The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-08-19
LOVE Or NOTORlETr.
Male and Female Cranks Whose Ways
Are Past Finding Out.


Are Past Finding Out.
The tendency of certain sort OF
people to be fascinated by notoriety,
and especially by criminal notoriety, is
curious study. A recent dispatch
says that Mrs. Bartlett, the woman
lately tried in England ON charge of
poisoning her husband, has, since her
acquittal, received several advantageous
offers of marriage. Parallel cases may
be found in plenty. Some twenty
years ago Scotch girl named Made
leine Smith was tried at Glasgow for
poisoning her lover. The evidence
was strong against her, but it was
shown that the lover was disreputa-
BILE adventurer who had driven the girl
to desperation by threatening her with
the exposure of certain letters she had
written to him, and the jury returned
the Scotch verdict Not Proven" No
sooner was the prisoner free than offers
of marriage poured in upon her, and
this Notwithstanding the general belief
that she had killed the man. There
appears to be sort of '.crank" theory
of ethics, incomprehensible by the
world at large, which governs such
cases, for on ordinary lines of reason.
ing it is impossible to understand the
desire of any man to link his life with
a woman even suspected of a proclivity
toward the use of toxic agents at criti
cal domestic junctures.
-, ,4os, %t,at Tnr,1 In
poisoners from Lucrezia Borgia to the
Marchioness of Brinvilliers, and thence
to the present day, have exercised this
strange fascination upon class OF weak
minds, and not only poisoners or sus-
pected poisoners, but criminals of all
! kinds have had the same peculiar hon.
age paid to them. Laura Fair, who
shot down Crittenden, the California
lawyer. could have married any one of
dozen prosperous idiots after her ac-
quittal. Mrs. Dudley, who tried to kill
| ODonOVan Rosa, was offered several
hands and hearts on the strength OF
her homicidal enterprise. The young
woman who played the part of female
burglar in Brooklyn last year captured
the affections of stalwart farmer by
her felonious capacity. Perhaps the
dominant influence in those cases is
that which attracted Fitz-James:
"And were path not dangerous known,
The dangers self were lure alone"
It is we'll known that when BluebearC
tiourished the most fearful rumors were
in circulation about the fate of hi
wives, but feminine curiosity, or enter
prise, or whatever the influence. mas
tered apprehension and the wicked mar
had no difficulty in replenishing hi
secret chamber from the best families
of the neighborhood.
The women are indeed not whit be
hind the men in yielding to the fasci
nation of notoriety, as witness th'
strange exhibitions of sentimentality
which take place from time to time il
the straitened habitations of the plac
called Murderer's Row. What is
about red-handed assassin that exer
cises so queer an attraction upon ten
der women, that impels them to shove
attentions upon him, to fill his cell wit
flowers, to lavish upon him marks o
their kindness, to single him out from
all the world for consolation and ap
proval? Why, too, are such manifes
, tations so often specially reserved TO
the male criminals whose victims hav
been women? We speak of mysterie
the calculation of which seems hope
!, less. The ways of ''cranks, be the
male Or female, are past finding out
M v TIribsya1p