murder it is a hundred to one that she will select poison as a
medium. This at first sight may seem a curious fact, but there
is for it a perfectly logical explanation, upon which I hope
later to touch briefly. The concern of this book, however, is
not purely with murder by women, though murder will bulk largely.
Swindling will be dealt with, and casual allusion made to other
crimes.

But take for the moment the women accused or convicted of
poisoning. What an array they make! What monsters of iniquity
many of them appear! Perhaps the record, apart from those set up
by Toffana and the Brinvilliers contingent, is held by the Van
der Linden woman of Leyden, who between 1869 and 1885 attempted
to dispose of 102 persons, succeeded with no less than
twenty-seven, and rendered at least forty-five seriously ill.
Then comes Helene Jegado, of France, who, according to one
account, with two more working years (eighteen instead of
sixteen), contrived to envenom twenty-six people, and attempted
the lives of twelve more. On this calculation she fails by one
to reach the der Linden record, but, even reckoning the two extra
years she had to work in, since she made only a third of the
other's essays, her bowling average may be said to be
incomparably better.

Our own Mary Ann Cotton, at work between 1852 and 1873, comes in
third, with twenty-four deaths, at least known, as her bag. Mary
Ann operated on a system of her own, and many of her victims were
her own children. She is well worth the lengthier consideration
which will be given her in later pages.