent, when when he chanced to see copy of Moliere's plays on the library table. He had begun to read Les Fourberies de Scapin," comedy in. which he had once played with considerable success, and had become so engrossed that he had completely lost himself until he was rudely awakened by finding that he was a prisoner
 It is not many months since love of classics proved check in the ca reer of burglar in the West End of London. The owner of fiat near returning home after mid night, was astonished to see man occupying his favorite seat and reading one of his books. When he was asked what he was doing there, the startled intruder. seeing that he was caught, frankly confessed that he had "come to steal, but had remained to read;" and he handed to his captor he volume-Horace's works-which he had found so seductive.
 And as evidence that burglar may be man of charity. we recall how Punch Palmer, one of the most daring md successful housebreakers, not only ounded and maintained private in- lrmary in which old and inflrm Nor ok villagers were made happy. but .lso gave away several hundreds of pounds year to his poor neighbors.