The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-14
WIVES WHO ROB HUSBANDS.
1t Is Done to Help Relatives and other
People in Most Instances.
It'd Bits.

Men like myself. who spend year after
year probing the depths of the criminal
world, discover queer bypaths in wrong
doing. remarked a wel-known detective.
woman deliberately and systematically rob-
bling her husband will seem almost absurd
means uncommon. OF course, they are in
variably flushed up" and thus escape the
searching light of prosecution.
In justice to the fair criminals it must be
admitted that most frequently the crime Is
committed for the benefit of another-to
keep the knowledge OF a sons debts from
the father or TO help loved brother out OF
difficulties, for example.
One of the cleverest forged checks 1 ever
saw was executed for the first named pur-
pose. The mother stole a blank check and
made Ii out to her for a considerable
amount So well had she initiated her hus-
bands handwriting and signature that both
the bank officials and the youth himself
were deceived, and the fraud was only dis
covered when the husband examining his
passbook, noticed a payment for which he
could not account. Even then, so good was
the forgery, he could not be certain that he
mad not written II until / pointed out sew
eral minute distinct differences.
The following extraordinary case is unique,
In that the theft was not a desperate last
resort To stave off impending disaster, but
an organized system of robbery, which con-
tnued undiscovered for over twelve months.
The victim was a wealthy man. whose wife
-tne enid or poor parents-had married
him for his money. Her family soon dis
covered, however, that though generous
enough to his wife. he would give little TO
her relations, and, driven by their demands
and reproaches, the young girl stopped to a
means of supplying them as base as it was
ingenious.
She contrived to make an arrangement
with three of her tradespeople-her milliner,
dressmaker and jeweler-by which every
thing she bought from them was charged
double price. Then. when her husband paid
the bill, the overcharge, less commission
Tor the shopkeeper. was handed back TO
her. In this way she had robbed her hus-
band of nearly f1,0O0 before an anonymous
letter, written by a discharged employee of
one of the tradesmen concerned, brought
about an investigation.
A certain government official, who occu-
| pies high position, recently underwent a
very unpleasant and humiliatng experience.
He has wife whose extravaganza causes
frequent quarrels between them. One day
he received a visit from her at his office,
and later on he discovered that a most i'm
portant document was missing Suspecting
| the truth, he rushed home and accused his
wife of taking IL. She calmly admitted the
theft, and informed him that she had sealed
the paper up and given it to her dressmaker
| as security for her account, which the hus-
band had fatty refused to pay only the day
before. The loss of the document, or even
the fact of its having left his keeping, be-
coming known meant ruin for the official.
pay the bill in order to regain it.
1t was once my lot to assist a writer of
| popular fiction in the making of very
| unhappy discovery. For some time ne ndQ
noticed that he was being forestalled in the
| magazines by a writer, whose plots
| were identical with those he himself had
| thought out and noted down for use. At
|. first he suspected his amanuensis, but then
a plot was used which he had not even
| written down, but only talked over with
| his wife-a custom of his.
At his request 1 managed to obtain the
| address of the new writer, which proved
| to be merely a place where letters could be
sent, and after watching il for several days
1 learned that the culprit was in fact, the
novelist's wife. Smitten with a literary
fever. and apparently unable to invent a
bands confidence and used his. How they
! is still writing.
l ever had was when, for a few days
enacted the part of man servant in a large
| country house. The owner had fine COL
lection of old silver, and certain valuable
| pieces had vanished at intervals In a way
| which pointed to some one in the house as
| the thief.
On the first night of my watch / saw
| a white-robed figure approach the safe
| where the silver was kept open il with a
| key and take out vase This was carried
out of the house and hurled into the middle
| of artificial lake in the grounds The
! thief was the lady of the house. walking in
her sleep, but the fact that she was in
| tensely jealous of the attention paid by
her husband to his hobby was no doubt the
cause of her strange, though unconscious.
| action. The missing pieces were all found
| when the lake was dragged.