VANITY OF WOMEN THIEVES.

Mataura Ensign, 26 January 1914, Page 2

VANITY OF WOMEN THIEVES.

"Drink, poverty, and vanity are the three chief causes of crime among women," said the Rer. Thomas Friend recently. Mr Friend ha 6 just retired after 41 years' work aa chaplain of Heading Gaol. ''Vanity is most often a cause of crime in young women. They want to look pretty and the desire makes them steal pretty things or commit other dishonest acts in order to be able to buy them. But Ido not believe that there js more crime among women than formerly."

Mi' .Friend said that prison did most criminals a great deal of good. "Men come in, have plenty of time for reflection, and. are made to work; then they see the advantages pf work and settle down when they are'discharged instead of going back to a life of spasmodic adventures by which for the time they seem to e»rich themselves.

"To keep men from crime they, must bo given work, for most men in prison are not there because they lay themselves out for crime'but for want of better alternatives."

The two noteworthy prisoners Mr Friend remembers are Oscar Wilde and Mrs Dyer, the baby farmer. Wilde he remembers as "an experimenter in human emotions." Mrs Dyer was "a woman of low type' governed by covetouuness and self-interest, and utterly reckless of the consequences of wliat she did."