The Ketchikan miner., 1908-07-18
The Shoplifter.
ICopyright. 1908. I

and female, but especially the latter. He was man that never forgot face. He also had large stock of in- tuition. This last often aided him in spotting guilty parties and bringing them to justice. In England shoplift- ing means certain Imprisonment when detected and an arrest made by reg ular police officer.
 Inspector Hammond had the run of twenty large retail esta blishments, but was known only to the managers. All complaints came directly to him. and at any hour in the day convenient to him he was at liberty to stroll through the stores and mingle with the GUS toners. Sometimes a salesman could give him description of the suspect ed party. but oftener than not he had only his intuition to guide him. In time he came to be so dreaded that shoplifting bade fair to be d lost art. but there was always a daring man or woman ready to pit wits against his. After making hundreds of ar rests and winning fame for himself he met his Waterloo
 In one of the big London department stores, after a period of ninety days in which not case of thieyery had been reported, a shoplifter suddenly began plying her art. It was judged from the first that she was a woman. She lifted" cloaks. furs untrimmed hats, gloves, petticoats, handkerchiefs and other things of female wear, and she did it so deftly that the inspector had an admiration for her. Her shoplift- ing extended to other stores and to jewelry establishments. She went the rounds of ten or twelve of them.
 The first description of the suspected party was that of a good looking mid dle aged woman, well dressed and seeming to have plenty of money. The second was that of woman fifty years old and dressed in mourning. The third was that of q young woman of thirty. evidently living in some sub urban town. There were three or four other descriptions, and none of them exactly agreed as to color of hair and eyes. The inspector smiled over them and made up his mind that he had got hold of cute thief. He believed that all the descriptions applied to the one woman. That they varied so much was owing to the fact that she was so good at disguise. He believed the first de- Scription to be a correct one and that the woman must return to it sooner or later.
 The inspector owed much of his suc- cess to his disguise. He never visited an establishment twice in the same makeup. If he was man about town one day, he was q farmer the next. If he was mechanic asking for pound of nails one day. he was an old woman looking for cheap handkerchiefs the next. It was theseegdisguises that struck terror to the hearts of the aver age shoplifters. They never could tell that the person at their elbow, man or woman, was not the dreaded Ham, mond
 He expected trouble from the woman of disguises, and he had it in plenty. She piled her trade right under his nose. She got the goods and got away time after time In one store she was credited with forty acts of thievery. Hammond gave up all other cases to follow her trail For three long months she succeeded in evading him. One of her disguises during that interval was the habliments of a man. She was youngish man. middle aged man and m old man by turns.
 A French detective came over on an old case that Hammond had followed unsuccessfully. He had the records of it in an old notebook in a trunk in the garret in Kensington. He had a wife, but no children. and lived in a modcr- ate, modest way. His natural disposi- tion was secretive. and it was seldom that even his wife could draw any thing out of him about his cases. She had to go to the newspapers for most of her information. The doings of the crafty shoplifter and Hammond's i'll success in making an arrest had been duly chronicled, but very little talk had passed at home.
 The Frenchman called at the yard and let it be known what he wanted, and the inspector went home in the middle of the afternoon to get the notebook He found his wife absent and let himself in with his latchkey. In the garret of the house were three or four old chests and trunks. together with other rubbish. and none of the receptacles was locked The man drew one of the trunks to the middle of the floor and began his search. After quarter of an hour he discovered that he had got hold of the wrong trunk and therefore dragged out another The first thing his eyes rested on after lifting the cover was a lot of the stuff he knew had been stolen He at once examined the two other boxes and found them literally damned full of pDunder
 No man can tell what his feelings were. It was as plain to him as day light His wife was the shoplifter. He never came home in the afternoon, and she thus had the whole day to herself She knew of all his disguises, and she had taken lessons from him. Even as he sat there stunned and all a-tremble. she entered the house with her key and