ROMANCE OF AN EX-CONVICT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 133, 23 October 1912, Page 8

ROMANCE OF AN EX-CONVICT

SAVED Fi::!.M IU'IN BY A LOYAL WIFE. J Xi .v York, September 1. Mr. William Y,:i:];■.■, the Philadelphia municipal councillor who fled to New York a fortnight ago, after confessing that he had been a burglar and a pickpocket, returned to his wife, and child to-day and announced that he intended to fight the battle of life henceforth undeterred by blackmailers. _ ' Mr. Burke was driven to make his confession by a former convict, who worked beside him in Massachusetts gaol, in which he spent a number of years after conviction on a charge of burglary. The city council did not accept his resignation. His wife issued in all the newspapers an advertisement | entreating him to return to her as she loved him, notwithstanding the revela-

tions of his past life. The entreaties of his wife were backed up by a capitalist named Fehr, who, struck by the story of Burke's early life of crime, caused a displayed advertisement to be published in New York newspapers, stating, "Burke, I start you in business if you return home."

Mr. Burke, who had shaved his moustache and taken a room in a cheap hotel, ] saw the appeals and took the next train to Philadelphia. lie stated to-day that he will never mix in politics agaiin. "I thought as a former thief," he said, "that I was peculiarly qualified to drive thieves out of polities' but I am now convinced that no man has a right to be in politics unless he has a private fortune. If he is poor every action he takes will be open to suspicion." Mr. Fehr has purchased for Mr. Burke a tobacconist's shop, where he is to start business afresh to-morrow.