IT WAS THE LADIES.

Otaki Mail, Volume 27, 17 November 1919, Page 4

IT WAS THE LADIES.

t'IETTY THIEVING IN AUCKLAND. A TANDY TOR TEAPOTS. Proprietors of restaurants in Auckland, according to a statement by one or them, would appear to be having iust as hard a time with souvenir hunters as others in the same walk of life arc reported to be having in Australia. One. in an interview recently said: •‘Things are very bud in Auckland, and it is high time someone know of the enormous amount of petty thieving that'is going on among people who ought to know better. Knives, forks, ai.d spoons they take in dozens; saltshakers and pepper-pots. Nothing is beyond them, not even teapots. Hot water jugs, too.” “Who do you suppose takes them?” he was asked. “Women,” ho replied, positively. “ Women with those big shopping kits,womcn with prams, and women with muffs. No, I certainly don’t think it s the auen with handbags. AMioevcr heard of a man getting away with a teapot? In thirty years of business,” ho declared, “I’ve known nothing like the thieving that has gone on during the last two years. I bought a gross of good teapots three months ago. Gone, practically all gone. Forks, too, and little cake knives, not to mention peppers and salts. But it is the teapots that beat me. Six of them, costing 37s lid each wholesale, and three large hot water jugs, too! I could hardly have credited it if they nadirt vanished; for how a woman could get away with a big hot teapot—well, it just beats me.” Practically nothing on the table, save the cloth, ho continued, was safe from snatching fingers, and these sneak thieves. His glass and silver shakers had all been replaced by articles costing (id each, which nobody uould care to take. Serviettes, lie was thankful.to say, lie had never attempted to supply. “My experience is typical of practically every other restaurant keeper in Auckland, but the meanness of this particular brand ef sneak thieving apparently does not end with the table furnishings. The plunderers complete their stealthy work often by tipping the basin of loaf sugar into their bags, and for this reason loaf sugar has lately disappeared from many a restaurant table, being replaced by soft sugar, much less easily handled. But we are not the only sufferers,” he said in conclusion. “The hotelkeepers lose heavily too; not spoons and knives so much, perhaps, but glasses—pretty little liqueur glasses and tumblers.” “You don't put that down to the ladies, surely?” “Well, no,” lie admitted. “But,” he added firmly, “I’ll swear the men never took those teapots, bachelors or not. It was the ladies! ”