The difficulty of determining, even in one's office, the true character of a plausible woman is enhanced tenfold in the court-room, where the lawyer is generally compelled to proceed upon the assumption that the witness is a person of irreproachable life and antecedents. Almost any young woman may create a favorable impression, provided her taste in dress be not too crude, and, even when it is so, the jury are not apt to distinguish carefully between that which cries to Heaven and that which is merely "elegant." When the complaining witness is a woman who has merely lost money through the acts of the defendant, the jury are not so readily moved to accept her story in toto as when the crime charged is of a different character. They realize that the complainant, feeling that she has been injured, may be inclined to color her testimony, perhaps unconsciously, until the wrong becomes a crime. An ordinary example of this variety of prosecution is where the witness is a young woman from the East Side, usually a Polish or Russian Jewess, who charges the defendant, a youth of about her own age, with stealing her money by means of false pretences. They have been engaged to be married, and she has turned over her small savings to him to purchase the diamond ring and perhaps set him up in a modest business of his own. He has then fallen in love with some other girl, has broken the engagement, and the ring now adorns the fourth finger of her rival. Her money is gone. She is without a dot. She hurries with her parents and loudly vociferating friends to the Essex Market Police Court, and secures a warrant for the defendant on the theory that he defrauded her by "trick and device" or "false representations." Usually the only "representation" has been a promise to marry her. Her real motive is revenge upon her faithless fiance. In nine cases out of ten the fellow is a cad, who has deliberately deserted her after getting her money, but it is doubtful whether any real crime is involved. If the judge lets the case go to the jury it is a pure gamble as to what the result will be, and it may largely turn on the girl's physical attractiveness. If she be pretty and demure a mixture of emotions is aroused in the jury. "He probably did love her," say the twelve, "because any one would be likely to do so. If he did love her, of course he didn't falsely pretend to do so; but if he deserted a woman like that he ought to be in jail anyway." Thus the argument that ought to acquit in fact may convict the defendant. If the rival also is pretty, hopeless confusion results; while if the complainant be a homely girl the jury feels that he must have intended to swindle her anyway, as he could never have honestly intended to marry her. Thus in any case the Lothario is apt to pay a severe penalty for his faithlessness.