The sensation of the week has been the systematic robbery of one of Norwood’s oldest business houses by a trusted saleswoman. L. W. Bigelow’s Sons have detected one of their salesladies, Sarah F. Dodge, in long-continued larcenies of goods and money. Miss Dodge hails from Medfield and is the legally adopted daughter of a respectable family. She is 24 years old, and when at home resides with her foster mother, who is pretty well along in years and is in feeble health.
She has been in the employ of L. W. Bigelow’s Sons some four years, and it is said that the thefts from the firm have been going on for at least two years. Miss Dodge came here soon after leaving school, although first holding some small clerkships in Medfield. She was apt, energetic, and a good saleswoman.
Miss Dodge soon after coming to Norwood aspired to get into high society and seems in a measure to have succeeded. Fine feathers do not always make fine birds, but Miss Dodge was a good dresser and had eminently good taste in the selection of her toilets. Some months ago her expensive ways of personal adornment attracted the attention of one of the firm, who asked her how she could afford to indulge in what seemed to him an extravagance. She explained that she had an income of her own and was not wholly dependent on her salary. This satisfied him for a time.
It would appear to have been at about this time that the firm noticed a shrinkage in their stock, which they found it hard to account for. It was only about a fortnight ago, however, that suspicion seemed to be strongly directed to Miss Dodge. A fellow employee detected her in secreting some lace. On Friday and Saturday of last week matters came to a focus, and Mr. Harry Bigelow, son of E. A. Bigelow, did some detective work, and Miss Dodge was induced to reveal the whereabouts of some of the stolen articles. E. A. Bigelow then induced the young woman to gradually make a confession. A portion of this week has been employed in securing from her other admissions, and great quantities of the stolen articles have been recovered. Up to last Wednesday, when her case came up for hearing before a justice, Miss Dodge is said to have maintained a stolid indifference to the distressing situation in which she found herself and a disposition to deny as much as possible.
The young woman’s tastes would appear to have been extravagant ones and her Judgment of the value of articles in a department store an acute one. There are very few cheap things among the goods which Mr. Bigelow has recovered. There are costly dress goods, cut glass and china ware, fine ornaments, etc. The value of all the articles taken will, it is said, foot up a very large sum.
The idea that Miss Dodge had an accomplice is not very strong in the minds of her employers. Most of the articles taken could, they say, have been hidden under a mackintosh or secreted in other ways about the person. Trusting to her honesty and good reputation, articles might oven have been removed from the store at her instance without any guilty intent or knowledge on the part of the movers.
While much sympathy is, as usual in such cases, felt for Miss Dodge, and while it is hardly probable that under all the circumstances the law will deal very severely with her, public sympathy is somewhat modified by the rumors, apparently grounded in fact, that the firm have not been the only sufferers from her spoliations. It is claimed that she was an adept at the short change game, and several customers have come forward with stories of receiving the wrong change from her. It is also said that she has confessed to stealing considerable sums of money from the firm at various times, and that frequently when she made a sale she returned only a part of the money to the firm, putting the balance into her own pocket. The house uses a check and trolley cash system, and if Miss Dodge’s confession is true and she is guilty of the acts of which she is accused, she must be a person of extraordinary cleverness and great presence of mind.
As one of the oldest and most reliable business houses in Norwood, and as one of the leading department stores in the county, L. W. Bigelgw’s Sons feel keenly the unpleasantness caused by an event of this kind. They had regarded Miss Dodge as a most upright person, and are disposed to be lenient with her, especially as she has made considerable restitution of articles taken. They have, however, left the case in the hands of the proper authorities and feel that the law must take its course.
Miss Dodge was given a hearing in Dedham Wednesday morning and held to the grand jury in $500 ball. A Medfield gentlemen was her principal surety. J. J. Feely, Esq., appeared as attorney in her behalf. Chief-of-Police Rhoads is the leading prosecuting witness,
A statement as to the death of Miss Dodge’s mother in the earlier part of the week, was untrue. The case is a sad one and is almost unexampled, we believe, in Norwood’s history.