Bisbee daily review., 1908-02-16
VIVID PEN P|cTURE IF
 4 YOUNG TUCSON BURGLAR
L. A. Scott the Eighteen Year Old Boy Who Entered Santa Rita Hotel and Stole Diamonds From Mrs. Jaeger Worth $2,5O0-No Definite Realization of Enormity of Crimes Of Which He Makes Confession

L. A. Scott, the young man who stole diamonds valued at s250o from the rooms of Mrs. L. J. F. lager at the Santa Rita hotel last Saturday, and who was captured in Yuma Tues day, was placed in the county jail yesterday morning before o'clock.
 He is a very repentant 1Szyear-oh boy, although he lacks the men, tahty to exactly appreciate the con dition in which his folly has placed him.
 He is an interesting study. Not more than the average height, he is slender and anemic. He dresses in good taste, although the loud check cf his trousers indicates that he may have fancy for loud garments. He is vain and unsettled youth.
 His straight dull colored black hair is parted in the middle and its edges do not receive the attention characteristic of the really well kept man. His forehead is broad but very low There is not the least gleam of cunning in his face but rather a sort of of fatuous confidence in everything that he is told.
 He yields readily to a suggestion, and his demeanor is not the one of man who has committed a crime, and is either steeling himself to take the consequences or preparing to fight the law, but he acts and talks
 and feels simply like the bad little
 boy who has stolen some marbles from his play mate or played hockey from school, and who is wondering how he is going to avoid a thorough thrashing.
 Scott,s moral horizon Is childish. He acts on impulse, and his mental processes are as subtle and intricate
 as those of nine-year-old child. Ab-
 solutely piece of putty.
 His fathAr he said in a converse Sies wkh a reporter for the Stsg t1 Scott, a welEto-do t-ujS a<- 7sE 3n man i1 Denver. He sei7 G.> q Sas not going to let the fsSasa .; of his trouble, because hs ScGss mad at me and give me 'h--s;
 WhR k uggese::cc71 =es made to him that unIess he did let his father know in time to give him whatever aid might be, the old man would be sure to know 1t if the boy were sent up. as the youngster could not drop out of sight during his term of impris- onment, he accepted that, although 1t upset all his preconceived ideas of his future conduct He would have ac- cepted any other plea as readily
 He claims that he is IS years old, and before the statement could be ev- en interrupted, he feverishly added, ''and l can prove it by the family Bi- ble and my mother and father"
 At one moment, with adolescent bravado. he would pace up and down the corridor, smoking the cigar which he had purchased out of the few dol lars that he had, and would remark that he was the only prisoner in the jail who smoked cigars. and the next minute he would hang on to the bars Imply and beg the reporter to see that something was done to get him out of his predicament.
 It was for all the world the same monotonous and undirected cry of the child in petty disgrace that clings to the parents skirt and cres, Mama don't whip mel" Scott has the same sort Of blind confidence that some one might be induced to say, Well, We won't whip you this tims"
 He has lost all desire to be a bad man, and he has no anxiety to so pose before the Tucson people. He earnest ly urged the reprter to say something in the paper that will let me down easy and kind of make 1t better for me"
 Scott does not like his surroundings. The motley herds of Mexicans, Chi nese. negroes and white trash thar sleep in the cells by night and fill the corridors by day do not please him He dreaded nightly his first night there
 At one moment lie is wiling to ad- init that he. stole the diamonds, and the next, in fiuttering sort of way, he will ask if there is not some way that he can get out of it. He says that 1t looked mighty easy" to get away with the diamond ring at Gila Bend, and that he would have done it If it had not been for the fact that the watch man was spying on him"
 He thinks that he would have got ten away better if he had gone to Mex ico and says: If ever had the thing to do over again, would go that way, for I would have been away by now. I did not think that Yuma would be as hard a town to get out of as 1t was" No repentance in that
 Yet within the next breath or so, the same appealing look of the naugh- ty child came creeping back into his eyes as he said: Say, I have always been on the square before have gambled some and have been wild, but 1 never stole anything before. IneYer thought of doing it" . Then he turned around to his cot and picked up copy of the Star, and pointing to the article of yesterday morning, headed "L. A. Scott, Dia- mond Thief he said with a smile that would have been ironical on a strong face, T never had that title after my name before
 He says that he had room in the Brown Palace hotel in Denver IS months ago, and that he met Mrs. Shepard, who caught him in the San ta Rita, at that place for the first time. He also claims to have seen her in Los Angeles. He does not say that she knew him at either Of the places, yet says that her identifica- ton of him must be due to those two facts.
 He is very proud in his small way of the fact the he smiled and tipped k&ra E- |