Waterbury Democrat., 1902-08-18
SAVED HIi POSITION.
Store Detective Nearly Knocked Out
Z by a Neptomaniacs
just When Things Looked Most
Squally an Accident Enabled HinA
to Make Good His Charge
Against Madame.


ssThe most remarkable case of KEEP
tomania that ever came to my no.
tice, and one that came very near be-
ing my ruin,' said detective the
other day to a Washington Post man,
occurred several years ago. I was
then employed in a large department.
store in Washington. One. day dur
ing the winter holiday season a WE'LL
dressed woman entered the store
carrying muff and umbrella. As
she passed by the leather goods de-
partment I saw her skillfully sswipe'
pocketbooks from a number that
were on display. She placed -the
pocketbook in her muff. I followed
her to the elevator, and on up to the
third floor. On the way up she dis
covered that was following her, and
when she left the elevator she man
aged, without my seeing her, to.
place the pocketbook that she had
stolen between two boxes on the doll
counter. This, however, failed to
notice, and when she came down
stairs I told the proprietor in her
hearing that she had stolen a pocket
book
1.-THE proprietor looked at me hor-
ror-stricken, while the lady, turning
about, demanded to know what I
had said. I was so certain aof my
ground that I repeated the accusa-
ton, whereupon the proprietor said:a
6 oh, no, you're mistaken. This
lady and her husband are friends of
mine, whom entertain frequently
Z 81 was feeling awful shaky, but be-
ing so cocksure that she had the
pocketbook, I put on a bold front
and stuck to my first statement. The
lady was terribly indignant, and the
proprietor had a regular case of
trembles. While he was making all
sorts of apologies she was reading
the riot act to me. She told me that
I would pay for this dearly gave
orders to the foorwalker to tele-
phone for her husband, and insisted
on being searched.
Things were looking pretty squally
for me- when a thing happened that
changed the complexion of events
very materially. I noticed that she
had shifted the position of her hands
in her muff several times, and that
she had also placed her umbrella
leaning against the counter, and
thinking that she might have slipped
the pocketbook down into the latter,
I, without saying a. word, reached
over, picked up the umbrella and
turned it upside down. The pocket
book did not drop out as I had ex-
pected, but, what was better still,
eight pairs of kid gloves, from which
the tags had never been removed,
rolled out upon the floor. They were
not taken from nor did they belong
in our. store, but from the tags I
recognized them as belonging in an
other establishment which dealt in
gloves next door.
ST was beginning by this time to
catch on, and without losing any
time went for the proprietor of
the store next door. HIS came in,
identified the gloves, and stated that
the lady had been in his store, but
that she made no purchases. At this
time she broke down and began to
cry, and, desiring to clinch matters
all around, / made hurried trip up
to the third floor. looked over the
doll counter, found the pocketbook
she had stolen, and brought it back
in triumph.
ut turned out that her husband
was wealthy man, and could have
purchased her almost anything she
needed. She broke down completely,
confessed that she klepto-
maniac, and that S could not re-
sist the temptation to take things.
Her husband, who was coming down
to polish me off as an impgdent black
mailer, had the job of paying for the
gloves and pocketbook and of brush
ing things up with the storekeepers.
IF I had failed to make good the
charge I had preferred against this
lady, losing my job would have been
the lightest of all the woes that
would have fairly rained down upon
me. There is great deal more of
this than one thinks, and depart
ment store detective frequently has
to stand by in silence and see things
stolen, rather than take the conse-
quences that would certainly follow
in the event he undertook to appre-
bend the genteel 'kleptomaniacs' who
do the stealing"
sugar-MaEkfng Am Italy.