New-York tribune., 1876-11-22

vet entirely rid the world. The ad-
ventures who is figuring in the police
news of the day has the usual stock OF names
she is Mesdames CasselmaDn, Banker, Lee,
Ackermann Sutherland, ct al. She has been
doing over again what has been done so many
times-bilking boarding house mistresses, buy
ing piano-for jobbing a carriage at livery,
claiming now a Judge and then an ex-Gov-
ernor as her father, pawning her dresses, and
telling many and various falsehoods from
morning to night.
It must make up dreadful life, this shifty
existence, this perpetual dread of detection,
this overstrained presence of mind, this rack
of invention-but how ingeniOusly and with
what self-pOssessiOn the Becky Sharps go
through with it all And yet what loslDg
game it isl The sables grow thinner and
shabbier; great lines come around the weary
eyes; the effort at decent manners becomes
more and more desperate; the boarding houses
and the milliners and the dressmakers and
the haberdashers and the stable-keepers
come all to a good acquaintance with
the lady, and trust her the less the
more they know of her; until at last the
good luck goes altogether, and Miss Becky
stands before the judge, and is asked to state
whether she is Guilty or Not Guilty, while In
dignant tradesmen crowd the Temple OF JUS
tice, and the bilked landladies give their
evidence with copiousness OF expression pro-
pOrtiOnate to their sense Of injury. Inc
failure is usually for the time complete.
When the patrolman's wife searched Mrs.
Casselmann-Lee- Banker at the TOmbs, moth
ing was found in the poor little portemonnale
but pawn-ticket, few clearinghouse adj
vertisements, and q paper OF needles. All
"thls trouble" she said, "is because L am out
"of money!" forgetting to add, "and because
81 have strained a point or so of morality to
"secure supply" "She had done nothing
"wrong,p she said, "but she was in great
"trouble.n There is no doubt of it.
We have sometimes wondered if the luck in
any of these cases always continues good IN
the sense we mean, of success to the end, the
recruiting of new dupes always going on, as
the old ones learn caution through dire expe-
rience. Honesty does seem to be the best
policy, even though one be houseless and hun
CRY and naked. The adage stands always IN
the primer; but there is q succession OF skeptics
who decline to accept it as piece OF golden
wisdom. Yet somehow these genteel female
swindlers always seem to move III an atmos-
phere of distrust. 1t is little amusing TO
read how Mrs. H., one of the boarding
house keepers IN this case, did not like
Mrs. Casselmann, "and mistrusted her when
"she announced herself as the daughter
"of Judge Wisner." "She felt" so she said,
"that she was going to be beaten" and so
she was, although the lady's baggage was to
m lxaancia So
far from considering such cases as this en-
tirely discreditabe to human nature, we IND
in the willingness of people to believe at
last in this naughty woman, in spite OF their
presentiments, touching evidence OF kindness,
as well as of empty rooms, perhaps, just at
that time. And it is well for the dishonest
that the honest are not always shrewd and
distrustful. Virtue is little green, it must be
confessed; but the mOralists long ago de-
termined that 1t is better to be cheated than
TO cheat; and those who doubt this are likely
TO afford, by their melancholy experience,
much more evidence than is necessary to main
tain the rule.
We have thus far spoken of this woman as
if she were undoubtedly guilty but we have
not the heart to leave the matter without sug-
gestion that possibly she may be innocent. 1t
is well to consider, too, that i'll great city
like this there is always an excellent opp0r-
tunity for getting into scrapes by reason OF
yerdancy that many women are not overwise
in the WAYS of the world and that at any
rate. frierdless woman, with detectives and
courts dealing with her, and clearinghouse
keepers eager for her money, is an object OF
rational commiseration. Our first observations,
however, will apply to cases which are occur
ring in New-York every day; and if the lady
with the numerous names is out of her head,
as her relatives now suggest, there is no lack
of extremely sane women (and men also) living
obviously by their wits.