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Newspaper Page Text
SAYS MORE POLICEWOMEN WILL RID STREETS OF MASHERS WHO PESTER YOUNG GIRLS . ., BY NIXOLA-GREELEY-SMITH New York, Feb. 10. Coincident with the introduction of a legislative bill providing for 20 policewomen in New York city was the appearance here of Mrs. Alice Stebbins Wells, pioneer policewoman of Los Angeles, Cal. Mrs. Wells believes, among other things, that the policewoman would have a deterrent effect on the mash ers of large cities. Her belief was deepened the other day by the fact that she, the guardian of Los An geles morals, was "actually accosted by a masher herself! "I had stopped for a moment to look at aposter in front of a moving picture place," she told me, "when a man came up and asked ingratiat ingly if I did not want to see the show, offering to take me. Now, I can readily imagine that if I had been 3 poor young girl without a nickel Insert at top is pic ture of Mrs. Alice Steb bins Wells, America's first policewoman. and worse yet, with' the knowledge that I never would have a nickel to spare for such a treat, I might have accepted the man's offer and so pos sibly have taken the first step to ruin. "If the incident had occurred in Los Angeles I should have watched that man and that show to see that he did not repeat the performance with a younger and more ignorant woman. In Los Angeles once I saw a young girl walking along by herself at night and I thought from her manner that she needed my attention. "So I followed her till she stopped at the entrance of a dime museum show and asked for employment "Tie manager of the show told her that he did not need her services, but at a branch of the museum'in another part of the city, and that he would take her there. So they started out together, I following them. After they had walked quite a distance he