Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-07-30
THE TWENTY-SEVEN DROPS OF BLOOD


think we've paid, there's more, and still
more. l thought had paid for this necklace,
paid in blood and tears; but I've had to pay
again and again And still it isn't paid for.
| wonder when it will be over, and the score
crossed off?
"You have heard of kleptomaniao No
doubt you've often smiled and though. it a
polite name for common theft. 1t isn't!
Oh, believe me- it isn't 1t isn't mere
habit, either; it's disease-it's one of the
hardest things in the world to cure. Ask any
alienist All the same, have cured myself.
But, God! what fight, night and day, day
me wears of struggle My sufferings have
been indescribable; but l persisted against
all kinds of temptation. But, even then, |
knew l should never have won but for my
love for a man. And now But let me
begin at the beginning. l want you to un-
derstand.
"Mv family is one of the best known and
most highly respected in Philadelphia. |
have had everything, beauty,
wealth, education, social position. You
wouldn't think it possible for such girl to
go wrong, would you? And yet, somehow, it
is usually just such persons who have this
disease. Why is it? l don't know,
subtle perversity in human nature, some
doesn't matter Psychologists seem to
know little about this abnormal condition.
I've talked to all the authorities on nervous
disorders,-Dr Mitchell, DR.. Prince, every
BODY of any fame I've tried Moll and the
English authorities, the Salpetriere people
in Paris hypnotists, even Theosophists and
Christian Scientists. They simply don t
know anything about it. My own theory is
that it's form of ASSOCIATED personality, a
sort of DR.. Jekyll and Mr.. Hyde duality
struggling in one for the mastery. Perhaps
it's form of insanity. / don't know. No
body knows.
dts curious thing, kleptomania. Oh
it's interesting enough to one outside OF 1t!
l can talk about it, now. One of its peculiar
features is that one becomes so extraordlna-
rily sly-there seems to be sympathetic in
tellectual stimulus that sharpens ones facul-
ties wonderfully. Ones mind has, while one
has the obsession, touch of genius. 1t IS
like degeneracy-we can scarcely tell cause
from effect There's vicious circle '-one
can't tell whether mental keenness produces
the desire to steal. or the desire to steal edu-
Gates ones wits. The point is, one becomes
clever at it.
II know now, positively, how great GRIM
inals think, how they plot and contrive,
how they stake their brains against law and
order. L know now they develop, tney
progress. Their first, amateurish schemes
are intricate and complicated. 1t isn't till
later in life that they achieve the more dar-
ingly simple crimes that succeed by their
very audacity. Have you read Poe's Pur
Joined Letter? You know-the man who
hid valuable letter in plain sight? That's
the sort of acumen we have, the best of us,
those who have developed a special sense for
it, craft, refined cunning. You hear of
the arrest of ordinary shoplifters every day;
but my kind is seldom caught. They can't
be detected. They are inspired by some
thing too sapient, shrewd. acute.
"Well. the first time-let's see-I was
about eighteen. was visiting an old school
friend in the South. She had a Scottish
cairngorrn, one of those common brooches
with colored stones you can buy in any shop
in Edinburgh for ten shillings. Somehow, it
attracted my fancy. You see, it seems to be
characteristic of our mania to be fascinated
by objects without regard to their intrinsic
value. I've stolen things I'd never think of
using burnt matches. old newspapers,
toothbruShes even. When the fatal i'm
pulse comes, one has to steal that's all! I've