Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1895 — Dyeing the Burglars. [ARTICLE]

Dyeing the Burglars.

A good story is told by a German paper of the way in which a dyer treated two burglars whom he caught in his establishment, as they were in the act of making off with some valuable dyes. Mr. S., the owner of the color works, is often engaged in experiments late into the evening, and occasionally spends the night in the chemical laboratory, which opens into the room where the great dye vats are. The thieves made their visit, as it chanced, on one of the nights when Mr. S. was sleeping at the laboratory. He is naturally a light sleeper, and a little past midnight he was aroused by the sound of voices in the vat room. He saw the flash of a light, and suspecting thieves, arose quietly from his sofa, took his revolver, and concealed in the darkness, watched the movements of the two men. He saw that each bore a package of new and valuable dyes.

Thinking that matters had progress, ed far enough, he stepped forward, cocked his revolver, and said, quietly, “I have a use for those dyes. You’d; better leave them a 1 one.” The thieves, taken completely by surprise, dropped their plunder and started to run, leaping from the side of one vat to the next. In the darkness one of them miscalculated the distance and fell headlong Into an indigo vat; and his companion, hearing the splash, glanced back to see what had occurred, lost his balance, and toppled into the same vat. “That’s all right,” said Mr. S., half jocosely, as he stepped to the edge of the vat and covered the thieves with his revolver. “I won’t grudge you enough of that indigo to dye your clothes and your skin. You needn’t hurry about getting our. We must give the dye a chance to take effect.” For fifteen minutes or more he kept the two men in the vat, where they several times plunged beneath the surface of the liquid, and came up spluttering and choking, and finally begged for mercy. “Well,” remarked Mr. S., good-natur-edly, “I think you probably are as blue outside as you feel inside, so* I won't detain you longer. And now,” changing his tone to one of stern command. "if you don’t want the police put on your tracks, you'll make yourselves scarce in this town. Out now, and bo off!” Without a word the two men climbed, out of the vat and hastened away. A few days later a friend from an adjoining town called on Mr. S. and mentioned incidentally that two meq came to him and offered him five dollars to tell them what would remove indigo stains from the skin. “They were the bluest looking fellows you ever saw,” he added. “They said they got to fooling in the dye house, and fell into the vat.”