“In retail shops it would be an advisable plan, when there are many customers to serve, that from time to time the shopmen should say to each other, deux sur dix (two on ten), or else allumez les gonzesses (twig the prigs).  I will bet a thousand to one, that on hearing these words, the thieves, who have very fine ears, will make haste to take themselves away.

“Shopkeepers of what class soever, particularly retailers, cannot be too much on their guard; they should never forget that in Paris there are thousands of male and female thieves a la detourne, I here only speak of robbers by profession; but there are also amateurs, who, beneath the cover of a well-established reputation, make small acquisitions slyly and unsuspectedly.  They are very honest people they say, who with little scruple indulge their propensity for a rare book, a miniature, a cameo, a mosaic, a manuscript, a print, a medal, or a jewel that pleases them; they are called Chipeurs.  If the Chipeur be rich, no heed is paid to him, he is too much above such a larceny to impute it to him as a crime; if he be poor, he is denounced to the attorney-general, and sent to the galleys, because he robbed from necessity.  It must be owned that we have strange ideas as to honesty and dishonesty.”

This is what we call Shoplifting.  A milliner once told us that ribands and flowers not unfrequently attach themselves to the cuffs and sleeves of fair purchasers.

Careurs

Belong to the same class of thieves, and are gipsies, Italians, or Jews.  The female Careurs are very expert in robbing priests; and Vidocq apprehended a mother and daughter for more than sixty such offences.

“The gipsies do not confine themselves to these means of appropriating to themselves the property of another:  they frequently commit murder, and they have the less objection to commit a murder, because they have no feeling of any kind of remorse; and they have a peculiar kind of expiation whereby they purify themselves.  For a year they wear a coarse woollen shirt, and abstain from ‘work’ (robbing).  This period elapsed, they believe themselves white as snow.  In France, the majority of the persons of this caste call themselves Catholics, and have every external show of great devotion.  They always carry about them rosaries and a crucifix; they say their prayers night and morning, and follow the service with much attention and precision.  In Germany, they seldom exercise any other calling than that of horse doctor, or herbalist:  some addict themselves to medicine, that is to say, profess to be in possession of secret means of effecting cures.  A vast number of them travel in bodies, some tell fortunes, others mend glass, china, pots, and pans; woe to the inhabitants of the country overrun by these vagabonds.  There will infallibly be a mortality amongst the cattle, for the gipsies are very clever in killing them, without