Robbed By Their Guests

It is a f act well knowu to every hotel and restaurant keeper In the city tbat people will steal. Why they resort to peculiitioii is u mystery, but a far greater mystery seejns to be wrapped up in the class of articles that arn stolen. Guests who stop at first class hotels and pay their bilis in departing liave been known scores of times totakewith them toilet soap and towels trom tlieir rooms. Blankets, sheets, clocks and ornaments likewise disappear with the departing transients. Nor does the pcculation .top at this. Cheap plíited triiys, cutlcry, forka and spoons plaüily niarkod with tlie ñames of the hotels are stolen ngain and agaiu. This seems strange, for if the articles are used by the thief they bear, of course, the indelible evideiice of the guilt of the peculators. Sometimes the stolen articles are recovered, and sometimes they are not. Only recently the proprietor of a local hotel advertised repeatedly and offered a large rewörd for the return of a valuable clock of large size, which had been taken from the hotel and in a manner never discovered. All the advertising was in vain. The late John Hoey once succeeded by a shrewdly worded letter in recovering a valuable rug which a well known New York woman had taken with her. As soon as its absence was noted from the Hollywood Mr. Hoey caused to be writteu to the woman a lettei' which read susbtautially as follows: "De ar Madam - In packing your clothing your maid by mistake included the Turkish rug which was in your room. Kindly have it returned. " The woinan had no maid, which faot was well knowu to herself and to Mr. Hoey. The assumption that the theft was not hers accorded her an opportunity to return the 6tolen article, which she did at the earliest possible moment, sending with it at the same time a note apologizing for the stupidity of the "maid. "-