SEVEN MEN'S SINS

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 170, 20 July 1935, Page 10 (Supplement)

SEVEN MEN'S SINS

By Stuart Murtia.

("The C. Henry of Crime").

EPISODE SEVENTEEN.

The chaplain passc-d his hand over his brows. He had become deathly pale now; so pale that the veins of his forehead showed through his skin and the skin itself resembled the skin of a corpse. He began to speak in a low tone charged with an accent that penetrated the hangman's brain and chilled him.

"We arc going back some years," said the chaplain. "We are going back to an evening when a young man who was not very sober was lounging for no particular reason near a jeweller's shop in London. Ho was not sober enough to know that it was a jeweller's shop, and had he known he would not have cared. But he was lounging there, ashamed of himself for being unsober, feeling the degradation into which he was allowing himself to sink, when a policeman — a sergeant—gave him a shove in the back and told him to get to hell out of it.

"The unsober young man slithered along; but lie had not gone more than fifty yards when the sergeant was at him again. This time he gripped the man by the shoulder, swung him round, and held up with li is left hand a padlock without a key. He accused the man of tampering with the padlock. lie hauled

him back to tho jeweller's shop and showed that tho padlock had come off tho door—had been found hanging loose. And he took the man to the police station and charged him with attempted burglary." "Any witnesses?" asked the hangman sharply. "Oh, yes, there was a constable on the beat who was summoned. He was the witness that the padlock was loose. The next morning the young man was charged before a magistrate. The scr-

geant and the constable gave evidence. Had he known what he learned later about the law's procedure that young man might have got off. But he did not know. He gave a wrong name, hoping to hide his plight from his friends, expecting that he would be fined.

"But the sergeant swore that he had had him under observation for half an

hour and had seen him fumbling with the lock. There had not been any burglary. The young man had no burglar's

tools about him. He was asked what he had to eay. He had nothing to say. He was sent to prison for three months. Are you listening, hangman?"

"I am listening; but—" "Never mind the ' but.' lam telling the case shortly. That three months' imprisonment had. its effect. When he came out of prison the young man found that his friends were shocked beyond words. He did not go near them. But he went back to the jeweller's shop. He boldly asked the jeweller if there had ever been any explanation of the loose lock.

"The jeweller remembered the occasion. Yes, there was an explanation. One of the assistants who ought to have

locked tho padlock had forgotten that night. Why had the jeweller not come

to the court and explained? He said he didn't get the explanation until after sentence had been passed; and the sergeant advised him to let things lie.

"The sergeant was receiving some reward for the ' smart capture.' He did not want his record to be blemished. What did it matter, anyway? The young fellow was a wrong 'un. Are you listening, hangman?" "I am." "The victim of this injustice resolved to 'get hack' on the law. He was penniless. He actually broke into that

jeweller's shop a few nights later—and he was caught! Poor fool, he did not see that he was making the police sergeant's words come true! His previous conviction was against him. He got eighteen months for that burglary. "It hardened him more. He met crooks, and became friends with thieves. He fought the law because the law had first struck him. In prison he met cleverer men than lie; men older in crime, men used to prison. They all said the same thing—once in the hands of the law a man never gets out of the grip! Curious, isn't it, hangman, how you believe that a crook cannot be reformed, and the crooks believe that they cannot escape the law's clutch?" The hangman was quivering at the lash of the words.

"They are all the same," he cried, savagely. "All snivellers! All liars! All afraid to take their medicine!"

"Give them their due, hangman. They have taken their medicine. But it lias not had the effect the administrators believed it .would have. This is especially so in the case of the poor, the illiterate, the unfortunate. When brought before a court of law these people are at a great disadvantage. They are in danger of being found guilty because they do not understand the routine of the legal machine. The police are out for convictions "

"They are not! They are out to protect property and keep the peace "

"Equivocator! Perjurer! Would you have advanced in your profession had you not profited by the ignorance of your victims ?"

The chaplain was lashing out the accusation in fury, and the hangman's eyes gleamed.

