Most of the proprietors of these up-town resorts are very prosperous and would not countenance theft of any kind, nor permit any woman guilty of it to come into their saloons if they knew them to be thieves. Persons and property are comparatively as safe here as they can reasonably be expected to be; but there are lots of persons who visit these places who are known to be professional thieves and pickpockets, and while apparently in the place for amusement, are really watching for some unfortunate who, under the influence of drink, attempts to find his way home alone. Such an individual is followed, and by one pretext or another is robbed. Danger lurks in all these places for the man who drinks. The temperate man is safe almost anywhere, but the temperate man is not in the habit of visiting such places as have been described, except--once in a while. CHAPTER VI. SHOP-LIFTERS. _Who they are and how they are made--Their Methods of Operating and upon whom--The Fashionable Kleptomaniac and her opposite--The Modern Devices of Female Thieves._ Many persons contend that certain kinds of criminals inherit their law-breaking propensities. There are others, less charitably disposed, perhaps, who strenuously insist that all criminals, without exception, are simply born with a natural desire to be bad, and would not be otherwise if they could; that they are prone and susceptible to the worst influences because they incline that way. There are others, again, who as strongly and vigorously urge that felons, of whatever grade, class or character, are made so by circumstances, in which poverty, idleness, inability to obtain work, temptation, and a thousand other things, conspire to be either the direct or indirect causes of the individual falling from the straight path and entering the crooked path of crime. But, from whatever motive, by whatever temptation, whether forced or led, certain it is that both male and female criminals have some peculiar ideas of crime, entertained, perhaps, for reasons only known to themselves. The chances of escape from detection are, no doubt, seriously weighed and carefully considered by the persons bent upon committing felony as a mode of livelihood, and, undoubtedly, some special line is selected, as the particular branch of the profession to be followed, in accordance with the physical and mental fitness of the man or woman to succeed in it.