Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-12-07
Polite Thieves.

If You have any curiosity on, the sub
jec', step into a dry goods store and ask
the merchant or clerk, "Do thieves ever
come in here's Nine times out of ten he
will answer, "Why, yes; that's our great
est trouble So a merchant answered
our reporter saturday, and then proceeded
to explain what he meant. In Ia v there
are only two grades of thieves--the big
thieves and the petty larceny ones. Out
side of law there are several grades of
thieves, and the worst ones to guard
against are Ithe criminals with white
fingers, the ones who shop for two
hours without purchasing fifty cents
worth of goods. .......
Take an instance which occurred in a
Woodward avenue store last Thursday.
A lady called in and asked to be shown
some velvets and some laces, and the
gentlemanly and obliging clerk soon laid
a large stock before Ter. She turned
over the goods; held them up to the light,
viewed them over and over, and finally
went away without making any pur-
chases. She had scarcely closed the door
when a cash boy informed the clerk that
he saw the lady pocket two pieces of vel
vet trimming and a lace collar, and an
examination showed that he was right.
But the matter ended right there, for it
went no further than to report the occur
renee to the proprietor. He had hun
dred reasons why he should not arrest the
lady, or charge her with the theft the
most prominent being that she. was a
regular customer at the store, sometimes
buying a bill of goods amounting to two or
three hundred dollars. =
1t is a fact, of which all people are
aware, that merchants and their clerks
are invariably ON the watch to detect these
'.kleptomaniacs, but an arrest seldom
follows detection, nor is there word to
give the thief a suspicion that she has
been discovered Suppose that a lady
sits down to the counter and has the space
before her piled up with valuable notions
she has asked to see. Be she ever so sly,
she can seldom pocket an article without
some one seeing her. But no one says a
word, and she goes out, feeling that she
has escaped with her booty without any
.one being the wiser Next time she
comes in the clerk will be Just as polite
and Just as prompt, but she will find that
| he does not hand the goods down as be-
/ fore, merely handing down one box OF
| one article at time, and, if convenient,
! another clerk will stand near him and give
the lady to understand that he has moth
| ing to do but to keep watch of her She
has feeling that they are watching her,
but she doubts if they suspect the former
theft, and so is too prudentlto commit
another Otfense. a few days ago a mer-
chant, standing at his desk, saw woman
roll up two costly lace wells and secretly
work them under her cloak, having
called the clerks attention to the tor
| shelves for a moment that he might not
see her. The merchant knew her well as
a rood a11St hut rot ~
lose the costly property. Therefore, when
she had finished her trading, he approach
ed her and insisted that she she should
take look at some new dress goods, anC
after that, some cloakings, and then finally
asked her opinion of some cloaks ready
made, and he thus kept the victim in III,
store for an hour, meanwhile giving he
the history of q clerk who had been dis
charged from the store a short time
before for stealing goods. We alway
detect every theft, no matter how small,
he added, and then excused himself am
returned to the desk The lady went bacI
TO pile of dress goods, hauled then
over little, and then departed. Tn
merchant went to the pile and found tn
two wells crushed in between some of tn
bolts of cloth. ~
The easiest thing in a store to steal is
pan VI groves. ~ ldtly Is not content VIII
seeing ten pairs, and sometimes not wit
seeing fifty. She must have the Who'll
stock down, and with her own gloves pull
ed down off the hand to. the finger joints
she has thus two little pockets where sh
can stow away pair of gloves.
Not long ago, after Il merchant ha
borne for a whole year with the appropr
ations of certain female, lie determine
to frighten her out of making anv NOR
thefts in his store. She came in, a cler
began waiting on her, when the merchan
crossed over to the clerk and said, in he
hearing, Harry, have reason to believ
that one of the ladies back there is a thiei
and is here to rob us. | wish you woul
step up to the City Hall and ask the Chic
of Police to send down detective"
Il He made a splendid hit She was s
frightened at the idea of his having sus
picioned any lady that she purchased So
worth of goods to avoid suspicion, he
general purchasing never going above
few shillings before-DetrOH Free Press.
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