PILFERING WOMEN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 9 May 1913, Page 6

PILFERING WOMEN.

CLERGYMAN SPEAKS PLAINLY

A striking indictm-ont of the potty pilfering habits of some women was made ' by' the Rev E. J. Houghton, rector of St. Stephen's Bristol. In a letter to the newspapers he says: ''This petty pilfering hfts 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 ini high-class places of entertainment by welJ-dressod 'ladies.' In the dressing-rooms of high-class musichalls, picture-houses, restaurants, 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 waiting imaterials are provided, a large and heavy correspondence. In one case I know of a lady who''remained three hours in a crowded tearoom without spending a penny, and the loss of towels, soap, hair-brsuhes and combs, serviettes, tea-spoons, even small cruets and also powderpuffs, amounts to a vexatious item each week. Wh-;re," when there i* so much exterior display, is this petty lust for getting some for nothing going "to end? Sliall we be obliged to have plain-clothes detectives in addition to church officials, or will Englishwomen! so keep a close watch upon one another that these things which are becoming a disgrace to womanhood shall be bound to o;a<se? What are Englishwomen coming torBad as men are, I do not think that they make off with property like this, certainly not with other people's public powder-puffs."