The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-04-09
BETTER KEEP HER.
Mrs. Thorpe's Work as Police
Matron a Needed One.
THE Law REQUIRES 4 MATRON.

Mrs.ThOrpe Gave Perfect Satisfaction
in the POs1tton-The W. c. Il. U. Takes
Up Mrs. ThrOpe's Case.
1t begins to look very much as though
the friends of Mrs. E. L Thorpe will
make a fight to retain her as police
matron She claims it is state Office
and that by the statute governing it the
police commissioners are compelled to
retain a police matron.
Mrs. L o. Case, who with the aid of
t he W. c. T. q. and several prominent
Topeka people secured the passage of
the bill establishing the office two years
ago, is her legal adviser and will prob
ably take the case in hand. Mrs. Case
says she knows every letter of the bill
and knows that it reads that the board
shall appoint police matron. She was
careful to have that word sshall' in
serted 1t is through Mrs. Cases efforts
that Mrs. Thorpe will consent to the con-
test
Mrs. Thorpe feels great deal more
hurt than angry about the abolition of
the office by the police commissioners
Saturday night
Il have done the very best knew how
with the Office" she said today; sand l
have been assured through the board
that I was dismissed only as a measure
of economy. 1t remains to be seen wheth-
or they have a right to do it. think
there are enough women voters and wo-
men taxpayers to demand that they have
woman to take care of the women Dris-
oners in the jail. The work demands it.
Chief Wilkerson told me that he very
much preferred to have woman there
as he had seen too many instances of
scandal arising from men having charge
OF women prisoners. 1t takes a
woman to keep the woman's de-
partment as clean and as
free from vermin as it should be. There
are great many other instances, too, in
which a woman is needed in the city
Jail. When women are brought to the
prison they must be searched like the
mon are. Sometimes it is necessary to
search carefully every garment to avoid
the concealment of weapons and stolen
money or jewelry.
ga woman takes an interest in the
work too that a man cannot Eighteen
women who were formerly inmates of
disorderly houses, are now earning re-
spectacle livelihoods at service as re-
suit of having had a woman in the city
Jail. As police matron l have sue
ceeded in getting several young women
who had started on lives of crime to for
sake them and go home to their parents
l traced them by seeing them with dis
orderly characters whom l had become
acquainted with at the prison.
1t is certain that during her term as
police matron Mrs. Thorpe has done a
good deal of good-as much perhaps
among a certain class as any two or three
policemen on the force. The policemen
say she has wonderful influence over
the women that get into the Jail.
1t seems q poor economy indeed to
abolish the office. She has undoubtedly
earned every cent of her $40 a month
and more-that is all she got although
the statute fixes the pay at $50. 1t is
| useless to deny that the Office is needed
one. There is very seldom a day thai
there is not at least one woman in the
city prison and there have been times
when there ten for week, some of them
sick and some with small children.
Topeka certainly ought to appreciate
the work Mrs. Thorpe has done for the
poor, aside from her prison work. OF
her own will she opened an Office at her
home where the poor were clothed and
where employment was asked and given.
She was not obliged to do that It was
simple kindness of heart that prompted
| it and the entire CITY knows of the work