The Portland daily press., 1897-12-18

| care we kept busy nowadays?'' said q
young woman detective in Sixth avenue
shop in response to question. "Well
I should say SO. There are only two de-
| teotives employed in this store, another
girl and myself, and we made seven mr.
rests yesterday. But it's good business
when you like 1t and understand it," she
ratified on. Excuse me just a minute, ;"
she exclaimed, darting toward q shrewd
looking customer wearing q cape which
hung from her shoulders in volulninous
folds.
The reporter took this opportunity to
study not the suspect, but the detective
| herself. She was tall and slender and
girlish looking. Her features were deli
cate, her hazel eyes full and well opened,
and she had pretty mouth. She looked
as if making embroidery or doing fancy
work would snit her much better than
detective worK, but she talked about
cacthing thieves with the same zest that
the average girl discusses catching beaux.
or are people.
81 thought that was a professional I've
had my eye on several days. she said
coming back "but it wasn't. All of the
stores, especially the big ones on Sixth
avenue and Fourteenth street, are full of
shoplifters now when the weather is fine.
| They do not come out when it rains be-
cause they know that the crowd is not
so great and they are more liable to get
caught.
Chow do they work? Usually in pairs.
though I've taken great many this win
ter working alone. There is great deal
of thieying going on in New York now
One store on this avenue employed fif-
teen detectives last winter and I hear.
they have more now. Then they had
some men but they We taken on all wom-
en- for they found that men were clumsy
at following and arresting women shop
lifters.
s'Well to get back to the subject. Shop.
lifters go about their business in various
ways. Some have 3 slit in the lining of a
| long cape, slip the stolen articles in The
opening and In minute they are in the
back of the cape. Some wear shoplifters'
bags others have slit right in the front
of their dress skirts and yesterday I ar
rested woman who had dozen articles
concealed in tho bosom of her dress. l
saw her take bolt of ribbon several
pairs of gloves and finally some aigrottes.
I could not imagine where she was put
ting them and thought she surely must
| haxy eIi - bod
her on the pavement I saw the aigrettes
sticking cut of her bodice and when
took her to the superintendent's room to
search her found things that she had
taken from other stores hidden there.
yesterday well dressed, white-haired
woman well along in years walked up to
a counter and put some of her belongings
down on the show case. When she took
them up she picked up q SIS pocketbook
under her own that belonged to this
firm and made for the door. When she
got to the next corner l nabbed her and
asked her to come back with me and re
turn our goods. She came along and put
the pocketbook where she got it and then
L took her to search her. Would you be-
| lieve it l found that the old creature was
partly paralyzed on one side. My heart
was touched and yet I knew from the
way she took that pocketbook that it
wasn't her first offense. I guess in her
day she knew the ropes we'll. She had
plenty Of money in her own purse. Some
how 1 couldn't have her sent to the sta
ton house she was SO old and afflicted so
I let her go but not until after she had
| signed q confession.
sit is a very easy matter to tell when a
shoplifter is q beginner. She is exceed
ingly nervous looks around furtiyely to see
| IL salespeople or customers are looking at
her and if not slips the article she desi res
in most awkward manner. Profession
ais do not go at it that way: They often
go tripping along swinging the stolen
goods boldly under their capes in a way
calculated to throw the most suspicious
off guard. [ find that many amateur
shoplifters are addicted to the uso of
drugs or stimulants and they really are
not responsible for their actions. A num-
Der whom we capture are about half
drunk.
"Of course we never. make an arrest in
the store for the commotion created
would demoraIize trade and give the s.
tablishment bad odor. When we sus-
pect a person we watch her & say her be-
cause we rarely ever get s. man shoplift-
err until we see her take something.
Then we follow her until she leaves the
store and after she crosses the street or
gets to the end Of the block we quietly
step up and ask her to return our goods.
We never bother about the stuff these
people take from other shops We bring
her back make her, put the things back
where she took them from, and then take
the offender to the superintendent office
where she is searched.
1.-THE majority of shoplifters caught
| by women detectives in the stores arc
prosecuted and arraigned for trial, but
few Of them are convicted. Why this is
so is beyond me, for most of them who
are taken to the station house deserve to