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The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 7, 1864

SHOP-LIFTING

Lucy Adler was arrested and locked up in the city prison last night, for petty larceny - stealing shoes, ribbons, and small traps of all kinds exposed for sale in shops. She brought her weeping boy with her - a lad of nine years, perhaps - and they were followed by a large concourse of men and boys, whose curiosity was excited to the highest pitch to know "what was up with the old woman," as they expressed it. The officers, and also the merchants, say this woman will travel through a dozen small stores during the afternoon, and go home and "clean up" a perfect junk-shop as a result of her labors. She cabbages every light article of merchandise she can get her claws on. She always has her small boy with her and if she is caught in a theft, the boy comes the sympathy dodge, and pumps tears and jerks sobs until the pity of the shopman is moved, and his parent released. The boy is always on hand, and if an officer snatches the woman she pulls the metaphorical string that turns on the boy's sympathetic shower bath, and he is all tears and lamentations in a moment. At any rate, this is what they say of the cunning pair.

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