Burglar trapped by a parrot
The Fife Free Press Saturday July 20 1889
With the advent of the holiday season and the consequent departure from home of innumerable householders, the enterprising burglar has been making himself conspicuous in various Suburbs in Glasgow, and already the police authorities have a considerable number of successful robberies on their books, besides information of a number of attempts at felony. Early on Monday morning one of the Bills Sykes class who paid a visit to Dennistoun and succeeded in entering a dwelling house in Whitehill Street found himself trapped by means of an unusual agency – an over-loquacious parrot. It appears that between two and three o’clock in the morning the tenant of the house was aroused from his slumber by the shrill cries of a parrot which was suspended in a cage in his bedroom. “Come here,” “Pretty Poll,” and all the phrases it had been taught, that shouted it out in rapid succession, intermingling them with the shrill shrieks. At a loss to understand what could have excited the birk at that hour, when it was still in darkness. He sprang to his feet and striking a light and a young man with his boots off standing in the centre of the room apparently aghast at the extraordinary disturbance which his silent entrance had created. The gentleman at once summoned aid, secured the would-be thief, and obtained the assistance of the police. When searched at the police station the accused, who speaks with an English accent, and who is not Known to the Glasgow police, was found to have in his possession a bunch of skeleton keys and a jemmy. He had obtained entrance to the house by divesting himself of his boots, climbing a water pipe, and lifting the bedroom window, which had been left unfastened.