LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17504, 21 December 1918, Page 2

LITERATURE.

CHRISTMAS AND THE CRIMINAL. *

A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY.

By Constant Rkadee. months between the Christmas ot 1917 and tho Christmas of 1918 have brought many startling and dramatic changes, but Jihe one man who has experienced tho mfjstTj-omondous chango is the Kaiser "and tho one nation in similar plight, is Germany. A year ago, still coniident that might was right, the Kaiser was making a Christmas "Peace offer" and boasting, if the offer was refused, of the vengeance that would follow. To-day in exile m .Holland, denounced on all hands as the greatest criminal in Europe, the Kaiser awaits the moment when he shall stand before an International Tribunal, charged with tho crime of the Great War, which b ® en " very head and front; of his offending "

It thus comes about that an apparently contradictory oondition of thought prevails all over the world this Christmastide. The season of Peac#and Goodwill, which for the first time in four years it is possible to celebrate with anything approaching to joy and enthusiasm, is clouded over by the consciousness of the criminals, who, deposed from their high places and deprived of their power to perpetrate further wickedness, will shortly bo called upon to pay the penalty of their crimes.

Under the mellowing influence of the Christmas celebrations it may be profitable _to consider the responsibility of the criminal and the measure of tho punishment which should be meted out to him, always remembering that the end in view ia not _ vengeance but justice. And such consideration will certainly ho conditioned by the individual ideas concerning the meaning of Christmas, and the particular conception of the personality and purpose of the Christ who stands behind tho time honoured festival.

Areadable and recently published volume may help towards a suitable consideration of Chris tra-ia and the Criminal. It is entitled "A of Remarkable Criminals," and the author is Mr H. B. Irving, the well-known actor, whoso favourite study, when off the stage, is tho psychology of criminality. Somo seven years since Mr Iping visited this dominion on a professional tour,_ and it is proof of his industry that ho utilised tho opportunity presented by his visit to collect material and verify the facts for the second study in his book, "Tho Career of Robert Butler," tho famous 7-or infainous—l>unedin murderer. This is. typical, indeed, of Mr Irving's painstaking .method of work. Wherever possible he has gone over the actual ground traversed by t.he remarkable criminals whoso careers he has traced and whose motives he has attempted to analyse. In addition ha has had recourse to original documents, besides bringing to the work all the powers r-f a strongly analytical mind. The outcome is not only a narrative of absorbing interest, but a book which cannot be read by any student of human nature without prompting some searching reflections. Mr Irving's inspiration for taking up this field of research has been Shakespeare himsurely tho keenest and closest student of the intricacies/and complexities of the human heart, who ever trod the stage of this world. Not the least interesting portion of the introduction to the book is the comparison instituted by Mr Irving between the criminals of Shakespeare and the more modern criminals with whom ho directly deals. Curious parallels are instituted, for

instance, between the celebrated American murderer, " The Mysterious Mr Holmes," and Shakespeare's King Richard III; between Robert Butler, the Duncdin murderer, and Iago; between Kinp Claudius. of Denmark, and Derues, the " climbing little grocer" of Paris; between Macbeth and T-ady Macbeth and the criminal couples known to history as By rand and Bompard, Mr and Mrs Manning. B'n-ko and Hare, the Peltzer Brothers, and Barre and Lobiez. The instification for piecing together into a popular narrative form what in ymost instances are the revolting details of dreadful crime, is thus set forth by the'author:— The ordinary man and woman prefer to take their crime romanticised, and it is administered to them in novel or play. The true stories told in this book repre-. sent the raw material from which works of art have been and may be yet created. Tie murder of Mr Arden, of Faversham, inspired an Elizabethian tragedy attributed by some critics to Shakespeare. The Peltzer trial helped to inspire Paul Bourget:s remarkable novel "Andre Cornells." To Italian crime we owe "Shelley's " Cenci," and Browning's "The Ring and the Book." Mrs Manning was the original of the maid Hortonse in "Bleak House." • Jonathan Wild, Eugene Aram, Deacon Brodie, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright have all been made the heroes of books ar plays of varying merit. But it is not only in its stories that crime has served to inspire romance. In the investigation of crime, especially on the broader Une of Continental procedure, we can track to the source the springs of conduct and character, and come near to solving as far as it is humanly possible the mystery of human xnotivo. There is always and nnisfc Ijq -jjj every crono 3* terra incognita- whjQDi unless -wo could enter into the very soul of a man, we cannot hope to reach. Thus far may we go, no farther. It is rarely, indeed, that a man lays bare his -whole soul, and even -when he does we can never be quite sure that he is telling us all the truth; that he is not keeping back some vital secret. It is no doubt better so, and that it should be_ loft to the ■writer of imagination to picture for us a man's inmost soul. The study of crime will help him to that end. It will help ua also in the ethical appreciation of good and evil in individual conduct, about whioh our notions have been somewhat obscured by the manner or definition of what constitutes crime. These themes, touched on but lightly and imperfectly m those pages, are rich in human interest.

