The New York herald., 1921-06-26
Women Active in Crime Increasing

ough paced bad woman, one who / believe
was born thief and murderer with no possi-
bility of reform, and without a grain of
remorse for her crimes She figured in the
celebrated Wykoff murder case in New
Jersey. for which Mont Udell, her paramour.
and Johnny Mclaughlin are serving life
sentences. This woman nstigated the mur-
der, insinuated herself into the old miser's
home as housekeeper, and soon as she
learned where he kept his money hidden
sent for the men to kill him.
This woman, in my opinion, is an excep
ton to her sex Other women enticed into
crime by the men they loved or falling into
it by degrees by yielding to their own
cupidity have been in every case not hope
less criminals. Many of them have been
and all could be, l think, reformed"
Acting District Attorney Joab II. Ban
ton would have written Thackeray's crime
novel Catherine" as the great Victorian
did. that Is, without any maudlin sympathy
for the woman. yet picturing her degrees of
fall" to the bottomless pit of murder as a
natural descent. He reasoned from his own
experience of a professional nature with
female criminals and decided that che had
learned nothing to convince him that female
crime is increasing"
"I will admit" said he, that II appears
in phases that are surprising even to the
prosecutor hardened to the variety of crime.
For instance in case of burglary that in
volved several odd features and about which
there were circumstances indicating that the
head which planned II was a mans. when
the truth, after devious sitting. came to light
the leader was found to be a woman.
From a number of young women crimi-
nails whom / have recently examined would
deduce this. that a good many girls grow up
without having any moral sense whatever.
The impulse that leads woman to crime.
either against the State or individual or
herself, is money. She wants IL. she thinks
she needs It, she does a wrong thing to get
It. Now by questioning several who have
been brought to book for criminal actions,
I find that these young women do not real
ize what they have done.
"The lack of moral sense to which ] re-
ferred is not think, peculiar to women or
TO any class of society. Recently some boys
remained behind their families in the apart
ment of a well known apartment house.
other apartments were broken into and
robbed. and. although there were plain signs
that the jobs were inside ones, for a while
who committed them was mysterious. 1t
developed that these lads had got acquainted
with a gang of burglars and had admitted
them to work from their apartment in ad-
joining ones just. they said, for the fun Of
the thing
'The same lack Of a sense of right and
wrong is to be found in many young women
of the present day. Girls who are arrested
and held for trial, and who would be dis
solved in tears. you would think. on the con-
trary Jest and laugh with the officers in
charge Of them and even try to 'vamp' these
men. These young women might easily be
supposed to have served several terms In
prison. for their attitude is that Of hardened
criminals. In reality this is often their first
contact with criminal law: it's their first
offence. and 1t weighs on them less than it
does on the prosecutors"