WAR ON SOCIETY.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1922, Page 9

WAR ON SOCIETY.

RICH GIRL STOLE MOTOR CARS FOR EXCITEMENT. CROSSED IN LOVE. Treacherously deceived into “marriage” by a lover who already possessed a wife and two children, Miss Dorothy Helen Smith, the beautiful daughter of a rich metal manufacturer in New York, sought forgetfulness in a career of excitement and thrills, the sequel to which has just staggered New York society. Miss Smith has been arrested as the mysterious girl leader of a Brooklyn gang of motor robbers, who have been held responsible for the theft of upwards of a thousand automobiles. The capture of the young lady, who had been noted for her daring exploits, fairly electrified New York. The sensational news of her identity was followed immediately by the no less startling disclosure that the girl, who has been reared in the lap of luxury, had launched into her career of crime in a inad attempt to forget or avenge an act of treachery and a broken romance which combined to make her a manhater and embittered her toward all th» world.

“My daughter and David Bratton had been sweethearts from childhood.” says Mrs. Smith, in telling the astonishing story.

“David then lived with his grandfather, Andrew Peck, the millionaire manufacturer of sports goods. My husband and 1 oppose'd David’s attentions, but Helen was very much in love with him. and when on his grandfather’s death in California he inherited about

£<loo,ooo, they were< married in the famous ‘little church around the corner,’ and left for California by motor car on their honeymoon. LOOPING THE LOOP. “When they arrived at Los Angdes, Helen found that David had another wife and two children. “Helen then went all to pieces. She began to chase excitements as little children chase butterflies. But perhaps it. would be more correct to say that she then unleashed all the devils of recklessness which since childhood had been lurking in her blood. “Her race for excitement now began in deadly earnest. First she tried acting for the cinema, won the friendship of Anita. Stewart, and was well on the road to ‘stardom,' but the lure of the cinema paled. “It was not enough excitement and too much hard work. She next took up flying, and ‘looped the loop’ with Eddie Rickenbacker, the famous ‘ace.’ “Finally, after running the gamut of unusual excitement, the lure of motor robbery entered, her blood. “For many years she had loved to race in a motor car, and had been arrested many times for speeding —on one occasion while • driving with Jack London. “It was about a month ago that I began to suspect she was in some terrible mischief. She ceased to confide in me, and when she called to see me in two different motor ears on two different nights, mv mother’s intuiton told me she was a motor robber!“I begged, prayed, and implored her to give it up, but she only laughed as she said, ‘Mother, this is the greatest fun I ever had in my life. This is real excitement/ Then end you know.”