Dormitory Thieves Are Concentrating On Easy Technique of Book-Stealing

If the present trend towards book stealing continues, the city may be compelled to enforce a statute which would result directly or indirectly in driving second-hand bookstores around the Square out of business and cripple the majority of local bibliography dealers, most of whom sell the used article.

With the efficiency of the Harvard police clamping down on other forms of burglary, larcency of books has become the favorite activity of dormitory thieves.

This field recommends itself for its simplicity and ability to carry on in the open. Whose word would tell whether Eliot's Five Foot Shelf being escorted away under an arm belonged to, was being borrowed, or stolen by the owner of that arm? To stop everybody seen with a book is practically impossible.

Similarly, a book dealer has no ready way of determining whether the man who offers him a book for sale actually belongs to it.

However, a considerable number of volumes seen around Harvard are stolen goods on their way to a bookstore. Cases have been reported where a man has mislaid his book and bought it back at a store all in the same day.

In regard to this situation Cambridge has had an ordinance in effect for a long time, which says that these dealers and all others who handle junk or second-hand goods must register every purchase and sale that they make each day in a book. This book must be open for inspection by the police at any time, and a daily report on its content be submitted to the authorities at sundown.

The law also demands that these dealers must not buy from minors. At present, merchants feel the law has to be generally disregarded because of the impracticability of complying. Many offerers won't want their names to appear on any register. Most purchasers won't be bothered and will go elsewhere. If the law were enforced buyers would stay away, while legitimate sellers would prefer to do business privately.

In some cases profits in second-hand book turnovers have amounted to $15,000 annually.