Nearly all of our large dry goods and department stores offer her unusual opportunities for stealing, provided she is well dressed and knows her business. The counters of these establishments are lavish with all kinds of jewelry, laces, gloves and knick-knacks of various kinds and values. During the holidays there are dazzling arrays of silks, satins and velvets of all the colors of the rainbow from which the shoplifter can make satisfactory selections. And best of all, these stores are so thronged from morning till night, that these petty thieves are able to secrete dozens of small articles on their persons without being detected. Shoplifters as a rule ply their business only in stores that are crowded, where they can steal unobserved and afterwards get away with the plunder. These people as a rule are bold, daring depredators who will scruple at nothing. The most dangerous of this class are so slippery that they seldom get caught, but when discovered and their rooms are searched, the police find a wagon load of stolen property, the accumulation of years of thievery. Their work is systematic, and carefully planned, and as a rule they are able to successfully carry off the goods and get rich on them. When they go out to steal, these women have pockets in their clothing sufficiently large enough to carry away a big haul. On this account all the principal stores are compelled to employ male and female detectives to watch these thieves and arrest them in the act. Many of this class of thieves do not belong to New York. They straggle in from Long Island, Jersey and small towns on the Hudson. The Christmas holidays are the great harvest for shoplifters and petty thieves. A gang of four expensively dressed shoplifters have been known to get away with thousands of dollars worth of furs, silk waists and laces in a season. Scores of these women are arrested during the year who refuse to disclose their identity and many of them are sent to jail for short terms. A shoplifter of experience was arrested not long since in a Sixth avenue department store. She was about thirty years of age and well dressed. When searched in the Tenderloin Station House, forty-one articles were found in her umbrella, ranging in value from eighteen cents to three dollars; according to the marks on the articles the shoplifter must have visited four different stores on the Avenue. Among the things found in the umbrella were belts, collars, pins, garters, laces, handkerchiefs, pocket books, pencils, combs, brushes, lockets, buttons and several bottles of cologne. The shoplifters are seldom prosecuted to the full extent of the law, as friends intercede in their behalf, reimburse the storekeepers for their losses, after which they are let go. If the shoplifters are rich they are called kleptomaniacs, but if they are poor and friendless they are classed as thieves and have to go to jail.