A BURGLAR'S BLUNDER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 71, 10 August 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

A BURGLAR'S BLUNDER.

When he returned at midnight to bis rooms on the ground floor of a hpuse on the Boulevard Haussmanu (says the Daily Telegraph's Paris correspondent). Count lloussy de Salles was not pleased to find that a burfflar had broken into his -bedroom, and, besides carrying off the sum of 400 fr.. bad damaged several objects of art which he greatly valued. The oddest part of it all was that the housebreaker had forgetfully left 'behind him a pocket-book, containing a certificate of birth and other papers, so that when the count communicated with the police the man was easily identified, and arrested at his abode. He is a carter, and he had spent the evening at a publichouse with a couple of chums. The party emptied five bottles of wine among them. The burglar's companions, who were supposed to be keeping watch, were so noisy after he had entered the apartment by smashing a shutter that a number of passers-by assembled, and actually saw the fellow, who had been alarmed by the barking of a lapdog, -spring out of | the window with a marble statuette. He let this fall on the. footpath, where it was broken, crying: "It is nothing; a mere quarrel, and they are fighting and tearing everything to pieces!" No one made the faintest effort to detain him. The mnn then jumped on a passing tramear, but was compelled to alight, as the conductor would not admit him, owing to the fact that his head and wrist were bleeding from cuts which he had sustained while springing out of the window. He soon disappeared round a corner, with his two friends, only, however, to be captured at his- lodgings a few hours later. Three razors and a revolver were found on the burglar, and the count considers, with some reason, that he narrowly escaped having his throat cut, and also losing some very fine pictures.