Every day we see that some new avenue has been opened to women, by
which they can earn a livelihood. We see by the papers that a woman
in Cleveland has been arrested as a burglar. We have no objections to
female pickpockets, for if a man must have his pockets picked, it will
be much more enjoyable to feel the delicate hand of a beautiful woman
fluttering around his pockets than a rough male hand.
Many a man who would object to having his pockets picked by a man,
would be willing to lose ten or fifteen dollars just to have a female
pickpocket go through him.
There is a field open for women as confidence men. To have a female
confidence game played on a man would leave less of a sting than to be
bilked by a male. But, as burglars, the idea seems revolting. To think
of women going about nights with a jimmy and a dark lantern, and opening
doors, or windows, and sneaking about rooms, is degrading. If a male
burglar gets in your house, and he is discovered, you can shoot him, if
you get the drop on him, or kick him down stairs; but who wants to shoot
a female burglar, or kick her over the banisters? It would be unnatural.
You would almost rather let her go ahead and burgle, and let her go away
with your money, than to shoot her.
Besides, you could not hit her with a bullet from an ordinary pistol
in a vital part. The heart and other vital organs are covered with
bullet-proof corsets, liver and lung pads and porous plasters. You take
a corset and tie it around a sack of flour, and try to fire a bullet
through it, and you will find that the bullet will fall to the ground.
Try to fire a ball through a bed quilt, and you will discover that the
ball becomes wound and twisted in the cotton batting, from the rifling
of the barrel of the pistol, and stops as it goes through.
A liver pad is as good as boiler iron to protect the form, so you see
there is no place to shoot a female burglar, except in the head and
legs. No gentleman would want to shoot a beautiful woman in the face,
and with a long dress on he might as well shut his eyes and shoot at a
hop-yard, and expect to hit a pole, as to expect to hit a woman's leg.
So it is seen plainly that a female burglar would be perfectly safe from
a pistol shot.
Then, again, the natural gallantry of a man would prevent his making
much of a fuss if he found a female burglar in his house. If the average
man--and most men are average men--should wake up in the night and see a
woman burglar feeling in his pants, rifling the pockets, or rummaging
in the drawers of the bureau, he would lay still and let her burgle, as
long as she would keep still and not wake up his wife. Were it a male
burglar, he would jump up, regardless of his nocturnal costume, and tell
him to get out of there, but he would hesitate to get up before a female
burglar. He would not feel like accosting the female burglar without an
introduction. If he spoke to her familiarly, she would be justified in
being indignant, and saying, “Sir, I do not remember that we have ever
met before,” and very likely she would turn her back on him, and say she
was insulted.
It places a man of gallantry in a very embarrassing situation to have a
female burglar rob his house because he would be no gentleman if he did
not offer to see her safe home. No true gentleman would like to see a
female burglar go home alone at three or four o'clock in the morning,
and while he might feel the loss of his property, it would be courtesy
for him to offer to see her home, and help carry the swag.
If women become burglars, there is going to be more or less annoyance.