The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18
SHE COULDN'T LIVE ,. ON S4 PER WEEK Girl Says This Is What Led Her to Crime
 WAS SICK AND COLD Mrs. James Knott, in Washington Pris- on Charged With RIackmnil, Tells
 Why She Could Not Re-
 main Honest
WAS SICK AND COLD

Washington, December 17-(special.) "I made up my mind tnat no girl could live on $l week and that I did not want to try any longer. I have lived the worst sort of life and I have made mess. of even that" said Flor ence Bennett.
 This is the way Mrs. Knott. the IT, year-old wife of James Knott. sums up the career which has brought her to prison cell. where she is awaiting trial with her husband and other ac- complices on charge of blackmail.
 Sitting in her cell at the police sta- ton today, hands playing nervously with big cheap fur huff that bespoke just the ordinary everyday woman's love of pretty things. she told her story in the pitiful erratic way in which the average woman would have told it. She made palpable mistatements of facts with regard to the circumstances lead ing up to her arrest, and the arrest of her husband.
 She invented little subterfuges, In Q womans way, which she hoped might play upon the sympathies of her listen- CTS for the man who Is her.husband and for whom she .professes a love which takes no cognizance of night or wrong so long as 1t may shield. and suffer for the one toward whom 1t Is directed.
 For herself. she offers. mo word of ex- tenuation.
 To the police she has lseemed a marvel of stolidity, hardness and indifference. To a woman to whom she told her story she gave the outline of her lifes history In an anguish of tears for her past. and for a future from which she believes the shadow of this past will never be lifted. either by her own will or by the aid of a stronger purpose than has here. tofore governed her life.
 Did It Deliberately
 How did I come to this?" she asked, repeating the question asked her. Why, I came to this deliberately, and of my own will, I came to it because my body froze in winter and because it seemed to | me that in my stuffy attic room I was suffocating with the summers heat. q was not taught a trade, you see. At 12 years of age began to earn my own living because my mother. then an in- valid, was married to her second hus- band, who refused to support a step- daughter.
 "1 was born in Michigan and began to earn my living out there when I was a child in short dresses. I worked in a laundry and got odd jobs at cleaning rooms in hotel. But as it was, never had enough money to buy decent clothes with, and I had a healthy appetite that was never satisfied because after paying for my room and what clothes I had tc | have. I could not buy enough to eat. "When I was 15 my health began to fail. was never strong, but on the other hand I never had had any very lad spell of illness.
 But this year, when was 15, be- gan to go to pieces.
 T got fired from the laundry. I was then chambermaid in a hotel and one day after I had walked through a snow storm to do my cleaning I fell in dead faint in the corridor. When I came to they told me they couldn't have a girl around that was weakly and sick.
 T got other jobs, for I would have Gied rather than write to my step-father LOT Help.
 And as fast as I would get these jobs would be fred sometimes because 1 did not know how to do the work and sometimes because I w&s not strong enough to do so when I was sick. Wanted Good Food and Clothes q hated charity worse than I did sin. I deliberately made up my mind that I wanted good food to eat and good clothes to wear more than anything else.
 'T have led the worst sort of a life and have made a mess even of that"
 There were times, according to the story of Mrs Knott, when she weakly attempt ed to retrace her footsteps and to Ter turn to a better and honest life It was while touring with an amusement com pany in Virginia that she met the man James Knott, who is now her husband. The couple were married and claim to have had every intention of working to earn a livelihood by honest methods
 She makes no excuses; she asks no pity but she says over and over:
 "There aint any girl can live on s4 a week and if there's those that can stick it out, when they are freezing and sick I'm one that couldn't"