Health Official Calls Miss Canty Victim of Character Disturbances

Miss Margaret E. Canty was the victim of "severe character disorders" when she was examined in connection with the alleged embezzlement of a large sum of money from the University in 1957, an official of the University Health Services disclosed yesterday.

The chief manifestation of this illness, he said, is "misrepresentation of truth." The afflicted person usually gains people's confidence by conveying a good impression, but then the victim lets them down completely, he continued. This type ence and thus cannot be cured.

Miss Canty was arraigned on 30 counts of larcency in 1951, reportedly for using stolen charge account plates. "She has been known to various people as being undependable for about ten years, but no one incident was serious enough to get her out of circulation," the Health Service official reported. Police said she is now under psychiatric observation.

In another development in the case, a former friend of Miss Canty brought an electric typewriter, allegedly purchased from Miss Canty for $50, to Cambridge police headquarters yesterday. Through the serial number it was definitely identified as one missing from Harvard.

A small soapstone statuette of an Eskimo woman, possibly worth several hundred dollars, is still unclaimed, although a woman seeing a picture of it in Wednesday's CRIMSON told police she thought she remembered seeing it in Peabody Museum.