The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-02-09
ONE KLEPTOMAyIACS.

Storcs-fIow the Mania Affects different
People.
A policeman in toy-shop. Two on
guard in fancy crockery store. The
same number on duty in a glove en-
porium. Seventeen private detectives
making their rounds on the notion
floor of single retail dry-goods store,
While thirty-two of those sentinels have
patroled another dress goods establish
ment during the last month. The
question, "What are they hired for?"
necessarily presents itself. Nobody
sees to these places but ladies, yet the
truth must be told, and the ladies
must be watched. Floor walkers are
paid for doing that work, ordinarily,
but the crowds have been great during
the holiday season, and the shop-lifting
proportionately large, so that extra
help had to be engaged.
"Oh, yes; we watch the ladies
they're not at all angels, by any means.
The regular 'light-fngers,' who make "a
profession of petty thieving, we hand
over to the city police. But there is
another class, of which 1 think few
people are aware. You know, of
course all newspaper people know,
that everybody is hobby-horsical. One
runs wild on daffodils; another on
rubber skates; one fellow prescribes
magnetic appliance for every all and
ache of body and soul; some have
comets on the brain; another extracts
sunshine, theoretically, from cucumber
seeds quite as readily as his neighbor,
who fails to comprehend the indfHer-
ence of the public toward phonetic
spelling. Now, women folks don't
care for such lore. They go in for
something more tangible than comets,
stray sunbeams and redundant SPELL
ing. These are the kind of things
they run mad on" and the clerk
pointed to counter full of ladies'
handbags, reticules, portemonnaies
and pocket books.
"We have one customer, the wife OF
a La Sale street lawyer, who is per-
feet monomaniac on reticules. She has
an aversion to seeing them lying
around. She cannot visit the counter
without appropriating one. Her plan
of operation is this. She picks up two
or three of one kind, asks the price, and
shortly after requests the clerk to
show her some article displayed on the
line over the counter. While thus en-
gagged she has time to slip one of the
bags under her seal dolman, where she
hangs it to her chatelaine. She is one
allow her to deceive herself by carry
ing off the bag"
when the bills, which are made out
every four months, are sent home, we
charge the stolen reticules to sundries.
This item has been as high as $27 at
one time.
1T is difficult to say what DISPOSE
ton she makes of the bags, as / have
never seen her carry one. Probably
she gives them away as presents, or
sells them to clothes-venders. But, al
though this is the most remarkable, we
have several other cases. She is no
trouble; we know her weakness and
give her no further attention after. she
leaves the leather counter. But the
lady who steals promiscuously is q
source of endless trouble and annoy
ance. She steals for the pleasure of
the thing, and not because she cares
especially for the articles. The chronic
thief goes all over the store and steals
any thing that she can conceal about
her cloak. Cheap jewelry, a box of
hairpins, handkerchiefs, laces, fans,
belts and hundred like small notions
are slowed away in the front or sleeves
of her dress. have known one to steal
dozen children's lace collars. At
another visit she took bunch of en-
broidered ties, worth $50, and showed
them up under the basque of her dress.
This same lady will pick up a box of
linen handkerchiefs or stockings, and if
she thinks she is not being watched
will carry them off with the utmost
complacency."
The clerk informed the reporter
that this lady always makes objections
to the extra items, but pays the bill
with very little reluctance. She is
resident of Warren avenue. Her
husband does large wholesale bust
ness, and she is never stinted in her
allowance.