The Mechanics of Shoplifting 



The department store parasite turns inventor and devises 

 some ingenious tools for stealing under the detective's eye 



A capacious repository — 

 a bag sewed inside a coat 



FOR sheer cle\eriie> 

 tlie profession;! 

 shoplifter deserves 

 the iron cross of thief- 

 dom. He or she (there 

 are just as many men as 

 women in this vocation), 

 must work under the 

 vigilant eyes of detectives. Vet shoj)- 

 lifters ply their trade with seeming 

 indifference, pilfering fuK-ry that totals 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. 

 Although department stores reluc- 

 tantly admit it, the fact is that shop- 

 lifting is as profitable as ever. There 

 are reasons enough The professional 

 shojjlifter has his regular customers for 

 whom he steals. The customer selects 

 the article in the store, the shoplifter 

 steals it, obtains a fair price for it — plus 

 his cleverness, and the deal is closed 

 and forgotten. It is purely a business 

 transaction — cash only, and no questions 

 asked. There is no dickering with a 

 "fence" or secmid-h.ind cli-.ilcr; coii- 



E BOTTOM 



HINGED FLAPS Hinge 



The false bottom travel-bag 

 — a Hungarian contrivance 



A skirt bag large enough to hold 

 a baby grand piano — almost 



sc.(iuenli\' the police are 

 thrown off the usual beat- 

 en path. 



Unfortunately for our 

 stores the professional 

 shoplifter has found time 

 and opportunity to turn 

 iiuentor. His tools are 

 ingenious mechanical contri\anccs. One 

 of these is the false bottom, hinged-llaii 

 tra^■cling bag, recently found in the 

 possession of a Hungarian team — two 

 young men and a woman. 



Innocent looking in itself, the bag is a 

 ^•eritable storehouse for purloined ar- 

 ticles. The thief places the bag on the 

 coimter ()\er the article to be stolen. B\' 

 leaning carelessly on it enough jiressiu'e is 

 exerted to force the article up past the 

 hinged-llaps into the ialse bottt>m. If 

 the thief is apprehended the bag is 

 opened and reveals nothing, unless the 

 searcher sus])ects that there is a false 

 bottom. 



When .1 lliici is caught wiih ilio 



f)48 



