Napoleon branded Britain a ''nation of shopkeepers.'' Now it seems it is a nation of shoplifters. Research released recently showed Britain to be the most light-fingered* country in Europe, with nearly one in every two cases of shoplifting across the continent taking place in British stores. The report, by the UK-based Center for Retail Research, said there were nearly 566,000 reported cases of shoplifting in Britain during 2001 out of a Europe-wide total of 1.27 million. The next worst offenders, France and Germany, came well below Britain with only 188,000 and 167,000 cases, respectively. Switzerland lived up to its clean-living reputation, with just 10,198 recorded cases of shop theft, the lowest in Europe. ''The only reason I can think of is the higher level of criminality in Britain,'' report author Joshua Bamfield said. But the blame for Britain's poor showing does not lie wholly at the doorstep of Britons, Bamfield said, but also with organized foreign gangs hitting on cities such as London. ''There are traveling gangs of thieves, many from places like Poland and Russia, that target large department stores,'' Bamfield said. ''The problem is right across Europe -the criminals have formed their own European Union.'' Bamfield said one factor skewing the statistics was also likely to be that retailers in Britain were more likely to log and record thefts compared to other nations, such as Greece.

拿破仑曾把英国命名为“店主的国度”，现在看来它似乎是一个商店扒手的国度。新近公布的研究结果显示英国是欧洲“手法最高明”的国家——整个欧洲将近1/2的商店扒窃事件发生在英国。位于英国的零售研究中心的报告中说，2001年据报导全欧洲发生了127万起商店扒窃事件，其中将近56.6万起是在英国。比英国稍好的是法国和德国，数字分别是18.8万和16.7万，大大低于英国。瑞士不负其清白生活的美誉，记录在案的商店扒窃行为只有10,198件，为全欧最低。报告撰写人约书亚·班菲尔德说：“我能想出的惟一理由就是英国的高犯罪率。”不过英国的差劲表现也不能全怪英国人，班菲尔德说，外国犯罪团伙对伦敦这样的城市的袭击也难辞其咎。“存在着以大百货商店为目标的流动扒窃团伙——其中许多来自波兰和俄罗斯，”他说，“这个问题正蔓延整个欧洲——罪犯们已经组建了他们自己的欧盟。”班菲尔德还指出，引起统计偏差的一个因素还可能是与其他一些像希腊那样的国家相比，英国的零售商更倾向于记录失窃。

＊light-fingered: 善于扒窃的，惯窃的。

Remarks：也许还有一个原因，就是英国人——福尔摩斯的老乡们——都拥有更善于发现失窃的火眼金睛。