CRIME: Young Burglar

The sun had long since gone down behind Dreyer’s Market, in Irvington, N.J., and its showcases and chopping block were lost in gloom. Nevertheless, as Patrolman John Hughes squinted cautiously through the shop’s window, he was certain that something which looked extraordinarily like a leg of lamb was prowling around inside. He rang for reinforcements. Two squad cars screeched up. A phalanx of coppers tumbled into the meat-shop, pistols drawn, flashlights glaring. On the floor sat a blond, blue-eyed, six-year-old boy. He was playing trains with some sausage.

What, cried his relieved and astounded captors, was he doing there? He regarded them condescendingly. Stealing bologna—what else? How? Well, just like he always did. His two pals, who were 12 and 13, had lowered him through the skylight, waited until he passed out some sausage and $19 from the till, and then had started hauling him back up to the roof. But the rope had broken, and they had run off.

The culprit willingly identified himself as Richard, and seemed delighted to get a ride in one of the squad cars. Said he: “This ain’t the same auto you had the last time you arrested me.” He and his pals, it developed, had gotten into the meat market twice before, had scored a $63 haul the first time, but had been nabbed on a second try. With forthright gravity, Richard described other details of his criminal career: he had also helped break into a hardware store, a fish market, a dress shop, a dry-cleaning establishment and a candy store.

Richard was too young to be arrested, even as a juvenile delinquent. He helped steal because his two companions gave him candy and let him go to the movies with them as a reward. (The two movie-going pals, when caught, blamed their law-breaking on “the spirit of the West.”)

In Newark’s slums, the cops found Richard’s mother, a vast (about 200 Ibs.), cheerful woman, who had brought him there after years of farming him out to orphanages. She seemed completely unable to control him. ‘

A day later, Cal Farley, a 55-year-old ex-professional baseball player (Amarillo, Texas “Gassers”) who was in New York for the World Series, offered Richard a new start in life. Farley is president of Boys’ Ranch at Tascosa, Texas—a sort of cattle-country Boys Town at which hundreds of homeless or once-delinquent lads have been educated. He asked for custody of Richard until the boy is 18. Richard, delighted at the chance to ride horses, agreed as soon as it was understood that he wanted to take his rubber hammer and rubber hatchet along.

Said his mother: “He sure does love them tools. He says he keeps them in bed to chase off burglars with. Ain’t that a laugh?”

At week’s end Richard was on his way to the great Southwest. Irvington’s cops heaved a sigh of satisfaction and relief. So did Irvington’s steeplejacks—who have been shinnying up flagpoles for months, replacing ropes which Richard’s pals swiped to lower Richard down skylights.