WIFE’S GRIM SECRET.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20252, 10 November 1927, Page 13

WIFE’S GRIM SECRET.

THE CALL OF CRIME. HUSBAND’S BROKEN HEART. " SCIENCE OF FALSE PRETENCE.” How a woman ex-convict, Mrs Kitty Morris, now 40, and with seven convictions for all manner of frauds, met a roan of lowly position, fell in love with him and married him, was revealed at a London Police Court recently, when she was sent for six months’ imprisonment for obtaining costly articles of wear from business houses by false pretences. Mrs Morris is a woman of many attractions ; and, indeed, in her earlier years must have been strikingly beautiful. Dark, witli black eyes and a grace and dignity, that would not discredit an educated woman of exalted station, she has nothing of the appearance of the habitual criminal. Her voice is low and haunting, and there is around her a veneer of refinement far removed from women who are recognised as “ familiars ” at the police conns. The career of this woman has been an amazing one. Her first conviction was for the forgery of a name on a cheque. Tl was a palpable and clumsy attempt, but. she had really believed'that her offence would be undiscovered. She was sentenced and served her time, and, on her release, met a young man of good family, who fell in love with her. The woman did not deceive the young man, but said that she had been driven into crime by the force of circumstance. The two married, and she bore a child—a girl—of whom she was devotedly fond. But the “ call of crime ’’ was too insistent for her, and she became a hardened criminal and a mistress of the science of false pretence. At last the woman went further and committed thefts on a larger scale. She was arrested and committed for trial, and, when in the dock at the Central Criminal Court, was referred to as “ an irredeemable crook, who could never go straight.” A detective read over the list of her previous convictions, and she was sent to penal servitude for three years. That was her first long term; but before long she was again in trouble, and this time received a sentence of four years. It was while she was in prison that her husband died. ,A friend of Kitty’s states that the woman’s conduct—he had been passionately attached to her, and had done his utmost to save her from herself—broke hip heart and spirit. He wrote many beseeching letters to her. The appeals of her late husband were effective for a while. The woman sought work, found it and saved some money,-.in addition to that which had been bequeathed to her. Then, in July of the present year, she encountered Morris. He was poor but respectable, and the two were married. The woman,-however, concealed from her husband the fact that she was a gaol bird, and was even then on ticket of leave, and -had to make monthly reports at a police station. Morris declares that she was “ kindness itself ” to him, paid for his wedding suit, and did her utmost to make his life bright and unclouded. They seemed to be getting along all right, when a cloud appeared on their sky. A detective called and arrested the woman. It was only then .that Morris learned that he had •married an ex-corivict. He had not inquired into her oast career: — he believed in the woman as he found her, and believed in her still. “She treated me very well,” he said to the magistrate, and repeated it afterwards manv times, with unmistakable emphasis and grief.