Читать книгу The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools онлайн

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The men, thus summoned, come in droves. Competition is keen, and the ladies are strenuous in defense of their meal-tickets, and when one trespasses upon another’s rights, we have a thrilling murder story. Our lady murderesses are a leading feature of Southern California life; sometimes they shoot, and sometimes they poison, and sometimes they go to the nearest five- and ten-cent store and buy a hammer, and beat out the other lady’s brains. Then they are sent to jail, which is a career of glory, with photographs and interviews in every edition of the newspapers, and a sensational trial with full details of their many lovers and their quarrels. Autobiographies written in prison are featured in Sunday supplements and advertised on billboards; and finally comes the climax—a magical jail delivery. We know, of course, that nowhere in America can the jails hold the rich, but out here in Southern California the rich don’t even wait to be pardoned by presidents and governors—they tip their jailers twenty-five hundred dollars and walk right out. “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage!”