THE GENTLE GRAFTER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7057, 19 February 1910, Page 14

THE GENTLE GRAFTER

Of all the vagaries of the feminine character there is nothing so utterly inconsistent as woman's attitude toward honesty, for every day of our lives wo see women, who pride themselves upon, their probity, yot who not only commit thefts openlv and shamelessly, but actually boast of their pilfering (says Dorothy Dix ia an Australian, paper). \'o hotter example of this can be found than in the highway, robbery that goes on under tho euphonistic name. of collecting souvenirs. That a. woman.; of oven elemental principle and morality should steal, eveni under the dires; stress of starvation, is strange, but it is marvels of marvel that women who hare no necessity to take things that do not belong to them—women who have money enough to travel and go to the best hotels—should be common thieves. ,: Nevertheless their name is kgwn-; Thearo is mot one of us who has not, numbers of such women, among her acquaintances, and who has not been called upon to admire a collection of towels, or spoons, or plates, each one of which bore tho name of somo railroad or steamship company or hotel from which it had been stolen... Last summer a Wealthy young girl who had been a persistent globetrotter .told mo that she.was going to bo married, and in speaking of: her future home, which she was furnishing, she gurgled with delight over a collection, of salt'and popper boxes that represented every fashionable hotel in ■p*?,.™'™; try aud Europe. And she had ..lifted Women who commit these thefts excuse the act by calling them souvenirs, but they know well enough that there _ is not a mother's daughter of them who wouldn't have a servant arrested if she formed the habit of collecting souvenir spoons and pillow cases from hoT. If you happen to live m the same house with a gentle grafter you are given tho precious privilege of supplying all of her ' little needs. She never has a postage stamp. 'She is always just out of stationery, and is in perpetual necessity of fine toilet soap and tooth powder, and hairpins, and cosmetics, and ruching and other feminine belongings, and she holds you up for them in a way that you cannot refuse, but that leaves you grinding your teeth with rage at being so palpably worked,