Gentle Felon

In Japan, some thugs run to a gentlemanly stripe. One such is Matsukichi Tsumaki, 47, a sekkyo goto (preaching bandit), who last week stepped from Akita prison in northern Honshu, a free man.

Matsukichi, a slender fellow with a long, egg-shaped face and large, gentle eyes, gravely told of the life that led him to crime. "I am," he said, "the child of my mother by some former connection of hers. I did not go too much to school." When he was 18, Matsukichi stole his boss's sandals and then some money. For this, he spent his first eight months in jail.

Not until he was 28 did Matsukichi again fall into crime. Then it seemed inevitable. "I was asleep in a field," he said, "and I awoke after dark. I noticed lights in the distance and they led me into a large house which I robbed."

At first, Matsukichi was like any other crook. But then he grew softhearted. "When a baby cried in a home I was robbing, I went away leaving the place untouched," he said. He also began to lecture his victims, telling them: "Your house is too easy. You should have lights over your doorway or you should keep a dog." His victims were so grateful that they seldom bore a grudge against him. "I was always filled with joy," he said, "and my heart overflowed with thanks."

The Japanese police spent more than 100,000 yen searching for kindly Matsukichi. Their repeated failure to capture him, he said, caused the Diet to pass a national theft prevention law in 1930.

Though free in Tokyo again after 18 years in prison, Matsukichi last week was no longer overflowing with joy. Said he: "When I walk down the streets of Tokyo and see the ashes and rubble of what once were fine houses, I think of how I used to enter them at night, and I feel sorry for the people who used to live there and whom I used to rob."

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