Christmas and the criminal are in absolute and essential antagonism- The spirit of Christmas is a direct contradiction of and rebuke to the spirit of crime. The Christmas message: "Peace op earth and goodwill towards men" is the essence of civilisation and the pivot around which all pure social intercourse- must rervolve. Crime is the ever-present enemy of civilisation, and it is anti-social in its very nature. It is necessary, therefore, to study the criminal in order to find a remedy for and a preventive of his crime. Mr Irying clears the ground by a preliminary statement. He recalls a conversation between his father and Tennyson, when they sat up talking to a late hour. The poet remarked that he ha 3 not kept suoh late hours since a recent visit of Jowett; and upon Henry Irving inquiring what subject had so engrossed the poet- and the philosopher, Tennyson replied promptly and succinctly: "Mnrders." Upon this Mr Irying comments:—

The fact is a tribute to tho interest I that crime has for many man of intellect ] and imagination. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? Rob history and fiction of crime, how tamo and colourless would bo tho residue? We ■who are living and enduring in the presence of one of the greatest Crimea an record must realise that, trying as this period of tho world's history is to those who are passing through it, in tho hands of some great historian it way make very good reading for posterity. ' Perhaps wo may find somo little consolation in this fiact, like the unhappy victims of famous freebooters such a 8 Jaok Shcppard or Charley Peace. But do not lei us flatter ourselves. Do not let us, in all the pomp and circumsfcanccs of stately history, Hind ourselves to tho fact that the crimes of Frederick or Napoleon, or their successors, ore in essence no different than those of Sheppard or of Peace. We must not imagine that tho bad man who happens to offend a>f*ninst these particular laws whioh constitute the criminal code belongs to a peculiar or atavistic type, that he is a man sot apart from the rest of his fellow men by mental or physical ipecuTiartties. That comforting theory of the Lombroao school has been exploded, and tho ordinary inmates of oar prisons shown to be only in a very slight degree below tho average in mental and physical fitness of the_ normal man, a dHTcronco easily explained! by tho environment and conditions in which the ordinary crminal is bred. A certain English judge, asked as to tho general characteristics of the prisoners tried before him, said: "They are just like other people; in fact, I often thmk fhn&, but for different opportunities «nd other accidents, the prisoner and I very well bo in one another's places." "Greed, love of pkmsnre," writes a French judge, "lust, idleness,

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angor, hatred, revenge, those aro the chief causes o£ crime. These passions and desires are shared by rich and poor alike, by the educated and uneducated. They aro inherent in human nature; tho germ is in every man."

Convicts represent those wrong-doers who have taken to a particular form of wrong doing punishable by law. Of tho larger army of bad. men they represent a minority, who have been found out in a particularly unsatisfactory kind of miscorufuct. Thero are- many men, some lying, unscrupulous, dishonest, others cruel, selfish, vicious, who go through lifo without ever doing anything that brings thein within the scopo of the criminal code, for whose offences the laws of society provide no punishment. And so it is with somo of the heroes of history who have been made the theme of fine writing by gifted historians. Mr Irving suggests a companion volume to the present work dealing with tho great criminals of history, which "might do something towards restoring that balance of moral judgment in historical transactions for the possession of which wo are suffering to-day." Ho quotes, as pertinent to the subject a saying of John Stuart Mill to this effect: "In sober truth nearly all the things for which men are hangedl or imprisoned for doing to one another are Nature's everyday performances"; and also another passago by the same writer: "The courso of natural phenomena being replete with everything which when committed by human beings is most worthy of abhorrence, anyone who endeavoured in his actions to imitate the natural cause of things would be universally 6cen and acknowledged to be the wickedest of men." This provides Mr Irving with a text for the following comment: — Here is explanation enough for the pre-

