Saturday, September 10, 2011

Making Fun of the Chicago Wife’s License to Kill - 1919


FULL TEXT: During the past two or three years, something like fifty women arraigned on the charge of murdering their husbands have been turned loose by Chicago juries, until it has come to be understood that if any woman desires to be rid of her husband, all she has to do is to lure him into Chicago on some pretext and then shoot or poison him.

This is so well understood probably, that it explains the boldness of a woman “young and pretty” of course, who after procuring a divorce from her husband in a Chicago court room day before yesterday began gloating and then pulled a pistol from her handbag and shot him down under the eyes of the judge of the court and bailiffs and spectators. Then she gaily flounced out of the court room, saying that he got what is coming to him.” She was sent to jail, probably somewhat surprised at the cruelty of the court, but comforted in the thought that bail, would be forthcoming and that later she would be the center of interest at a trial, where she could weep the sloppy jury into turning her loose.

Then, off to the nearest movie company booking office!

The judge who turned down the husband’s application for divorce from the woman and granted one to her instead with alimony, probably is a bit surprised over the impulsiveness of the pretty lady who suddenly decided to forgo the alimony (or was the husband insured?) and unselfishly shot him to death.

Probably she had figured it out that she would lie worth more as an actress or lecturer, with a record of having killed her husband in the court room, than if she did as most of the husband killers of Chicago have done the past few years merely shoot him as he sleeps or put poison in his coffee.

[“Open Season For Husbands.” The Helena Independent (Mt.), Apr. 27, 1919, p. 12]

[Illustration from another source]

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