GENIUS IN GAOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 102, 2 May 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

GENIUS IN GAOL.

£1000 A YEAR FROM DEALINGS. "LU.NATIC" OF BROADMOOR. In tlie Broadmoor Criminal Mental Institution is an inmate whose clever financial operations on the Stock Exchange result in his earning more than £1000 a year. This fact amazed members of Parliament when they were introduced to this man on the occasion of a recent visit to Broadmoor. The financial genius was convicted of murder, but subsequent investigation proved him to be insane, and his sentence was commuted to detention during His Majestv's pleasure. He has been at Broadmoor now for several years, and during* this period he has successfully negotiated several coups as a result of shrewd speculation. His command over figures is astonishing, and he can accomplish wonders in calculation without referring to pen or paper. He possesses a really uncanny knack of sensing the rise and fall of stocks and shares. That there are many other examples of prison cells that house genius is revealed by Mr. Herbert Arthur in "All the Sinners," a book on the psychology of criminals.

"There is a prisoner serving a long sentence for forgery," sajs Mr. _ Arthur, "whose handwriting skill id in great demand for the production of 'souvenirs,' which take the lor in of the Lord's Prayer written out in full in a circle of which the diameter is one quarter of an inch. "The amazing feature is that the man iises an ordinary pen, and although he is 67 years, old, he does all his work without the aid of spectacles. "Another genius is 'Old Bob,' whom I met while he was serving a sentence of 15 years' penal servitude for manslaughter. He would certainly have been the world's record tipster, and would have plunged the bookmakers into bankruptcy, for he has a most amazing gift for picking winners. "His turf speculations over a period of a few years netted him' a huge fortune— on paper—for he never had a penny of hard cash with which to bet, and, of course, the prison regulations would not permit of money being used for such a purpose." It has remained for Dr. Cantone von Scherinzen, of Vienna, tr> discover a method of remaking the human race. Dr. von Scherinzen has found it in smoking. Puffing, he points out gravely, not only induces crow's feet, skin pallor and ailments,. enlargement of throat muscles and hair growth on the face—hat it renders women less likely to have children. Incessant smoking, he insists, will eliminate the gentler sex.