CURE FOR KLEPTOMANIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10419, 17 April 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURE FOR KLEPTOMANIA.

A LADY CAUGHT STEALING BIRCHED BY A SHOPKEEPER. Truth has an amusing story which suggests a cure for kleptomania. It is communicated by a shopkeeper, whose statement is as follows :—He is a partner in a largo drapery anrl fancy goods emporium which has always suffered heavily from thofts by " Indie." Ho haa found, he says, the greatest difficulty in dealing with the predatory h.ibit.i of his customers, partly through their preternatural artfulness; partly from four of the discredit which would bo brought on his establishment by making a charge and failing to sustain it; and partly from the knowledge that, even were the thief caught red-handed and convicted, the punishment would fall most heavily upon her husband, or other innocent partios. In these circumstances he determined to try a novel course of procedure. He had a special watch kept upon a lady who had been a very regular customer, and whose visits to the shop wore always followed by tho disappearance of articles which she had not paid for. Before she had been watchod long the lady was caught in the act of pocketing a valuable piece of lace. She was requested to step upstairs to the principal's ofh'oo, where she was searched, and found to bo in possession of a number of articles, which she had purloined and stowed away in a capacious pocket, apparently constructed for the purpose. OKFEKKD HER CHOICE. The proprietor then put it to her that if prosecuted she would certainly be imprisoned, and bring disgrace not only upon herself bub upon all her friends, and ha offered her the alternative of being punished by him where she was. The lady inquired what the punishment would be. He told her, and she agreed to accept ib. The proprietor was fortunate in the possession of a maiden sister, an elderly lady of stalwart build and muscular development. The sister was sent for. Two stout Jtiroh rods were produced. The proprietor retired, and the sister, with the assistance of the manageress of the establishment, proceeded to administer to the lady corporal punishment in the orthodox method practised at our public school'. After about a dozen strokes the " kleptomaniac" howled for mercy, and solemnly swore that she would never do ib again. The shopkeeper adds, "I don'b think she will—at any rate with us, Indeed, I bare never seen her in the ehop since."