AMAZING THEFTS

Evening Star, Issue 23862, 17 April 1941, Page 11

AMAZING THEFTS

DISHONEST HOTEL GUESTS In over 20 years I have been associated with two :of the most important hotel groups in Britain, one a'chain of 13 hotels and the other a popular group normally housing over 3,000 sleepers nightly.' My knowledge of souvenir collectors and soap thieves is, if not unique, at least extensive (write? Mr W. Buchanan Taylor, in the ‘ Manchester Guardian ’). 7 Guests in hotels do not confine themselves to thefts of. soap, towels, and ash trays. They steal electric lamps, nail brushes, combs, notepaper, ■ pens, glasses, coat hangers, metal and composition pegs from the backs of doors, and even plumbing fittings—in. fact, almost anything of light weight which can bo unscrewed or simply lifted. As we were able to prove, many , a small country cottage or houseboat on the Thames has been partially fitted Up with articles purloined from restaurants' and hotels in London. Knives, forks, spOous, pepper ami salt containers, mustard pots, napkins, and small wine glasses have disappeared by the thousand, and nearly always during the early days of summer when the exodus to the country begins. These consistent thefts are committed not by professional pilferers, but by highly respectable people who would be —and often were—shocked to be accused of robbery. A strange psychology has grown up in the middle-class England in the last 40 years. It is that cheating the restaurant, a railway, or a State is not dishonest. Examined under a sociological microscope, it reveals the excuse: “ I was only getting a bit of my own back,” which derives from the common theory that in every case the patron has, been overcharged for what was supplied.