A good gesture
Published:
December 31, 2014 at 2:07pm
The unidentified man caught on security cameras stealing donated goods left outside a charity shop has written to the shop to apologise and enclosed 50 euros to pay for what he took (which is almost certainly more than the goods were worth).
I do not think it entirely coincidental or at all irrelevant that the clues to his socio-educational background, screaming out from the idiom in his letter and its literacy, are what they are.
Had he been, say, Manuel Mallia or Ray Zammit, he would have wanted to know what the fuss was about, because after all, hadn’t those things been thrown away a caldo???!!!Add smiley here.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141231/local/charity-shop-thief-says-sorry-and-hands-over-50-donation.549992
This person must have been confused when he stole the goods.
The way the letter is written shows that he has a very good command of written English and also a conscience.
This is called repentance and he should be proud of it.
Happy New Year.
It isn’t signed.
Konrad please note! Add a smiley here too.
It is such active remorse for one’s own mistakes that gives me the comfort in believing that we all have goodness within
Well done
“I could try to explain the reason I acted in such a way, but whatever the reason…”
This is an educated person in need (bassa or baxxa fortuna), afraid of being bandied around on TV. He preferred giving €50 from the little he owns, to close the matter.
Happy New Year, dear Daphne.
Thank you so much for all that you do for our country.
I, for one, am eternally grateful.
Ad multos annos and God bless you.
How are you certain that it was himself who has written it and not a spouse or a lawyer? My take on it is that it was written by a lawyer with the aim of getting this man off the hook.
[Daphne – How would a spouse be any different to the man himself? People marry their own kind. A lawyer would be the last person to compose something like that. This was written by somebody who speaks English naturally but who can’t distinguish between ‘apologies’ and ‘apologise’ because he sees the first written more frequently than he does the second. A person who wanted to get himself off the hook would not admit to what he did and seek to make reparation. He would keep his head down safe in the knowledge that he is unrecognisable in the CCTV footage.]
What struck me, apart from the idiomatic English, was the handwriting, especially the curly g.
vanni, I’d say that that is the handwriting of a woman who is a native English speaker and from a good family background.
A lawyer does not apologise.
A lawyer ventilates.
It’s a pity more don’t expire.
A lawyer would have typed the letter, and it would probably have been much longer than two pages.
A lawyer of a certain kind would type the letter on paper with the old government watermark, which he took home for his private use when no one was looking.
“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching” – C.S. Lewis. Not so in this case.
Wishing a Happy New Year to the inimitable Daphne, her regular contributors and also the silent majority who read this blog.
And he writes better letters than many.
Better than Dottor Manuel Mallia, for one.
His literacy skills and socio-economic background have little to do with his act which he had the decency to rectify despite that he probably struck a bargain.
Post WWII, most of the Maltese nation lived in abject poverty, but practically no one stole. The Maltese got greedy and immoral when Mintoffianism took off.
Is this really what you think? I heard stories about the war and about the Maltese who took items from dead people and bombed-out shops.
Maltese like any other nationality all act the same way – nothing special.
Get off it. Theft existed back then and still does so now. Of course, if practically everyone is living in abject poverty, there isn’t much to steal. Crime might have increased since the Second World War but so has wealth and the population figure.
Crime is also more reported nowadays and the public is informed about the number of reported crimes, even petty ones. People are more aware of the law, communication is easy and people trust the police much more.
All these things have an effect on how much crime is reported and how much people get to know about it.
Theft is not always a wicked act. Sometimes, it’s just a desperate one.
As Moll Flanders puts it: ‘Give me not poverty, lest I steal.’
He is aware he made a mistake. To make a mistake and to understand a personal mistake and to write an apology about it, is, I believe, decent because the person seems to have morals.
Morals have no fashion. You can’t twist, change or accommodate morals to suit twist and change a situation to your advantage and liking. The fact that this person apologised and has compensated for his mistake, without complicating detail, is by far, morally decent.
Nazzjonalist, mija fil-mija – full stop
Some of the Maltese society are being hit hard by poverty but are too ashamed to ask for help. Some rather steal than let people know, even to relatives.
Maybe this person is under some kind of emotional and psychological strain and acted out of his normal character.
Anyway, he writes better English than Joseph Muscat.
I find nothing wrong if someone in need takes something from a charity shop whilst the shop is closed and there was no one he could refer to. After all it’s a charity shop and the aim of these shops is to help those in need. I can understand that the money from the sold goods go to charity not the goods themselves.
The Caritas centres abroad are open to all. They never ask wether a person is a poor or rich or if it is a genuine case or not when someone seeks help.
I am very curious to know what this person had stolen from the shop. Unfortunately plenty of Maltese take hmieg and imbarazz to charity shops instead of throwing them away.
“I find nothing wrong if someone in need takes something from a charity shop whilst the shop is closed and there was no one he could refer to. After all it’s a charity shop and the aim of these shops is to help those in need”.
You are missing one crucial point. Doing so deprives the donor from his/her right to choose whom to give the donation to.
Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures, but I suspect this wasn’t a life or death situation, so the act was unquestionably wrong, as the man himself understood.
I think that this person, be it a man, a woman, a lawyer whoever he is, is truly sorry, and wanted to reinstall the damage he might have caused.
Well done for this blog. I’ve become hooked.