CHECKING KLEPTOMANIACS

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8293, 23 September 1903, Page 3

CHECKING KLEPTOMANIACS

Though there is every appearance in all the great London shops that the public is to be trusted implicitly, an elaborate and carefullv-organised system of espionage prevails, says the Daily Mail; to circumvent the designs of the peripatetic thief and the marauding kleptomaniac. The Invisible detective, whose office is some unsuspected callery in the ceiling, whence from artfullySesigned peepholes in the moulding he can survey the whole establishment, is the most successful foil to the shoplifter, but there are only a few shops so structurally designed that surveillance of this kind is possible. Some of the jewellers' treasure palaces are guarded in this manner, and to make assurance doubly sure no attendant is without his satellite, who keeps a wary eye on the cases of gems exposed to the customer's inspection, standing at the salesman's elbow while he is showing them. At all periods careful watch is kept in those dress establishments that are pervaded by women, _ but more especially at sale times, for it is then that covetousness overwhelms morality most easilv, and the crowded state'of the shops favors the picker-up of unconsidered trifles. A manager of one of the largest establishments in the metropolis says it is in those departments that are not spacious that pilfering principally goes on, and that in them detective supervision is always most acute. Every shop-walker and counter attendant is in effect a detective, but there are some professionals who assume the guise to hide their real position. It is tue duty of each attendant when he is suspicious of a customer to call the attention of the detective to her, not blatantly, but by a prearranged sign. The detective then keeps the suspect under her immediate eye. In the large emporiums where women chiefly congregate the most efficient, because least conspicuous, detectives are women either employed as shop-walkers or as customers. When an attendant misses—or thinks he misses—something, or notices signs of thieving, he speaks tothe detective, who, as an elegantlygarbed customer, seats herself in a position commanding a good view of the suspect, and makes her purchases like any other woman, a!l the while gathering data upon which to proceed. The disguise assumed by the shop detective differs day by day. " If there be one result less desired by the shop proprietor than another, it is to convict a kleptomaniac. Prosecutions do not forward business. The proprietor's policy is to prevent pilfering by every conceivable means, hence a blind eve is turned to what is a» theft in embryo, and the wretched shoplifter caught in the act of purloining a blouse under cover of her waterproof is asked whether the article may not be sent home to her. To the bulging umbrella or the gaping handbag the detective alludes with an apology, fearing that madam Has inadvertently incommoded herself with something'that fell from the counter.