Evening star., 1938-09-04
SPECIALIST REVEALS RARE ZEAL
Life of Unusual Service Linked With Professional Devotion Which
Brought Contact With the Poor-Assocatons of Bachelor
Femininity-Current Books Reviewed.

viewer.
so I WENT TO PRISON. BY Edna
v. O'Brien. New York: Frederick
A Stokes Co.
THIS is one Of those stories of an
individual caught in the wheels
OF society, wheels set up for the pro-
lection Of the many and capable Of
crushing the few who are trapped be-
fore them It Is the authors story
OF how an unlucky stock speculation
made In the interest of a friend caused
her to be convicted Of grand larceny,
and how. from having led life Of cul-
tivation and well-being, she went to
spend mot less than is months" in
the Bedford Woman's Prison of New
York.
The reviewer is willing to concede
that the record IS a valuable one, and
that its publication is a good thing.
For certainly such a work throws sig
nificant light on our prison system
and SO should be Of worth in the social
sense. But nobody in the world could
say that this account makes pleasant
reading. 1t is shocking, sickening, re-
voting. And 1t is not these things
because the author was mistreated or
subjected to physical cruelty in prison.
She was not. But the record of the
abominable humiliation to which the
merely accused person is subjected,
the holding Of merely accused wom-
an in Jail pending hearings, the un-
speakable medical examinations and
finger -printings-and all these in ad-
vance Of trial, much less conviction
cannot be read calmly by any person
in whom there is the slightest sense
Of human dignity and human rights.
Miss O'Brien bore her ordeal we'll.
She had no doubt of her innocence,
and of course she had superior van
tage point Of education and tradition
from which to view the calamity which
overcame her. But, even so, her ex-
perience was an appalling one. Ger
tainly If she was innocent 1t was ap-
palling. And II she was guilty, as the
State Of New York held her to be,
there is still little connection dis
cernible between the punishment
which was visited on her and the
crime she had committed. For
the brutality Of the institution seemed
rather bored, negligent habit
than state Of moral disapprov-
al All kinds of women Offend
ers were there. and they were
treated about alike. But what sense
can there be in subjecting highly
educated woman, guilty Of financial
mismanagement, to the same regime
as Is visited on an illiterate and hab-
itually offending street walker? II the
Of one 1t surely will not be so for the
other. Such questions as these must
certainly be raised in the mind of any
reader of Miss O'Brien's terrible story.
Be 1t said. however, that Miss
O"Brien is fair dealer and. with great
scrupulousness. pays tribute to prison
ofhcials. whom she found to be con-
scientious and intelligent.
WORK ENDS AT NIGHTFALL. BY
Miss Marjorie Hills. Indianapo-
lis: Bobbs Merrill g. Co.
THE ingenius spirit Of Miss Mar
jorie Hills. author of Live Alone
and Like 1t" Gf you please). is here
displayed somewhat surprisingly. Those
who read the young ladys rousing call
to bachelor femininity not to live in
squalor merely because no man was
about. but to keep the house clean
and generally manifest some self
respect, probably put her down as a
smart young person who realized that
money was to be made out Of small
sized books with catchy titles. At
any rate, the reviewer confesses that
this was her own estimate of Miss
Hills powers Of authorship.
But now Miss Hills steps out as
a poet and philosopher; with, per-
haps, an aspiring eye on the laurels
gained by Miss Edna st. Vincent Mil
lay twho. one can imagine her tell
ing herself, has written books too) she
has produced sort OF Conversations
at Dinner Time.
The object Of this opus is to present
the lives and personalities of seven
self-supporting women. and to sum
up their various attitudes toward life,
the conditioning factor In the atti-
tude in each case being that the wom-
an earns her living and does not de-
pend on man to earn it for her.
For that women should work seems
to Miss Hills so new-or maybe so
unnatural-a condition that she
apparently believes that six out Of
seven women who do work will color
this whole outlook from the tints of
their jobs. But-when have women
ever been idle? They have always
worked. They are just now begin
ming to get paid in cash for their
labors. That, really, is the new thing
among them.
Howsoever, Miss Hills shows us
seven of what one supposes she would
call career women" meeting to dine
together. There is Eileen, who owns
an advertising agency. There is Nancy,
a photographer. There is Kate.
columnist. There is Claudia. a stylist;
Irene, stenographer; Martha, a social
worker, and Mary, a sales girl in q
gift shop. 1t would seem to almost
any one that the selection is too
forced to be probable; If (oh-hu-
mlllAtionD We seek comparisons
among men, we can easily see that