"BILL SIKES," COURTIER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 678, 17 June 1914, Page 2

"BILL SIKES," COURTIER.

POLITE PILFERERS AND CHIVALROUS CRIB CRACKERS. That the modern burglar is by no means the uncouth, ill-mannered type of person that Dickens pictured Bill Sikes to be is evidenced by the extraordinary acts of politeness that some criminals perform in the cours« of their nefarious work. A gentleman whose pocket was pieked of a purse containing money and two railway tickets in Blackpool not long ago' was astonished.a few days afterwards to receive the purse and the railway tickets back by post. Inside the packet containing them was' a note to the effect that the writer only required the money that had been in the purse, and advising the owner of the latter article to be more careful of his valuables in future. Some burglars who stole several hundreds of pounds' worth c-f jewellery from a jewciiar's shop, situated in, a large country town, left beMnd them a sixpenny-piece, and a note •which ran as follows :—'"We ari sorry we had to damage your window in getting in. Here is the money to pay for the repair." Needless to say, it cost much more than sixptnee to repair the broken window, and Ins loss of even one ring would have been more to the jeweller than a smashed window ; but the criminal kink in the burglars' nature did not enable them to realise this, and their one thought on departing was how they could be polite to their victim. A thief who visited a htn roost at Dartford on one occasion was evidently gifted with a love of poetry as well as a vein of politeness, for although he stole no fewer than 26 fowls, he left two hens behind him and the following couplet idnnid on tfie door of the fowl-house : I've robbed the rich, but not the poor, And left two old hens to hatch some more. A houseowner in Eostoh was much upset one morning when he came downstairs and found that his house had been burgled in the night of a number of valuables. But he was oven more upset when he went into the garden and discovered that the criminal, or criminals, had poisoned his favorite dog, which had been in the habit of guarding his premises. The next day, however, he was amazed to find that another dog of the same size and breed was occupying the kennel. A letter was tied round its neck, which stated that : « are very sorry that they killed your dog. They know how fond one can get of a pet animal, so thsy take the liberty 6f*replacing the one they made away with by the animal of the same breed which you see before you." A criminal's hatred of seeing a woman in distress once led to Ms having to serve a long term of imprisonment. F4mil Romoeuf, a noted Paris malefactor, escaped from jail by a daring jump over a high wall. Ho entered a little restaurant in another quarter of the city, and when he was having his meal, he saw two men come in and rob the till, while the restaurant-keeper, a very prettyyoung woman, had her back turned. His sorrow for her plight made him rashly consent to give particulars of the men to the authorities, but he had hardly got inside the police office when he was recognised as an escap&d prisoner himsett, and v?as rearrested. After that he had to undergo a longer sentence than that which he had been originally ordered to serve.—"Weekly Telegraph."