PETTY PILFERING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19887, 15 March 1939, Page 16

PETTY PILFERING

FORM OF EXHIBITION ISM SOUVENIR HUNTERS ENORMOUS LOSSES HOTELS, TRAINS, SHIPS There is something to he said fo r the rogues who, on the main LondonSouthend road, stole a whole barrel of XXXXX beer from an hotel, without even leaving one X to mark the spot. There is something to be said for the old Oxford custom of .collecting policemen’s helmets, because there is some glamour and a good deal of risk attached to it. There is even something to be said f r ”' the women of Kingstanding, near Birmingham, who the other day were accused of stealing entire apple trees from an orchard. But for the ordinary petty pilferer, the souvenir hunter, there can be nothing tout contempt, says a writer in the London Daily 'Mirror. Usually a man of means, he thinks it is very clever to help himself to anything—from a pair of opera glasses to an ashtray. And he is even prepared to boaSt about his skill at this peculiarly easy game. The amount of petty theft committed is not easy to calculate. The total amount is enormous. When 'interviewed the general manager of the Universal Automatic Delivery Company, a firm which supplies 10,000 pairs of opera glasses a year for hire to the big theatres, said: “Our opera glasses are put only in the expensive seats. They are hired toy putting a sixpence in a slot. Eaclupair of glasses carries a tag stating whose property they are, the fact that anyone found in unlawful possession is liable to prosecution, and the further fact that we offer £25 reward for information leading to a conviction. “Yet of the 10,000 pairs we supply to the expensive seats of the bestclass theatre, we lose 2000 every year. “It is incredible how people can stoop to so mean and miserable a theft.” Towels Disappear According to an official of the London and North-Eastern Railway: “Passengers steal towels as a matter of course. We are now more or less accustomed to that. But towels don’t seem to satisfy them. “We have had to make a rule at King’s Cross that on special nights—for instance, after an EnglandScotland football mateh-4all the ordinary cutlery is put away, and a cheapm kind set out. “We have learned from the past that cutlery is apparently irresistible among a certain type of long-distance traveller. 'i.;V “On one occasion, the Duke of Windsor asked a guard on the way to Grantham why ’it was that hassocks in the first-class compartment were chained., “The guard had to explain that not even those of His Majesty’s loyal subjects who travelled first-class were quite clear about the laws of property. Window Straps Safe 1 “Fashions have changed. In the old days people used to steal the window straps to use as strops. But with the introduction of the safety razor we find we can now call our window straps our own. . “Things are improving slightly on the whole. .But there is still an astonishing proportion of travellers who regard anything on a railway as just belonging to anyone in particular.” “As you probably know, there was scarcely a single ash tray left on board after the maiden voyage of the Normandie,” an official of the French Line said. First-class passengers had helped themselves as liberally as any others. "We are now practically resigned to petty pilfering in that direction. People who would never dream of stealing sixpence, seem to think nothing of helping themselves to the company’s towels and fittings. "It has become a mild mania.” Silver Steins “We used ‘to serve beer in silver tankards, - as you know,” the manager of the Olde Cock, a famous tavern in Fleet street, remarked. “But strangers dropped in, visitors to London, and helped themselves at a rate that sometimes amounted to three silver tankards a day. “They werett nearly ali well-to-do people, and simply out to collect a souvenir for a bit of fun. They were never regular customers. But their fun .became a bit tiresome for us. “So much so that we have been forced to change over to ordinary glass.” “Our losses from petty theft, are enormous,” the manager of a famous London inn remarked. “I remember once going to a party given by a wealthy young blood outside London. He started things rolling by showing us his cabinet of souvenirs. “The first thing I noticed about it was that it contained three lovely» silver .tankards from my own house.” All the concerns interviewed did no't admit to the same losses. The Savoy Hotel was calm— We now use very heavy ash trays, anyway”; the Southern Railway was shocked; Cunard-White Star were noncommittal. But there were other concerns, greater still, who admitted in full the enormous toll they have to pay through theft every year. They simply asked that their admissions should not be made public. . . „ . It isn’t clever and it isn t funny i lift other people’s property. It is only a snivelling form of vamt that drives an .otherwise well-educated person to this pathetic form of hibitionism. , t It is high time he was held up t oublic ridicule as a “double-crosser.