Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1891 — A Strange Kleptomanlac. [ARTICLE]

A Strange Kleptomanlac.

A man was arrested recently in the ac* oLstealing a pocket handkerchief from a lady. He was formerly a well-to-do baker in a suburb, when the mania seized him of collecting ladies’ cambric handkerchiefs. He would accost a lady in the streot and ask her to sell him her handkerchief. If she refused be would get Into a temper, and bid more and more fell: it until he got it Many women in the neighborhood traded upon his madness, and the man spent nearly all his money in this way. After becoming a bankrupt, about five years ago, ho began to steal handkerchiefs, and ho was imprisoned for three weeks four years ago. As he had never been caught since, the police believed that his imprisonment had cured him, but when taken he was found to have fifteen cambric handkerchiefs upon him, which he confessed to having stolen in one hour. He has never stolen any other article, and every week he was in the habit of destroying by fire the common handkerchiefs, which he had stolen by mistake, as his strange mania is limited to cambric, especially if scented. In his bedroom four hundred and thirty-four eam"TlrTc pocket handkerchiefs wore found, and it is believed that he has concealed many more in hiding places which ho refuses to reveal. He was 9cnt to a madhouse.