Secrets of the prison-house, or, Gaol studies and sketches . o a sex so gener-ally employed as mistress, housewife, nurse, or —so far as they have been discovered,and there are well-informed people prepared to assertthat the crime is far more common and successful, 1 I find in American statistics the curious fact that femalesemployed in personal service furnish about five-eighths of thewhole number of female homicides in the United States. Thegeneral total was 393, the number of those in personal service244, and of these 26 were housewives, 50 housekeepers (female),servants
Secrets of the prison-house, or, Gaol studies and sketches . o a sex so gener-ally employed as mistress, housewife, nurse, or —so far as they have been discovered,and there are well-informed people prepared to assertthat the crime is far more common and successful, 1 I find in American statistics the curious fact that femalesemployed in personal service furnish about five-eighths of thewhole number of female homicides in the United States. Thegeneral total was 393, the number of those in personal service244, and of these 26 were housewives, 50 housekeepers (female),servants 13S, washerwomen 16, and nurses 10. FEMALE POISONERS. 13 though undetected, than is supposed—have beenchiefly those who enjoyed some of the womansfateful advantages, free access and permision toadminister the noxious drugs. They have beenmostly medical men ; and among the greatest mis-creants of this class may be mentioned Palmer, thewholesale murderer, and Lampson, whose murder ofhis brother-in-law by means of a lozenge was a morerecent cause A Female Poisonek. Of the female poisoners I have met, I rememberparticularly a woman who gave her master a fowlboiled with arsenic, who, I think, escaped convictionfor the capital offence through the adroit eloquence ofher counsel. She was a little, snake-like creature, withhandsome, regular features, a soft voice, and veryself-possessed, dignified air. It was her contentionthat the charge was all a foolish and absurd mistake, 14 SECRETS OF THE PRISON-HOUSE. that she ought never to have been arrested, butshould be incontinently set free. So she treated herkeepers with disdainful contempt, and passed throughprison protesting against her detention ; but alwayswith the utmost sang-froid. Another prisoner I sawin a later stage, at Broadmoor. This was ChristinaEdmunds, who gave children poisoned chocolate dropsin the street. When I saw her she was paintingflowers in water-colours, using her brush with infinitecomplacency, waving
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