"That's a charge!" he muttered viciously. "You'll pay for that!" "There you go. Seeking revenge! You would roast me if you could, wouldn't you? Boast yourself and your advice to young officers! There are crooks in the police. There are policemen serving sentences now. Found out! There have been what the public call scandals. I do not blame the whole organisation. I cite instances of individual corruptness. I ask the same measure of consideration for crooks. "You see where wo .have arrived? Individual consideration! The rules of the law must be flexible. You say the police are not out for convictions. Here arc the words of J. R. Clynes, one of the Cabinet Ministers, when lie spoke in the British Parliament in favour of the Poor Prisoners' Defence Bill: 'The poor man has suffered in the fact that, although I would not imply that justice can be bought, a defence can be bought."

Ho paused and then rushed on, filled with tlio desire to hammer home his points. "You and your severity! How do you explain the fact that since 1914 no fewer than 25 prisons in England and Wales have been closed? The total prison population to-day is somewhere about 00,000. Ten years ago it was 160,000. The reason is that, among other things, magistrates are beginning to see that probationary measures are worth trying. You say that criminals cannot be reformed. The answer is in the long lists of the Howard League and other organisations of ex-prisoners who have been reformed. I ask you one question." Tho hangman raised his eyes sullenly, but no word escaped him. "Have you, or has anybody, the moral right to say any man is past reformation?" The silence that fell on the room was intense. These two men glared at each

other. The hangman stirred, liko a man arousing from the effects of a soporific. He shook his head in the manner of a dog emerging from a pool. "I am not going to argue with you," he burst out. "I came hero to arrest you! I shall arrest you!" "You shall not arrest me, criminal! It is I who shall accuse you. It is I who shall bring punishment to you." The hangman made a movement as if ho would rise. Twice ho made the same movement. Twice he raised the handcuffs and laid them on the table. Twice the chaplain waved him back to his chair. The handcuffs remained on the table. "We will go back to the case I was relating to you," ho said, firmly, and his voice thrilled once more, deep and compelling. "I shall not keep you long now. The young man whose life I am relating found crooks to be friendly, the police to be enemies. Having been in prison, he was, like others, always in danger of being arrested again for 'loitering with intent.' "I tell you, some police officers prey on released prisoners. It is easy. A man's landlord is warned, if he gets

a job his employer is warned of his past. If he has no job, but has made a bit by betting, the fact that he is flush of money is itself suspicious.

"This sergeant who first arrested this man fastened on to him. He used him

to fit him into any unsolved burglary. On some occasions the victim was not convicted. But he was wrongly convicted a second time. He was sent to Maidstone Prison for three years. After that he was a criminal. He had been manufactured." The hangman seemed not to be taking any interest in the story. His head was bowed, his eves on the table, his hand close to the handcuffs.

"When he came out of Maidstone Prison," went on the chaplain, "he went

to America. How did he get a passport ? Ah, that would be telling! But it is easy to get a passport. You can get anything from the Whitechapel district

—ready-made, type-written references, all the usual forms filled in to suit you, price one shilling each.

"He hoped to get a fresh start in America. But it was difficult. He carried on as a criminal. He served sentences in several prisons there —in New York, Chicago, Boston. He learned that

if prison in England was often purgatory, it was quite as often hell in America."

The hangman pricked up his ears at

"If there is a complaint, or a charge, made against you in an English prison you know which screw —that is, which warder—has 'cased' you. In many Americon prisons you never know that. You are told that if you plead guilty to such an internal charge you'll get lighter punishment. But if you are faced with your accuser and are found guilty you get it severely.

"Many convicts plead guilty rather than risk it. In Illinois you can get both the 'cat' and the 'stretch' for disobedience. The 'stretch' is being fastened to a wall by chains.

"When at last he had the chance this man, now a convict, hard and rebellious, left America. He went to South Africa."

The hangman raised his head a little more. He was listening definitely now. "He roughed it for some time. Then he got a job. It was in a diamond mine." (Another instalment on Monday.)