FORMER QUEEN OF CRIMINALS, WHO ANNOUNCES THAT SHE WILL DEVOTE THE REST OF HER LIFE AND HER FORTUNE OF $500,000 TO SAVING FIRST OFFENDERS.  
Sophie Lyons has turned reformer.
 
With the mellowing influence of years, she is now 66, the erstwhile queen of women criminals has decided that crime does not pay and intends to devote her fortune and remaining days to saving others from paths that have been hers.
 
Her new resolution, she says, probably will alienate her husband, "Billy" Burke, who recently completed a prison term in Stockholm, Sweden. "I want to accomplish his reformation more than I do any other person's, no matter what the cost," she declared. "He is weak and easily tempted, and his criminal operations were not induced by necessity, as were mine. If my plans will help to make him a good man I shall feel they are not in vain."
 
In her modest little home Mrs. Lyons-Burke, who for 40 years was known intimately to the police of two continents and whose acquaintance with the interior of jails and prisons is world-wide, outlined to a representative her plans for the redemption of criminals.
 
"I haven't a great many years to live and I am worth half a million dollars," Mrs. Burke said. "I want to make amends as far as possible for what I have done in the past. I have lived a straight life for 25 years, and have accumulated much property by legitimate means. But there is something I crave more than money. Do you know what that is? It is the respect of good people. Maybe I can get some of this by showing that I am not all bad and that I am sincere in my effort to help others."
 
Great tears coursed down Mrs. B............