A PASSION FOR PARASOLS—REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF KLEPTOMANIA.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 190, 18 August 1870, Page 2

A PASSION FOR PARASOLS—REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF KLEPTOMANIA.

There is in New York a rich lady who, if tho New York correspondent of the Philadelphia Public Record may be believed, has a mania for stealing parasols. This remarkable lady, it appears, has been married for some four or five years, but her husband, till the present, has never had the least suspicions of her singular failings. Mrs. Smith —to call her, for convenience sake, by a wholly impersonal name—had iv her large and elogar.t house a little boudoir which she always kept closely locked. It was one of those apartments which in New York houses are alwa;. s called " hall bed-rooms." When examined the other day by some detectives the walls of this apar men were found decorated with nearly a hundred parasols of all sizes aud varieties, from the cheapest to the most expensive. There were several richly decorated with lace, valued at fifty dollars a piece. The kleptomaniac has been several years forming this unique collec'ion ; and on one or two occasions, when detected in the act by storekeepers managed io hush up the matter by restitution to purchase of the stolen property. She had an odd manner of giving names to her favourite parasols, selecting them from poems, novels, and plays. The latest addition to ihe stDck —an elegant white parasol with heavy fringe — was called "Prou-Frou;" others bore labels with such names as "Pickwick," "Little Don-it," " Lady of the Lake," " Ophelia," " Rosalind," and the like ; and one large specimen, bordering on the umbrella species, bore the gloomy name of " Lady Macbeth.' The husband of the lady in question is undecided what cource to pursue in this curious

emergency. As to the fair kleptomaniac herself, she professes to be overwhelmed with contrition and remorse. The family *^m certainly remunerate the spoliated parasol dealers for their losses, and the matter will probably be hushed Up.