BOYS TURN BURGLARS

SIX YOUTHFUL DESPERADOES RECOVER MARBLES FROM THEIR TEACHER. Six penitent desperadoes of the tender age of 12 or thereabouts are languishing in duress vile, prisoners of Hennepin county for a sufficient length of time to ponder over the fruitlessness of iniquity. The lads are Jesse Hall, Turner Tenneson, Carson Hendrickson, Norman Paul, Melvin Merrill and Harry Sorensen. Legally the lads are burglars. In the light of the fact that they are very young amateurs, however, Judge Dickinson decided that twenty-four hours in the boobyhatch would be enough to squelch their buccaneering spirits. Sunday the sextet of bold, bad bandits broke a window in the Greeley school building and entered. They turned up their collars in the most ferocious fashion, tip-toed and said "hist" just like the daring debonair dare devil Dicks in the books which incited them to adopt the profession of naughty boys. Primarily their visit was for the purpose of recovering some canicks, and chinies, and falsies and flints – species of marbles, it developed in court – which a teacher had confiscated from one of the bad band. So far as the recovery of the marbles was concerned the expedition was a howling success. In addition one of the teacher's desks was found to be treasure trove to the extent of 43 cents, and this was also appropriated by the lads. Then there hove in sight the burly form of an interloper upon the chosen hunting ground of the piratical youngsters. It was that of Mr. Janitor, W.H. Adams, and he didn't do a thing but collar the entire outfit and telephone for a policeman. In court Judge Dickinson handed the boys a bunch of advice which made their eyes look as though they had been hit with peeled onions. Then to the dungeon they were hied. And they are there yet.

These darling lads, shown playing marbles outside an Anoka elementary school in about 1904, wouldn't have lasted an hour in detention, let alone 24 hours in the county jail. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)