The Cook County herald., 1893-09-16
NEST or kLEpToMANlAcS,

NEST OF kLEPToMANlAcs, :
a Chicago Detective Retai1s Very ID.
!, teresting "Reminiscences. -
"Kleptomania, said detective at
the Central station to a Chicago Mail
reporter the other day, sis an afaiction
that is as widespread as it is peculiar.
/ never could understand why women
who have comfortable homes and are not
In actual want-whose husbands would
give them money to buy things with il
they asked for it-should, for the mere
love OF stealing, purloin articles often
times such as they could never use.
But I'll tell You," the officer continued;
there is not as much kleptomania as
there is alleged to be. The fact is the
disease is, nine times out of ten, plain
larceny: 1t becomes kleptomania only
when the thieves are detected and turn
out to be ostensibly respectable people.
was called into case once which led
TO train of the most peculiar circum-
stances ever uncovered
"A certain retail store on State street
had been missing articles for a long
time. Ladies' gloves, hosiery, velvet
ribbon and other objects of feminine
use had been disappearing by wholesale.
The proprietors suspected woman who
was good customer of theirs, and, so
Tar as her appearance was concerned,
should have been above suspicion. She
was OF middle age, dressed richly and
lived in fashionable boarding house.
Before proceeding against her it was
necessary to have proof, and I engaged
board at the house where she stopped.
Besides the suspect, the ,boarders in.
cluded Board of Trade man of sixty, a
thin, old lady OF the same age, who had
q son Of twenty, and spinster daughter
who taught a kindergarten school; q
commercial man and his wife, and q
clerk in Wholesale coal Office who was
natty dresser. go.
= 1T took me only a few days to get
the bearings Of the house The suspect
had room on the third floor. She was
downtown all day, though she had
nothing to keep her unless it. was her
occupation of shop-lifting. She had
means of her own evidently from her
room and dress. In less than week
discovered that she was selling artic les
TO the other ladies in the house. She
would drop. into the room of the COM
mercial mans wife and display a bolt of
velvet ribbon or several pairs Of gloves.
she said she had got them very cheap,
and that though she could not wear them
she had bought.them because they were
such great bargain. Then she would
dnquire il the commercial mans wife
did not want to buy the articles. I got
Enough evidence to convict her and took
her to the e'store-keeper's. OF course she
played the kleptondania dodge, and they
let her off. :.
s.>"Now I get to the best part of nv
story. l discovered that in that board
ang-house there were two other klepto-
manlacs-if you choose to call them
that. One was the old lady whose
daughter taught a. kindergarten. the
other was the young man in the coal
Office.
"The old lady's daughter, treated her
very badly, because she was not cul-
tivated person, while her daughter
made great pretentlons to culture In
TACT she often struck her. Though the
daughter received good salary and one
son,living in the house got $19 or 800 per
week, and two other grown sons were
prosperous, one receiving $4,000 and the
other $4,000 per year, the old lady was
never given any ready money. Why?
Because she clung with a mothers
1ervor to drunken, worthless older son.
who sneaked to the house when his SIS
Ter was away and 'bled her for all her
spare change.
"she had to steal to keep that black
sheep in maudlin state. The other
ladies missed little articles from time to
time, but the, clearinghouse was
swell one, you know, and they could not
voice their suspicion. The Board of
Trade man missed half dozen collars
one day, and shortly afterward he saw
the son OF the old lady wearing one.
The boy had given his mother money to
buy collars, which had gone into the
stomach OF his brother in the shape Of
whisky. The larcenies were brought
home to the old lady by the discovery of
lot of towels, the property of the
boarding-house keeper, which were found
wrapped up in one of her petticoats.
The daughter tearfully said that she
was kleptomaniac and sought another
'boarding-house. Underwear missed by
male boarders was found in the trunk OF
the young man who worked in coal
office, and with both these discov-
cries came the explanation OF the alb
<sence of many things. The clerk
for the coal Office declared that he
couldn't help it, that he was klepto-
maniac, and he, too, disappeared. 1t
was the most interesting nest OF klepto-
,maniacs that I ever struck, and I was
the only person who lost nothing in my
weeks stay there, because I took moth
Ing with me. The house is now filled
with set of entirely new boardera"
=. His Peas and Chickens. -
y A citizen OF Lee County, Ga., tells the