KLEPTOMANIA.
_Extraordinary Revelations--A Wealthy Kleptomaniac in the Toils of a
Black-mailing Detective._
In the issue of the New York _World_, bearing date Saturday, May 11,
1867, appeared a long article criticising, exposing, and severely
condemning the methods of the city's detective police. "A detective,"
said the writer, "is presumed to be alike active, capable and honest,
and were he such, he would be a public benefactor; but as he is too
often either ignorant, indolent, or positively dishonest, he becomes a
public pest. That detectives are in league with thieves; that they
associate with them publicly and privately on the most intimate terms;
that they occasionally 'put up' jobs with them by which the people are
alike fleeced and astonished; that although the perpetrators of great
robberies are generally known to them, the said perpetrators almost
invariably escape punishment; that far more attention is paid to the
sharing of the plunder, or the obtaining of a large percentage on the
amount of money recovered, than to the furtherance of the ends of
justice--all these statements are undeniably true."
Coming to specific charges, the writer said further on: "A handsome
female, a Broadway shop-lifter, recently testified that although she had
been desirous of reforming her life for a year past, she had been
totally prevented from so doing by the extortions of certain members of
the detective force, who threatened to reveal her former history unless
she 'came down handsomely,' and in order to 'come down,' as they styled
it, she was obliged to resort to her old disgraceful business."
The foregoing reference to a concurrent incident was presented to the
reader as coldly and curtly as a historic hailstone, striking him but to
glance off, and not like a real, breathing story, as it was, appealing
strongly to his heart. The following facts, which have been kept
inviolate in this office for nearly twenty years, and only brought to
light here because those most concerned have passed away, will show what
a stirring and pathetic narrative lay beneath the newspaper chronicler's
dry words.
Early in the spring of the year above named, an elderly gentleman of
undoubted respectability was shown into our private office. He was
exceedingly nervous and flurried, and his wan, colorless face looked
like an effaced page. In a tortuous, round-about way, he intimated that
his married daughter was in great trouble, in consequence of the
operation of a great weakness or defect in character which was
apparently hereditary. Her mother, his wife, he said, an excellent,
kind-hearted, conscientious, truthful woman, had occasionally manifested
the kleptomania impulse and had been detected. Happily the crime had
been committed under circumstances which obviated exposure; it had been
charitably overlooked upon his paying the bill for the purloined goods.
Up to the date of her marriage, he had not observed or otherwise become
cognizant of the development of the unfortunate trait in his only
daughter. Her husband was a noble-minded man who devotedly loved her,
and whom she idolized. Two years after her marriage she was caught
shop-lifting in an establishment where she was known. By a merciful
stroke of fortune, the information and the bill were sent to the father
instead of the husband. Great moral and religious influence had been
brought to bear on her, and for several years there was cause to believe
that she had overcome her weakness. Unfortunately there had been another
lapse into temptation. At present she was suffering the tortures of the
damned, but in what particular respect she had refused to explain to
him. "Father, find me an active, bold and energetic lawyer," she had
said in a paroxysm of tears, "and I will tell him what I _cannot_ tell
you."
The lady came to the office next morning, alone. She was pale as a lily,
and she bore on her forehead that shadow of melancholy which tells all
the world that a woman is suffering and unhappy. Her eyes were dark and
soft as the darkest and softest violet, and she was dressed with the
utmost simplicity. She was in a most desponding mood. She said nothing
was worth striving for any more. There was no good under the sun for
her. The splendor had gone from the grass--the glory from the flower.
Life, affection, family ties, love of good name--all these had ceased to
appeal to her.
In the _sanctum sanctorum_ of a criminal lawyer's office the extremes of
mental agony and poignant suffering are sometimes revealed in all their
phases; but it would be hard to imagine any one suffering more than this
fair, prepossessing woman, as she told how that sleepless and merciless
vulture of remorse, aided by the machinations of a licensed fiend in
human form, dogged her steps by day and made night horrible. The recital
recalled the picture suggested by the lines:
"Lean abstinence, pole grief and haggard care,
The dire attendants of forlorn despair."
With pale, quivering lips, she told the story of her humiliation.
Primarily, some two years after she became a happy wedded wife, she was
impelled by an irresistible impulse to take some article, almost
valueless in itself, from the counter of a dry-goods store. She had been
making several purchases and had plenty of money in her pocket at the
time. Afterwards, as opportunity offered, the wretched larceny was
repeated. Then came discovery, and her father's awakening to the
realization that his daughter was a thief. He summoned a minister and
some worthy Christian women--relatives of his--to talk to her and to
urge her to seek strength from that source where it is never withheld
when earnestly and penitently invoked. She became a church-member,
zealous and earnest in the path of righteousness, partaking regularly of
the Sacred Elements, visiting the sick, relieving the distressed, and
comforting the afflicted. To use Milton's language,
"Such a sacred and homefelt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,"
she had never felt till then. Under these happy conditions five years
passed, and then again during the holiday season, temptation assailed
her and was stronger than she. The person who discovered her theft was a
detective. He did not arrest and expose her. He did worse. He followed
her, obtained an interview and promised to keep her secret if she made
it worth his while. She willingly gave him a sum of money, and expected
to hear no more of him or of her transgression. But this newer edition
of Fagin, who was as vile as the sewers, and who lied like a prospectus,
dogged her movements and systematically shadowed her wherever she went,
again and again demanding money and threatening her with newspaper
publicity. She gave this rapacious vampire all the money she could
procure, even borrowing from her father. The pawnbrokers had in safe
keeping her diamonds, jewels, and some of her furs and laces. They had
been pledged to furnish this licensed black-mailer with money, and still
he was insatiate and unappeased. Her husband's suspicions meanwhile had
been aroused. She spent so much money in occult ways that he had been
impelled to ask her father what he thought L---- was doing with so much
money. Fettered thus, with the torments both of Prometheus and
Tantalus--the vulture gnawing at her vitals, and the lost joys mocking
her out of reach--she had at last in sheer desperation been driven to
request her father to procure her the assistance of a fearless lawyer.
It is not expedient to reveal the _modus operandi_ used in emancipating
this unfortunate lady from her worse than Egyptian bondage. But the
reader may rest assured that through the co-operation of the police
commissioners the shameless scoundrel was dismissed from the police
force. Afterwards, he served a term in a Western state prison, and up to
this hour has been heard no more of in New York.