The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-22
THE NEW STRANGE WOMAN.
The Time Coming When the Unknown
Woman MUST Carry Credentials.
PhiladeIDhia Press.

Poisoning is a hazardous trade when
jury passes upon it, as Mrs. Cordela Bot
kin has discovered. If her revenge had
taken any other form her round, full figure,
her sympathetic manner and her face, still
attractive in spite of the arts and articles
of an uncertain middle life given to dubious
hours, would have probably saved her But
with poisoning nothing short of a distinct
break in the network Of evidence to which
the judge calls attention, as occurred in
a recent case in this city, will save a pris-
oner-man or woman, pretty or homely.
NO links were lacking IN the san Fran
cisco trial. Mrs. Botdn was convicted by
the average accuracy of all transactions
on large scale. The prescriptions of the
postal pouch are fatal to every prisoner
caught in the logic Of their habitual regu-
larity. Woman as she was and woman ia
miliar with hfe's more careless side, the
low cunning of Mrs. Botkin altogether over
looked the rigid record which follows pur-
chases and governs the movements of the
mailbag. Men and women come and go.
They buy here and mail there. They have
no shadowy conception of the iterant mex
orable certainty which marks every act.
The ticket the package, the delivery, the
postmark and score more of daily and
hourly records track each act as automatic
ally as q cash register
For those who live in a city unnumbered
and forgotten, units as they seem, the mod
ern world of trade hotels ana postal regu-
lations is one long trail which accounts for
every purchase. follows most Of the acts
Of life and leaves every hour with its per-
manent record The habitual criminal has
learned the trick of lodging these things.
He pays cash. He has no packages dev-
cred. He uses methods Of transmission less
regular than the mails. His letters come
and go from the special boxes private en-
terprise thoughtfully provides to cheat the
public record
This meshing network Of records is known
by few and remembered by none. 1t convicts
in murder trials 1t Conceals the evil life
just on the edge of the law, but not yet
across it's criminal boundary. The trial of
Fayne Moore in New York, the pending ar
raignment of Mrs. Vermeule and the convic-
ton of Mrs. Botkin, each in it's way lays
Iar 0dv trg, wryIri 1H fla
mere size of the American city has come
to conceal. Bad women there have always
undoubtedly preceded her. No too long ago,
when American life was both less strenuous
and less anonymous, the dubious woman had
usually a dubious origin. Fayne Strahan
Moore was judges daughter, and the in
decencies of her UnrepOrtable trial was only
two years removed from the bourgeois de-
cencies Of her home. Mrs Nermeue is a
very recent arrival from responsibility,
whom a foolish passion for the dangerous
device of bank drafts early has laid bare to
the law and the public gaze. Mrs. Botkin
had left her husband, but in America an alb
sent husband does not as yet breed present
In this country the presumption still
favors the solitary woman. She is still
sumed to be presentable until she is shown
to be peacable, save by people of most
unusual discretion, and early suspicion is so
widely held to be a sign of past contrition
that on it few venture. But the new strange
woman is destroying this presumption with
swift certainty. She is fresh from respecta-
bility. She buries herself in big place. To
her old friends in some small place she re-
mains for years respectable and respected.
She has one life, but she manages two repu-
tations and preserves each to aid her in
using the other.
Until some accident trips her on the side
walk and lays her sDrawling in the public
gutter, she works above reproach in public
long after she has become below repute in
private. Gregarious city life, the social care
lessness of Americans and Astounding mas
culine charity, which makes an exoteric
practice Of forgiving much because of a self
conscious estoreric necessity Of being for
is not far distant when in American as long
since in European life, the present presump-
ton in favor of the unknown woman will
be abruptly changed and social proof will
be required here as there to show that il
is not necessary to assume the worst where
the least is known.