WOMEN ARE RUTHLESS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 120, 23 May 1931, Page 22

WOMEN ARE RUTHLESS

"Women don't often take to serious crime," I read in a report on the American gang that was led by a woman (says Dr. Frederick Graves in a London paper). But someone else has said: "The snake sloughs . ita , glittering, skin,, and woman is not always the1 angel in tho home. She can adopt a criminal; career very easily when it suits her purpose— and her.pocket—and beat the clumsy brute man all round!" So there! Women have bemi sent to prison; have expiated their erring ways on the scaffold; and have lured gentlemen to the devil in spito jf their baby angel faces and innocent bluo eyes. llt all seems rather a nasty aort of libel on women. * But I don't know. Truth, is not always .palatable; and there is at least this much in it all, that there have been many famous woman criminals in history, and the woman has always used her sex and beauty :as . lure, ' spy,, watcher, decoy, plotter, planner, and actual perpetrator of things not considered nice and genteel. But the things she does are usually characteristic of her special and peculiar mentality and exploit her essentially feminine traits. She rarely does a real burglary or a robbery with violence, even against her own sex. She leaves those things to man and relies i ore on guile than on physical strength. And murder, except for the removal of a- rival or serious obstacle, is mot in her regular line, and if she does go so far, it is generally the insidious poison she selects to do the trick, She generally chooses an accomplice, if she needs one, from tho other Bex, since she ia always apt rather to dis-

THEIR WORK AS CRIMINALS

trust her own kind. • Ou the other hand, a man does not rt>ly o a woman very often because ho feels instinctively sho may bo a slave to lur peculiar sensibilities and may allow her likes and hates to havo too much play. She is apt to develop jealousies and ppssions, provoke disputes that may.be fatal to ; success. ,;,■•■ When -used fpi gang work she is usu-. ally cast "for the part of organiser or watcher and- is useful to prepare the ground; pave tho way, gather essential detail. A young and attractive maid, typist, clerk, companion ma; gain confidence easily and learn secrets, take impressions of keys, find out safe combinations. The role of homeless outcast, begging a little warmth and shelter, has often been worked with marked success upon a sympathetic night watchman. He nray becomo so interested that suspicious noises going on upstairs are not noticed, while she pitches .a tale of woo embellished with a few tears and given |in a quavering voice that suggests a hard world or a brokea heart.

But woman has her weak points though she knows that often in her apparent .weakness lies her strength in crime.

She is rafcner apt to leave tell-tale traces—a whiff of scent, a smear of powder, and the print of a finger-tip. Or she will leave the print of a small shoe where sho should havo worn a man's boot.

Apart from tho common failings of petty thefts and shop-liftings—often mere fallings into .sudden irresistible temptations—-women like scope and substantial results,-and: they are ruthless about their- methods-when they, mean business.