THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY AUGUST 23, 1892.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8964, 23 August 1892, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY AUGUST 23, 1892.

In these colonies lately there have been two of the most conspicuous examples of " instinctive criminality" which history has to show. We refer to Deeming and Plummer. They form examples of a class which, happily for humanity, is not very numerous—men who, in whatever circumstances they are placed, cannot help committing crime. The distinction between such cases and the ordinary criminal, may be put thus—that the ordinary criminal commits offences because he is not able to resist the temptations which assail him, and which sometimes are powerful. These extraordinary criminals seem to commit crime although they are not in circumstances of temptation, and would seem to have every inducement to lead virtuous lives. Burglars and murderers, as a rule, are so from the mere desire of gain and from vengeance, but the men whom we may call the instinctive criminals, perpetrate the most serious crimes without necessity, or when it would have been quite easy for them to gain their objects in some other way. Then the ordinary run of criminal, even although he may belong to the criminal class, although he may be the offspring of debased parents, has in him the rudiments of a conscience. Such men as Deeming and Plummer do not seem to have such a faculty at all.

It is the fashion now-a-days, to explain everything by the doctrine of heredity. In most cases, no doubt, criminals are recruited from a criminal class. But in such instances as we are now referring to, the individuals have not come from families tainted with crime. Deeming's relatives were respectable people, and the attempt made to prove that there was insanity in the family was quite unsuccessful. As to the relatives of Plummer, we have a number of them amongst us, and we only know them as good, honest, industrious settlers. Heredity, however, is not a speculation, but a law, and perhaps such a tendency might be discovered in progenitors more or less remote. Unless indeed there may be an accidental malformation of the brain, trifling at first, but growing stronger with years, from whence results the condition of the mental faculties when the men must commit crime. In Plummer's case there was no temptation from the first. He was a man of good natural abilities and good education, and after every lapse his relatives were able and willing to put him in a way to earn an honest livelihood,and to takehis place again amongst respectable people. It is often said for the criminal, and it is no doubt true, that after he has committed one offence, he finds it difficult to tear himself away from criminal associations, and to become enrolled again amongst good citizens. But there was no such difficulty in Plummer's case. He seems lately to have made strenuous efforts occasionally to reform. He would work steadily and earnestly for a time, as if lie really meant to carry out his expressed intention of redeeming his character, and then the impulse to crime which was within him, and which seems to have survived youth and middle life, became uncontrollable. Probably, when he resolved to turn over a new leaf, he really meant it, but in the balance of his faculties the evil prevailed. Everything seemed to conspire to persuade him to lead a new life. He was fifty years of age, he had spent many years in prison, and knew all the horrors of prison life. He had married a respectable young woman whose influence must have been exerted to make him lead a decent life. He had no difficulty in obtaining work, and providing means for himself and wife. And yet he could not restrain himself.

. There will always be an effort to make good the plea of insanity for such men, but it would be very dangerous to adroit it. No one meeting with Hummer or Deeming, and conversing with them on the ordinary affairs of life, would have suspected insanity ; and if a man with all his faculties about him, in good health and strength, who knows what is right and what is wrong, cannot refrain from crime, he must take the consequences. It would no doubt have been better for Plummer, and probably for society, if, when he had shown by repeated crimes that he could not govern himself, he had been charged with being an "instinctive criminal," and sentenced to " imprisonment for the term of his natural life," either in a gaol or in a lunatic asylum. Is the human race producing more specimens of this description of lunatic or criminal than formerly ? It would almost seem so. The series of murders committed by Jack the Ripper were perpetrated with no motive of gain, for the unfortunate creatures murdered had no effects to tempt a robber. Probably more than one man engaged in these murders from beginning to end. Then consider the fearful series of murders now being investigated, in which the unfortunate girls were scientifically poisoned by strychnine made up in capsules. The perpetrator must have been actuated by no motive except to commit crime. Plummer committed no murder, but his mind was of the truly " instinctive criminal" type. He threatened murder, and sometimes came close to that crime. We wonder whether there is anything in modern life tending to produce such monsters as I those we have been referring to ? The question is one which is not easily answered. In the complex conditions of modern life the sociologist is not always able to differentiate the causes and activities which have their manifestation in the annals of crime. These are problems and speculations, however, which may be left to the researches of the philosophical. But there is a question arising out of the manner in which Plummer met his death which seems to us to deserve immediate attention, namely, how far a police officer is justified in using firearms for the purpose of enabling him to secure a person accused of a felony. In the case of Plummer it is clear from the evidence, that the constable who fired the fatal shot had no intention of causing death or even injury. His object in discharging his revolver was merely to intimidate the unfortunate fugitive. When he fired he was not acting in self-defence nor did he aim at Plummer. That the latter was killed was a misadventure. It was, however, laid down to the Coroner's jury as a legal dictum that a policeman was justified in deliberately shooting down i a person who was endeavouring to evade arrest, hence probably the verdict which they returned. In the Fuucke murder case, tried, before Judge Conolly in 1890, His Honor it will be remembered made some severe : comments on the action of two men who had fired at the accused—an armed, and dangerous murderer— the pur-;* pose of securing him for justice. The two men, it is true, were not constables, and to that extent the case differs from the Papakura affair but we cite it merely for the purpose of illustrating the spirit •of the law in reference, to the use of firearms against even dangerous offenders, as interpreted by a Judge of the Supreme Court. Now that public attention has been again drawn to the subject in a very tragic and dramatic manner, it is highly desirable that an authoritative instruction should be issued by the proper authorities to the police throughout the colony in respect of the use of loaded weapons in the legal execution of their duties, so that the risk of even homicide by misadventure may be reduced to a minimum.