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Show THIEVES NEVER QUIT to prosecute. They believe that honest hon-est customers are inclined to shun stores in which such arrests ire frequently fre-quently made, fearing that ari entirely entire-ly innocent action might lead to an unpleasant seizure 'and search. But the total loss by shoplifting and by store thieves is so great that the National Na-tional Retail Dry Goods association was recently formed for co-operation in protection. , Once Started Continued Through Life, Say Detectives. Sleul! Tells of Apple, Chewing Gum, Secret Packet and Dog Collar Schemes in Stores Loss From This Source Heavy. New York. Four Years ago Lottie Gross married. Her husband knew that she had served a term In Moy-amensing Moy-amensing for shoplifting. But she promised him and she meant it that she would never steal again. And then the baby came. "I wanted pretty pret-ty things for her," said Lottie. "And so I went back to the old game. If I couldn't quit for the best man in the world I guess I never can quit. Stealing is like a disease except that it can't be cured." That's about what the detectives think. Once a man or woman gets well started at stealing and he or she is a thief for life. "The big stores lose more by amateur am-ateur shoplifters than by professionals," profession-als," said D. J. Botter, manager for the criminal department of a detective detec-tive agency. "A woman steals some trifling thing, that catches her eye and gets away with it Then she comes back and keeps on coming the alert," said Cotter. "Every one knows the old trick with a hunk of chewing gum. The first thief sticks a ring under the ledge of the counter with the gum. Then the other comes along and runs his hand under the counter edge and gets the ring and vamooses. Open umbrellas are often used as receptacles. The neatest trick turned lately was in the west, when a good looking, well dressed man sauntered into a jewelry store with an apple in his hand. He looked at a tray filled with valuable rings. "Wah!" he suddenly sputtered. "This apple is wormy." Whereupon he threw the apple into the street The confederate, on the lookout, picked up the apple and the gem which had been hidden in it and made off. An almost equally nifty device de-vice is to equip the collar of a pet dog with a secret pocket When the stolen ring has been placed in the pocket, while the operator is petting the animal, it leaps to the floor. "Catch my dear little doggie," yelps the bereaved shoplifter. Every one hurries to oblige. The dear little doggie fits its little tail into the groove and scampers for home, as it has been trained to do. The shoplifter profits by the fact that the managers of stores hesitate back. They never let up." Cotter takes the professional thief-catcher's thief-catcher's view of the defense of kleptomania. klep-tomania. Now and then there may be a kleptomaniac. Most kleptomaniacs are just thieves. They get started to stealing and it's like rolling a snowball snow-ball down hill the stealing grows. "There was the woman we may call Anna Eva," he said. "She is one of the most dangerous professional store thieves and shoplifters there is a differnce in the terms in the country. Her husband is a captain of a lake vessel. So is one of her sons. They have a good home at Cleveland, where the daughter is married to a good man. But Anna Eva began to steal She has been a professional thief for years, and now has a prison record. "Mind you, slip has no criminal associates. as-sociates. I do nfjt suppose she knows mother thief to speak to, though she may know them by sight She has nothing to do with other crooks. She just steals. She travels most of the time, living at good hotels. She is a kindly, placid, pleasant woman of middle mid-dle age and a professional thief. Like all the others, she began as an imateur. "I don't know that there are any particularly new schemes against which store managers should be on |