The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-30
KLEPIOMANIACS.
THEY FREQUENTLY HAVE MORE
 NERVE
Than Plain Thieves, as Store Deteo lives Know,

lives Know
 [
 .'g'he most remarkable case of klepto- mania that ever came to my notice, and one that came very near being my
 ruin," said detective the other day,
 occurred several years ago.. was then employed in a large department
 store in Washington. One day during the winter holiday season a we'll dressed woman entered the store carry ing a huff and umbrella. As she passed by the leather goods department
 I saw her skilfully swipe' pocketbook
 from a number that were on display.
 She placed the pocketbook in her huff. I followed her to the elevator and on up to the third floor. On the way up she discovered that I was following her and
 when she left the elevator she managed, without my seeing her, to place the pocketbook that she had stolen between | two boxes on the doll counter. This, however, I failed to notice, and when she came down stairs told the proprie- | tor in her hearing that she had stolen 8 | pocketbook.
 "The proprietor looked at me horror | oLIlChSIl, WlllIe LAIC lohyy LhA H1lLso dbOuSS ! demanded to know what had said.
 was so certain of my ground that re- peated the accusation, Whereupon the proprietor said to me:
 "'Oh, no, you're mistaken. This lady
 and her husband are friends of mine, whom entertain frequently
 l q was feeling awful shaky, but being
 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 reg
 ular case of trenbles. 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 floor walker to, telephone for her husband, and insisted on being
 searched.
 Things were looking pretty squally
 for me, when think happened that
 changed the complexion of events very
 materially. I noticed that she had
 shifted the position of her hands in her
 huff several times, and that she had
 salso 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 um- brella and turned 1t upside down. The
 pbcketbook did not drop out as I ex- peeted, 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 recognized them as
 belonging in another establishment
 which dealt in gloves next door ,' q was beginning by this time toscatch on, and without losing any time went for the proprietor of the store next door.
 He 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, I 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. Tt turned out that her husband was a | wealthy man and could have purchased her most anything she needed. She broke down completely. confessed that
 she was a klept omaniac, and that she could not resist the temptation to take
 things. Her husband, who was coming down to polish me off as an impudent
 blackmailer, had the job of paying for
 the gloves and pocketbook and of
 brushing things up with the two store keepers.
 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 a department store detec- tive frequently has to stand by in si-
 fence and see things stolen rather than take the consequences that would cer- tainly follow in the event he undertook
 to apprehend the genteel "kleptomani- acs' who do the stealing. Washington post