The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-27
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WAYS OF. SH0PLIFTERS GREAT DEVICES FOR STEALING
 FasoM BIG STORES. Predatory Visitors Scheme to outwit Secret Police-Coneealed Pockets : are Attached to Multifurcated
 Skirts-Fair Sex Offenders.

Chicago Chronicle.
 In spite of the elaborate precautions taken nowadays by the managers of the numerous retail establishments known as the big stores as well as by the proprie- tors Of the smaller firms. there Is a sec- ton of the community that continues to thrive-at intervals-upon revenues pro- cured in the dubious and dangerous pro fession' of shopliftng. That there are professional shoplifters has been proved innumerable times. But in recent years the nefarious, work of the shoplifter has become an :'art," the increased facilities for plying the ''light-fingered'' trade be- ing susceptible of infinite variations Tn the gigantic premises used by the great retailers for the transaction of the com plicated business of modern merchandis- ing. As Christmas time is supposed to be the harvest season for .shopHfters the house detective forces of the big stores are es- pecially active and alert just now.
 What they are ever on, the lookout for at this season is the, customary crop of new, and ingenious devices which the shoplifters introduce each year in the ef- fort to ontwtt the lynx-eyed secret police of the great stores. 4,..-. ,t.t 5.3 :,
 Because of the immense throngs of gen. uipe customers at the retail counters in CEedSSQ WaICnIutLeBS- lS tue IIOIS nSCCS~ sary from year to year for the protection of the merchants property. In some natures--the kinds supposed to be afflicted with a double dose of original sin-theIe seems to be inherent a certain ineradica- ble impulse to get something for nothing on every occasion when the opportunity offers. To obtain or construct the means for escaping detection,is then but another step for these so-called 'degenerates," and it has long since completely engaged the contectural genius of the Sherlock Holmeses or the retail trade to divine the mysterious ways of the proving shop litter, whose inventive, genius in the mat ter of devising concealed pockets and kin dred schemes, must be about as active and resourceful as the house detective's wits, unless failure is to be met at tlle very threshold of the modern palatial stores that have been called the 'reallEa- tion of the visions depicted fin. the TO- nance of the Arabian Nights. "
 . More Women Than Men. 1 ! Unfortunately for the fair sex, and per haps for the world at large, the great majority of shoplifters are women, an- other example of Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest"-the feminine at tire being obviously far better fitted to conceal a quantity of more or less bulky articles than the garb of the mere man..
 The favorite device of the shoplifter continues to be the capacious secret pock- ct concealed in the folds, of, a multifur- cated skirt. Infinite variations of this device are met with, and whenever men shoplifters are arrested the deep and ex- pansive secret pocket. is invariably found to be his chief equipment for concealing the merchandise appropriated during his predatory labors. . ! In this country the business of thwart- ing and detecting shoplifters has been developed to q fine art-an important branch of the secret police work In all large mercantile establishments. Abroad, however, and especially in England, there seems to be sort of epidemic of shop lifting among the ''bettah clawses." This development is causing much alarm among our English cousins. though, strange to say. nobody has yet suggested that the epidemic Is another form of the American method" following upon the heels of the trade invasion of ''the Yan- kees." Perhaps 1t Is well known, how ever. that in this country there Is not and never has been anything like an epi- demic of shoplifting among the more sub stantial people spoken of fin Britain as the better classes" and that whenever such people are discovered to be shop filters they are charitablyy dealt with by