St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-01

fancy goods, an umbrella, bisque Psyche,
rather than lose her patronage. But one
day when she slipped an unbrOken bolt of
valenciennes into her satchel, she piled the
last straw on our camel's back. Pretending
to question the signature of the check she
presented in payment of her days pur-
chaSeS, | called her into my private office.
The scene was as painful to me as it was
embarrassing to her. Accused of her theftS
she turned red, then white, then purple,
with well-Simulated indignation. She would
have me discharged for insulting her, and
all that sort of thing. And it was not UNI
til l confronted her with the different sales
ladies who had witnessed her theftS and the
almost forcible extraction of the valen-
ciennes from her satchel, that she acknowl-
edged her thefts Then she broke down
and begged piteouSly not to be exposed, and
confessed to have taken away many hun
dreds of dollars worth of material that had
long since been charged to loss by our book
keeper The result was check for $500
the following day and
THE LOSS OF A CUSTOMER.
She has never been in our store since. Pro-
fessional shop-lifters are easy to deal with,
for we keep a sharp eye on all strangers.
and a suspected person is subjected to an
examination by the lady in charge of our
cloak room. If mistaken we must apollo
gize as best we can. But our wealthy pat
ronS are the most serious source Of our
daily losses, and we submit to their petty
theftS rather than offend them. To lose
$50, 600 year by POPULATION is no small
item; but to drive away say fifty customers
who are stealing from lis every time they
enter our store but spend thousands each
year. would be a serious setback to our
business. It's as natural for people to steal
if they think they'll not be detected as it is
for them to eat or sleep. A day or so ago
lady stepped into our store and purchased
portmonnaie. Tossing the old one on the
floor, she passed on to another department.
A moment later an elegantly dressed woman
sat down on one of the stools in front of the
pocketbook counter deity drawing the dis
carded purse under her skirts
WITH HER DAINTY KID BOOT.
making a small purchase and displaying
a goodly roll of bills while making the pay
ment, she dropped her handkerchief, APP
parently accidentally, and so managed that
the old purse was picked up hidden in
the handkerchief. Hastily transferring it
to her satchel she left the store. I'd have
given a dollar to have seen the woman's face
when she found what she had stolen. Yes,
stolen is the only word one can use in such
case. She thought she'd found a purse
that had something of value in it. Men
may be as big thieves as women, but our
male customers are so few and far between,
and they are so evidently Ill at ease in a
store crowded by female shoppers that they
are only too glad to make their small pur-
chases and get away. Once familiar with
the details of big dry goods store they
might develop into as big thieves as women,
but for the hope of my sex | don't believe
it,"
CHICAGO'S BIG BUILDINGS.
There are more big buildings of the ten !
story style in Chicago than i'll any other
city in the world And with a few eX- /
ceptionS they are all losing investments. !
When the board of trade building was pro-
lected, capitalists began the erection of
huge houses containing more rooms than |
the hotels of an ordinary city. expecting to |
find tenants for every nook and Granny at |
fabulous prices. The result is more acres !
OF vacant sky-parlors than will be occupied /
for years to come. Here and there an oasis |
sign shows up on the desert of windows in |
the olg tenements, but the taxes on I'M
occupied space, if on the ground floor, would |
eat up the original cost of the building in a |
very short time. The Pullman building. |
designed as an an Office tenement and filed |
up with all possible conveniences, has re-
signed two-thirds of its 500 rooms to living |.
apartments, while on the seventh floor OF |
one of the big insurance companies build |
ings is a restaurant, the rental of which |
would not pay
FOR A FIRST-CLAsS RESIDENCE,
And now comes Marshall Field the mill
ionaire merchant with a $500. 900 skv-
scraper in projection. These big buildings
add much to the appearance of the CITY.