San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-11-08
YVYTHEN Walter Matthews, special
NJ police officer employed at Keith's

M police officer employed at kelth's
" Theatre in Boston, was arrested
recently, very unusual and battling
mystery was cleared up.
All Summer long someone has been
hurting missiles from one of the balconies
into the orchestra, and several persons
have been hit. In some cases the objects
thrown have been small bolts or chunks
of metal, which might have inflicted
serious injury, but fortunately no one was
seriously injured. Police officers, private
detectives and scores of volunteer watch
ers have been employed to find the mys-
ferrous offender, and all theatre employees
have been carefully watched.
But the other afternoon two police Off
GERS hidden in the dome of the theatre
over the ventilator, saw Matthews, the
Waterman, walk to the front of the bal
cony, look down over the house and re-
turn to the back of the last row of seats
Matthews then put his hand in his pocket
and withdrew something which the po-
licemen were unable to make out--and
then they saw him hurl it over the railing,
down into the orchestra seats. A few
minutes later Matthews was under arrest.
Matthews confessed that he is the per-
son who has been throwing things down
on the heads of the audiences in the the
atre for many weeks back. He said he
was overcome with an irresistible impulse
to throw things down into the orchestra
seats. He filled his pockets with odds
and ends of things he found in the
basement of the theatre-bolts, pieces of
brick, stones, chunks of iron and other odds
and ends-and then made his way to the
back of the highest gallery and bombarded
the unfortunates in the seats below.
Matthews knew it was wrong and rea-
lied that 1t was only question of time
when he surely would be discovered.
Every time he threw a missile he made a
resolve that he would never throw another.
And vet at the next performance he re-
peatcd his strange practice.
Why did Matthews, the theatre watch
man, who was paid to protect and safe
guard the theatre audience, indulge him.
self in this strange indoor sport? Science
is able to explain why Matthews threw
those missiles, and also why most of us
which we indulge to the misfortune of
ourselves or others; or why some of us
have wicked or foolish impulses, but do
not yield to them.
Formerly, when a wealthy woman
uocketed a trinket in a shop when she
thought nobody was looking, it was
called kleptomania. When man killed
another without cause, or put arsenic in
the food or "A coal-shaped bomb among
the Goals, endangering the lives of many
without any reason for doing so, it was
called homcdal insanity. When boy
continues to break windows or torture
animals in spite of pleadings and beatings
and his promises not to do it again we
saw he is mischievous. When we ask the
kleptomaniac, the homocidal maniac, and
the mischievous boy, why they did things
that they knew were wrong they give the
same explanation, namely, they had the
impulse to do so but did not have the
will-power to resist that impulse. In pres
emf day morbid psychology the person who
has such uncomfortable impulses is said
to suffer from a ''compulsion neurosis."
Almost every one feels sometimes
tempted to do something that is either