“At last, in the continued practice of stealing, I committed a theft that brought me for the first time within reach of the law. In the spring of 1860, when in my eleventh year, I laid hands on a watch in an empty house in the village of Kottweiler. I broke it up into its different component parts, which I sold separately to the children of our own village for pieces of bread. Though the watch was missed, I was not suspected and, growing bolder still, I soon after audaciously possessed myself of another watch hanging in a bake-house. This time I was caught red-handed, severely flogged, and then taken before the magistrate at Kusel. He put me through a cross-examination and I confessed everything. On my return home the village authorities vented their rage against me by beating me black and blue, and my little sister having let out the secret that I was also the thief of the watch at Kottweiler, I was again arrested and taken back by a police official to the magistrate at Kusel, who, on account of my youth, only sentenced me to two years’ detention at the industrial school at Speier. I was allowed to go home with my mother before being sent there, and when the police came to convey me, I ran away and managed to get over the Prussian frontier to St. Wedel. Here I first begged and then worked for a small farmer in the neighbourhood. After a time I ran away again, taking with me the watch of this brutal man who had maltreated me. I now tried to live by carrying luggage at the railway station of the town. Here I found several opportunities for committing daring thefts and finally absconded, after helping myself to some money from the till of the refreshment room. After again intermittently working and stealing, I tried to set up as a highway robber, but without success, and was soon arrested by a police official who had a warrant out against me, and actually handed over to the authorities of the industrial school at Speier.