Show HOLIDAY EPIDEMIC OF THEFT J Stores Losing Hundreds of Dollars at the Hands of Women Who Cannot > Resist the Temptation to Steal Kleptomania Is a polite name applied ap-plied to a Christmas malady that seems to be epidemic about this time So far the thefts In tho big stores have been small hut In the aggregate the loss Is very large One of the most brazen of these petty robberies was committed last night In Spearss candy store on Second South street A man and a woman entered the place about 11 oclock The woman stood at the counter and bought home candy while the man loitered near the show window The clerk Haw him put a box of sweets worth about 1 In hiM pocket The clerk thought he wan a friend of the proprietor or a Joker and said nothing until after he went out with the lady Then he spoke to Mr Spears about It and the proprIetor followed fol-lowed the pair to Main street where he lost them in tho crowd l The Incident was reported to Officer Brown The i man was apprehended and paid for the I candy to avoid prosecution I Earlier In the day a lady who refused I re-fused to make a complaint Informed j the police that she had dropped a i pocketbook In one of the dry goods I j stores The book was picked up by an unknown woman who went out with It I In another big more a woman took three pairs of gloves from a box and passed them to a confederate behind i I I her Sho was not detected but one worried about It until she told her husband hus-band who went around and paid for I tho gloves Some of those thefts aro committed by professional shoplifters but the great bulk are by women of good repute re-pute who scorn unable to resist the sudden temptation to take some trinket when nobody Is looking Hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars have been lost by shopkeepers In this manner man-ner during the holiday season |