The Potteries Examiner : — 1871-07-29 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

TICKET-OF-LEAVE WOMEN.  The following is from a London contemporary '— Nearly 4,000 female criminals are at large with tickets of leave. The majority live in London. A. very large proportion conaiats of hardened offender.. More than one is a marl:lore.. Women who have been sentenced to death for warder, and whoa° sentence is afterwards commuted into penal amyltilde for life, are not, as is commonly supposed, removed for ever from the scene of their criminal exploits. After having served a term of twelve years, and oonduotod herself to the satisfaction of the prison authorities, the convicted murderess easily obtains her ticket-of•leave, nod becomes a free woman 1114 ill. In one of the western and moat fashionable districts of London many hundreds of domeatic servants are ticket-of -leave women. Several of them have run through the entire scale of mime, from petty larceny up to burglary and murder. Their employers engage them with a fall knowledge of their antecedents. Strange to say, the worst criminals are not unfrequently transformed into extremely good domestic servants. Daring the past five years some benevolent ladies have voluntarily devoted themselves to care for and, if possible, to reclaim the lowest and most degraded aleso of female convicts. For this purpose they resolved to form a society called the "Discharged Female Prisoners Aid." The object of this society is to supply a home to released mnvicts, to assist these to earn an honeat livelihood who have given proofs of amendment, and to furnish employment to all the released female prisonere who will comply with very easy conditioue, and who will work for their maiutoname. Several of these establishments have been founded in various districta of London. • . . The saddest and moat disheartening part of the ease is, that the diffienity of reforming the younger women is almost superhuman. The re.convictiona of females are much more numerous than of melee. Moreover, the women profuse to enjoy thoroughly the wild career of crime, After condaoting themselves with perfect propriety for • year or a longer period as domestic servants, they will suddenly leave their places and resume their old habits, or, in twit own slang, have a fly." One of them Meng remonstrated with for her (math.% replied with emphasis, "Oh, miss, but there's a great deal of life in it." Planning and performing a robbery is as exciting and agreeable to these women sea piomio party or a ball is to fashionable young ladies. Jest as the sensible young lady ceases to ears for parties as she grows older, and takes pleasure'in more useful pureuita than the vain chaee after pleseure, so dose the elderly female convict frequently lose her liking for the exoitement of crime, and become a model domestic servant. Experience proves that the percentage of those permanently reclaimed, that is ten per rent., is drawn almost exclusively from the older offenders. Toe yoang girl, if reasoned with, repliea that when older she will try to be good, but that she is determined to " bare her fling" meantime. This is a female version of the wild oats theory, which, when practised by young men of for' tans, is not unfrequently accepted ma thoroaghly sowed and satisfactory. The shortness of the terms of punishment occasions many of the relapses. A girl will often admit that a longer term would have done her good. An inmate of the home has been convicted tweiatylour times since Christmas. The longer the sojourn in prison the more habituated do the convicts become to sobriety and order, and the more easy is it to deal with them when the day of I release Games. pre