"The professional as well as the amateur shop-lifter has always
presented to me an interesting phase of criminality," remarked
Kennedy tentatively, during a lull in their mutual commiseration.
With thousands of dollars' worth of goods lying unprotected on the
counters, it is really no wonder that some are tempted to reach
out and take what they want."
"Yes," explained Donnelly, "the shop-lifter is the department-
store's greatest unsolved problem. Why, sir, she gets more plunder
in a year than the burglar. She's costing the stores over two
million dollars. And she is at her busiest just now with the
season's shopping in full swing. It's the price the stores have to
pay for displaying their goods, but we have to do it, and we are
at the mercy of the thieves. I don't mean by that the occasional
shoplifter who, when she gets caught, confesses, cries, pleads,
and begs to return the stolen article. They often get off. It is
the regulars who get the two million, those known to the police,
whose pictures are, many of them, in the Rogues' Gallery, whose
careers and haunts are known to every probation officer.
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