less than those of men, they more readily lose physical tone.
With loss of health goes loss of earning power, loss of caste.
The descent, in general, must be quicker. It is much the same in
nymphomania. Unless the sex-avid woman has a decent income, such
as will provide her with those means whereby women preserve the
effect of attractiveness, she must seek assuagement of her
sex-torment with men less and less fastidious.

But it is useless and canting to say that peccant women are worse
than men. If we are kind we say so merely because we are more
apprehensive for them. Safe women, with but rare exceptions, are
notably callous about their sisters astray, and the ``we'' I have
used must be taken generally to signify men. We see the danger
for erring women, danger economic and physical. Thinking in
terms of the phrase that ``a woman's place is the home,'' we
wonder what will become of them. We wonder anxiously what man,
braver or less fastidious than ourselves, will accept the burden
of rescuing them, give them the sanctuary of a home. We see them
as helpless, pitiable beings. We are shocked to see them fall so
low.

There is something of this rather maudlin mentality, generally
speaking, in our way of regarding women criminals. To think, we
say, that a WOMAN should do such things!

But why should we be more shocked by the commission of a crime by
a woman than by a man--even the cruellest of crimes? Take the
male and female in feral creation, and there is nothing to choose
between them in the matter of cruelty. The lion and the lioness
both live by murder, and until gravidity makes her slow for the