WOMEN CRIMINALS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 December 1933, Page 10

WOMEN CRIMINALS

HARD TO CATCH. The other day a daring daylight theft of £ 10 from a cafe in Melbourne was committed by a woman. The news was of unusual interest, because of the rareness with which women are involved in crime of this nature. This raises the interesting question —are women fundamentally more honest than men, or less willing to take risks? However it be, the fact remains that women are rare in crime —and hard to catch when they do take to it.

And that raises another question. Can a strong-minded woman keep a secret better than a man? Detectives say that the hardest crook is he—or she—who works alone, in silence Men thieves are being caught every day, but how few women are ever caught?

Women shoplifters are being picked up daily by the very efficient staff of store detectives, hut these women, in nine cases out of ten., have been driven by sudden impulse, without consideration ol< the risk.

Far different in outlook, however, is t.tfe woman burglar. She has obviously set out upon a path of crime with premeditation.

One of her type made her appearance recently in a series of thefts from houses. For some weeks she has been inactive. What story lies behind the lull in her activities is not known. She has never been caught, but wherever she has gone she has left a subtel clue to her fleeting presence. The imprint in dust of a silkstockinged foot at one place; a small hand-print; the impression of a highheeled shoe there; tingling laughter overheard in an unoccupied house; scattered cosmetics on someone’s dressing table. A trail ot petty thieving has been left in her wake. She is still free, and is likely to remain so, so long as she keeps her secret and manages to make the men who are supposed to be her companions do the same.

By all the time-worn jokes of masculinity she will be a woman of unusual type if she succeeds in keeping her counsel indefinitely. Women burglars, to be successful, must learn to held their tongues. Maybe tb.at’s why there are so few (says a Melbourne paper).