POLITICAL CRIMES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10598, 29 October 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

POLITICAL CRIMES.

What the great Prince Bismarck was wont to describe as "the lust of fame," and what Professor Lombroso diagnosed as "the craze for notoriety," in the case of well-nigh every assassin of personages of high rank and office that came under his notice, arc in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the principal motive of political crime involving violence and bloodshed. The authors are in nearly every instance men who in no other manner could ever hope to attract the attention or to mouse the interest of their fellow-citizens, but who as more or loss successful perpetrators ol an attempt on the lives of the great are assured not only of world-wide publicity for the time being, but also of a niche in history—of a lasting place, if not in the Temple of Fame, at any rate in that of Infamy. The names of the assassins of .King Humbert, of the Empress of Austria, of Sadi-Cauiot, President of the French -Republic; of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and M'Kinley, arc bound to endure as long as those of their victims, and the knowledge that this is certain to bq the case is as powerful an incentive to a man in whom vanity has reached the stage of actual disease as is the extraordinary prominence given by tho newspapers to everything relating to the life, the antecedents, "the appearance, the tastes, and tho views of the murderer.- It is the thirst for notoriety, the delight of being in men's mouths, that brings these cranks—for it is difficult to describe them bj' any other- name-—to the execution of deeds that deserve, if they dp not always receive, the scaffold. '''

•One has "only to remember the publicity that was accorded by. the Press to the speeches of Luccheni, the slayer of the Empress of Austria, '> and to Sipiclo, the vainglorious lad who shot, at Edward VII. at Brussels not long before his accession to the Throne of Great Britain. All this publicity constitutes a powerful incentive to crimes of this nature. Sipido's attempt upon •the-.life of Edward VII. and the notoriety achieved by the young anarchist was followed by the murder of King Humbert-at Monza, and there is hardly a criminologist'of .any importance' in either the Old World or in the Western. Hemisphere who is not perfectly convinced; that the most efficacious preventive : of outrages of this nature would be to condemn the perpetrators to rn oblivion to which the newspapers should be required to contribute for the sake of the commonwealth. • -'"

In France there is a statute tarnishing with death attacks with murderous intent upon public officials when engaged in the.performance of their duty. It has been more honored in the breach than in the observance in the past, ttitis now about to be re-enforced by the Government; at the 'instance <;f M. JBriand, owing to the large numher of members of the 'Parisian police 'who liayo been, either killed outright, or maimed for life,' by the savage :''Apaches" who, infest'.the'French capital. It is. a pity that some such' law could not be enacted in everycountry. "'.■..' •'■'-■ .For an attempt upon the life' of the ruler of a State is a ; crime, .not against an .'.individual, .but against-., the nation, anij should be punished ■ as''' such by special law, just ■as' are the' counterfeiting "of money; postal frauds, and smuggling. The law should be" extended so as to' safeguard in a similar fashion the members of thp Cabinet and the officials of the Government,, and in the same way each ' State; 'should' take. steps to secure legislation of a'similar character, a legislation possessed by, the French Kopiiblic, on the ground, first of all, that public officials, especially when' in the performance of their duty, are exposed to" risks of a'.far niore ..serious character than ordinary citizens' at-' the hands, 'of'■ criminals' and cranks;; aiid,_ second,' because.murderous outrages of this kind are" offences, not -against.the individual, -but against- the .Commonwealth. ' • ; ■""•'.'

: In many countries; especially in those•where, as in Switzerland, capital punishment has beeji aholished,: the penalties; imppsediupon offenders' of .this kind are altogether'too light, and the means of evading them too numerous, ,tb. constitute any deterrent to the crime.

Thus, Luigi Luoehcni, the assassin of Empress Elizabeth, has recently been visited 1,1 his'prison at Geneva by the explorer, Harry de Windt, who' found him, not incarcerated in a dungeon, but in a 'light and airy room', overlooking the beautiful lake, enjoying an abundant diet, a pint of wine and a package of cigarettes daily, and -employed in bookkeeping, the work, however, being purely voluntary. His room is furnished - comfortably, with wcll-iilled bookcases, a v, riting-table, electric light, the\ walls being covered with' picture postcards, including-' two representing his victim, Empress Elizabeth, and her widowed husband ; while -he ''is allowed all the conversation and communication that he cares for with the other convicts. Colonel lUaschin, who personally murdered' King Alexander of Servia and Queen Draga in 1903, under circumstances of almost inconceivable brutality, died only the other day, at Bel-

giadc, as a high digmtai> of the Servian army and of King Peter's household, having, m spite of the blood with which his ha'ids wcie stained, filled the office of Minister of Public Works and of War m several of the Servian administrations ot the last few years The people icsponsible for the raurdei of King Cailos of Portugal and his eldest son aie still not meiely 'lnpunished, but actually -holding public office in Portugal. The murdeieis ot Duke Chailes 111 of Paima ended their days in peace in America, making little or no seciet of thefact that tliev had killed their sovereign, while Kartmann and '"Stepniak," who were concerned in a number of Nihilist outrages and were accountable for- tlicTdeath of a number of Muscovite government officials and dig-

nitaries of the Russian Enipno, weie allowed to live without hindrance in England, "Stepmak,'' indeed, becoming a valued contributor to PresSj though he was ,barred from the "United S.tates when he" wished to go there on a. lecturing tour. It is owing to this leniency that attempts on the lives of rulers _and public officials have "become very numerous 'd.iring the last half-centurj, and especially during the last twenty years. The Middle Ages "and;the seventeenth = and eighteenth centimes were accounted lawless and as .epochVw'hen-TiuTnan-life'was held cheap, 'but never have %hc attempts to assassm?te?j£ublictofficials been 1 so frequent as t ~duriiLg=-the<fifsttdecade"of the twentieth cfnWiry/-;, ■"*""'j, * *-._ •- j, . -