WOMEN PILFERERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 94, 28 April 1913, Page 4

WOMEN PILFERERS.

A striking indictment of the petty pilfering habits of some women was made by the Rev. E. J. Houghton, rector oi; St. Stephen’s, Bristol. In a letter to the Press he'says:—“This petty pilfering has been brought so much to my notice that I have had to make it the subject of special moral teaching. I have been assured by those whose knowledge I cannot doubt that there is no end to small thefts which go on in high-class places of entertainment by well-dressed ‘ladies.’ In the dressing rooms of high-class muuic-halls, picture houses, restiaurants, the daily pilferings are not simply irritating, but a serious financial loss. Ladies calmly walk into these places, use the dressing-rooms, go out again, or sit down and carry on, where writing materials are provided, a large and heavy correspondence. In one case I know of a lady remained three hours in a crowded tea-room ' without spending a penny, and the loss of towels, soap, hairbrushes and combs, serviettes, teaspoons, even small cruets and also powder-puffs, amounts to a vexatious item each week. • Where, when there is so much. exterior display, is this petty lust for getting something for nothing going to end? Shall we bb 1 ■ obliged to have plain-clothes detect fives in addition to church; officials * or will Englishwomen ;so keepiA close /, watch upon one another that these ' things which are becoming a disgrace to womanhood shall be bound to cease ? What are English-women coming to? Bad as men are, I do not think that they make off with property like this certainly not with other people’s publis powder-puffs.”