PILFERING AS A SPORT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1070, 6 September 1930, Page 10

PILFERING AS A SPORT

WELL-OFF WOMEN OF “TALENT” Pilfering in the big London stores has grown with the development of the great shopping centres. No matter how’ rigorous a watch is kept by stores detectives, each firm loses many thousands of pounds’ w’orth of goods every year through the activities of light-fingered men and women.

The cleverest shoplifters are women. Men shop thieves are rare, and are ! more easily detected. After spending three years in a j West End store as one of its army of j private investigators, commonly called “spotters/* I came to know the majority of the best shoplifters by sight, and to understand to a certain degree the workings of their mincls (writes a woman correspondent). The most dangerous is the confirmed thief. Pilfering is her profession. She does not steal haphazardly, but watches and waits with patience for the opportunity to “lift’* coats, dresses, furs, and rolls of material which can be disposed of in the East End at a big profit without any embarrassing questions being asked. I have known many shoplifters of ; this type. Some of them are the ! wives and associates of thieves, living | all their lives in an atmosphere of crime.

Others are smartly-dressed women and girls, living in good apartments and holding good posts. Their oft’ hours are spent in practising their “talent" for abstracting other people's goods: it is a sort of sport.

Their friends only become aware of this peculiarity when an unfortunate slip lands them before a magistrate. Then there are women who at first steal by chance, absent-mindedly, and who resort to pilfering when sales are on and departments crowded and all the assistants are busy They are very busy at Christmas time in collecting presents for their friends: they are easy to detect, and every year hundreds are brought before the managements, who either charge them or dismiss them with a warning. Often the very best thing that can happen to this class of pilferer is for them to be caught. The fright of being interrogated and the shame of their position are enough to keep them honest in the future.

A type which all detectives hold in contempt is the woman who brings to the stores a child who takes the articles she points out.

It often happens that a woman will hire another woman’s child for the day to help her in her exploits. The organised raid is feared by all store operatives.

Bands of women thieves, under a leader who is known for her resource and daring, plan a coup in a particular department. They enter en masse, and half engage the assistants* attention, while the other half pick up and isolate the garments which it is their intention to remove.

But they do not always get away. Store detectives circulate descriptions of known thieves.

Immediately their presence is reported in a certain section of the shop a general call is sent out from the detective office. The thieves are allowed to take the garments, but are promptly arrested on leaving the premises. Many of the women detectives in London are young, athletic women. They are capable of dealing with the most hardened of the women shop thieves, and are adept at shadowing suspects. They lead a thrilling life.