REVOLTED WIFE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 6 May 1913, Page I

REVOLTED WIFE.

ELOPEMENT WITH A BURGLAR. In the belief that she would he able to disclose the .hiding place of £25,000 worth of jewellery, the proceeds of a series of burglaries, the police of San Francisco are searching for IV' M.'bel Clarkson, wife of the Rev. N. K. Clarkson, head of a White Cross Midnight Missionary Association of Chicago. Shortly before Christmas Mrs Clarkson, a, woman of thirty, deserted her husband and five children, and, it is alleged, eloped with Owen Conn, a "gentleman burglar," whose acquaintance *Jie had made two yea-re before while visiting a county goal and administering religious consolation to the prisoners. Despite the fact that- she had spent her life in the service of religion, Mrs Clarkson became infatuated with the handsome burglar, who. on his release,, found no difficulty in persuading her to abandon her family and accompany him to the West. The "gentleman burglar" was lust month taken to the prison hospital in San Francisco suffering from two bullet woundg- received during a fight with the police. His, career sin?e his elopement with the clergyman's wife has been marked bv a succession of bold burglaries, in which he was, the police allege, ably assisted bv his woman, companion. The police base their theory on the discovery of a number of feminine footprints in flowerbeds leading to windows that had been forced open. "My wife's downfall," dei-kmvl the Rev. Mr Clarkson. "is a problem for r>.ychologists. I attribute t to a surfeit of religion. Tier father is an elder in a Chicago church. Her mother is aii ardent church member. She herself sang in the church before she wa« old enough to go to school. She was brought up in'the church an-.] in the Sunday school, and finally married a Treacher. She was so cons'antiy siirloimded with religion and religions yersons tlui 4 .. her nat..Te rebelled arid sought relief in the companionship of j 'burglar."