WOMAN’S RECORD IN CRIME

Evening Star, Issue 17701, 30 June 1921, Page 8

WOMAN’S RECORD IN CRIME

Although tho records of crime show that there, are more male than female offenders, tho latter excel in certain grave offences. Murder by poisoning is a comparatively rare crime among men, the proportion in some European countries being about six cases among women to three among men. In crimes of violence women display more cruelly and ferocity than men, and there are many instances of serious assaults upon children committed by women, writes a correspondent in tho ‘ Daily Mail.’ The hue Dr Furneaux Jordan said that, in his experience as a hospital surgeon “mother love” seemed to bo frequently more of a figure of speech than an actual fact. A student of feminine criminality asserts that the crimes of women are more cynical, horrible, and appalling than these of men. The number of women, criminals is higher in England and Scotland than in Ireland. Spain has a low female criminal rote as compared with other European countries. Burglary and large thefts are somewhat rare offences among women, but petty thieving is a- very common delinquency. There are far more women than men suffering from the obsessional impulse to pilfer ns shown in kleptomania. This aberration is commoner among well-to-do than impecunious women. Women adventuresses and swindlers show more ingenuity than men who live by their wits. Tncy weave extremely ingenious romances for the deception of their dupes, ond display real histrionic talont in impersonations. A semi-illiterate young woman often poses quite successfully for a time as a lady of birth and refinement. In the mental perversion described as “compulsive pathological lyingf” women vie easily with men of the same type. Female pathological liars exceed in numbers men of this class. These women with a morbid passion for “romancing" are not invariably actuated by criminal motives. The woman swindler with real genius for “tolling the tale” is of a different stamp from tlw compulsive liar, whose chief aim is “showing off.” Women prisoners are more refractory than men, and the same tendency to obstreperous behavior is noted among tho women patients in the insane asylums, who often become destructive and dangerous. Women slanderers and libellers exhibit extreme vindictiveness, and are more proficient than men in concocting methods and plots to steal away a reputation. ’Women blackmailers are also more cunning than men in extorting money from their victims.

Dr Forbes Winslow said that in his experience of criminals the women were less easily influenced than men by a moral appeal, and were seldom repentant.