The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-11-03
THE STEALING ACCOUNT.
How Il HoieIist Keeps Even with travelling
PiIferers.

PiIieren.
In conversation with a well known
hotel proprietor of this place, a day or
two ago, we casually inquired il any
of his guests ever stole anything.
steal" said the old man, in accents
of intense scorn. "Steal! Why you
would be astonished to find how large
portion of the travelling public are in
formal thieves, They steal the bed clo-
thing, pillows, bootjacks, soap, soap
dishes-everything in fact, which they
can carry of. Everybody steals soap.
We expect that, and don't kick. You
would be surprised to hear that-(a
noted Western. politician) makes a
practice of putting the soap into his
valise every time he pays his bill. He
doesn't seem to use much of it himself,
but l think he takes 1t home to his
children. The first thing to be done
when 4 fellow comes into the office to
pay his bills is to send a porter up to
his room to see IL anything is missing.
When a fellow comes down with his
valise in his hand we are unusually
suspicious. The only way to get even
with the thieves is to keep n 'thief &C.
count" Whenever anything is missed
I charge it up at a fair value, and the
next time I catch a thief in the act /
make him pay the entire amount or go
to Jail.
Zone day a ~nice-looking fellow came
down with a yalise in his hand, and in
quired the amount of his bill. The
minute / saw him l knew he had sto-
len something, so / ran to the bell and
gave the porter the wink. l pottered
about the books while the porter was
gone, and | could see he was getting
uneasy. lie had a notion to bolt, but
just then the porter came down, and i
saw by his eye that something was
missing. l jumped over the counter
and grabbed the rascal by the throat.
open that ~yalise, you id thief, , says
l.. He got very Write about the gills,
and began to beg. When the valise
was opened, sure enough there was a
new bed-spread for which l had paid
five dollars. 'Bill,' says l., bring me
the thief account footed it up, and
it amounted to just fifty-six dollars.
You pay that says /, COR go to jail.
He thought 1t was id hard to have to
pay for other mems stealings, but on
the whole concluded that it was cheap
er than to go to the penitentiary. Com
pounding felony? Well, yes, it did
have that complexion. But maybe it
nipped a thief in the bud.
1.-THE girls are generally honest,
though once in while we catch one of
them. One time there was an internal
tree peddler stopped with us, and he
had n black satin vest stolen. l paid
him five dollars for it. He described it
very accurately. There was aSyellow
spot on the collar, where he had dropp-
ed some acid on it, and his name NJ
full was written on the leather with
which it was bound at the bottom. !
suspected the girl, Mary. We watch
ed her for a week or two, and con-
cluded we were mistaken, when one
day n fellow came in with a black satin
vest, and there was n round yellow spot
on the collar. 1t was Mary's sweet
heart. l collared him, jerked up the
vest, and found the name Of the tree
peddler on the leather. He owned up
that Mary had stolen the vest and gave
it to him. At that time the thief n
count was only seven dollars, and so he
got off cheap"