sence of evil in our natures, that instinct to destroy which finds comparatively harmless expression in certain forms of taking life, 'which is at its worst when we fall to taking each other's. It is to check an inconvenient form of the expression of this instinct that we punish murderers with death. We must carry the definition of murder a step further before we can count on peace or happiness in this world. We must concentrate all our strength in fighting the criminal element in nature, both in ourselves and in the _ world around us. With the destructive forces of nature we are waging a perpetual struggle for our very existence. Why dissipate our strength by fighting among ourselves? By enlarging our conception of crime we move towards that end. What is anti-social, whether it be written in the pages of the historian, or those of tho Newgate Calendar, must in the future be regarded with equal abhorrence and subjected to equally sure punishment. Every professor of history should now and then climb down from the giddy heights of _ Thucvdides and Gibbon and restore his moral balance by comparing the acts of some of his puppets with those of their less fortunate brethren who have dangled at the end of a rope._ IE this war is to moan anything to posterity, the crime against humanity must be_ jixfged in the future by the same rigid standard; as the crime against the person. Tho setting up of an international tribunal by which are to bo judged the crimcs against humanity involves a tremendous departure from anything which has obtained in the past amongst the nations. Faced by the rapid approach of a departure so grave and serious, which is likely to involve the life, and 1 certainly the fortunes of men who have hitherto ranked as among the great ones of the earth, it is certainly helpful to study tho gallery of criminal portraits collected by Mr Irving in this book; and the study is likely to be doubly helpful if conducted with the consciousness and_ under the influence of tho all-pervading spirit of Christmas.

Tho opening stu<Jy by Mr Irving is Charles Peace, burglar and murderer, " the one _ great personality among English criminals of tne nineteenth century," who was to that century what Claude Duval, Dick Tnrpin, and Jack Sheppard wore to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but devoid of tho picturesque setting and romantic background of the earlier period. Mr Irving entered upon this study with all the more zest, since Charles Pence hns been denied the place in the Dictionary of National Bioffraphy accorded to manv other famous criminals from Duval downwards. Seeking a reason for the omission Mr Irving discovered that "in the strict order of alphabetical succession the biography of Charles Peaco wonld have followed immediately on that of George Peabody" and he humorously _ suggests that to make the philanthropist Peabody rub shoulders with man's constant enemy Peace -would be too blaring a contrast. Thus this "Life of Charles Peace" must be counted the first authentic and complete biographical sketch madfe public, and" ft it certainly a most remarkable and sensational narrative. Ono or two of the biographer's comments are worth quoting:— Had Peace flourished in 1914 instead of 1874 his end nugnt have been honourable instead of dishonouitabie, The war of to-day has no doubt saved many a m>in from a criminal career by turning to worthy acoount qualities which, dangerous in crime, are useful in war. Absolute fearlessness, agility, resource, cunning, and determination: all these are admirable qualities in the soldier, and all these C'harles Peace possessed in a signal degree. But fate denied him opportunity; he became a burglar and died on the scaffokL Years of prison life failed, as they did in those days, to make any impression for good on one resolute in whatever way he ohose to go. Peaco was a born fighter. ... And so we must accept Charles Peace as a remarkable character, whose unquestioned gifts as a man of action were squandered on a criminal career; neither better nor worse than a great number of other persons, whose, good fortune it has been to develop similar qualities under happier surroundings. There are many more complete villains than the ordinary criminal who contrive to go through life without offending against the law. . . In intellectual capacity Charles Peace was undoubtedly above the average of the ordinary criminal. The facls of his career, his natural gifts, speak for themselves. Of anti-social proclivities he no doubt possessed his share at the beginning, and these were aggravated, as in most cases thejr were in his day, by prison life and discipline. Judged as scientifically as is possible where the human being is concerned, Peace stands out physically and intellectually well above the average of his class, perhaps the most naturally gifted of all those who, without advantage of rank and education, have tried their hands at crime. Ordinary crime for the most part would appear to be little better than the last resort of the intellectually defective and a poor game at last. The only interesting criminals are those worthy of something better. Peace was one of these. If his life may be said to point a moral, it is tho very simple one that crime is no career for a man of brains.

Mt Irving's second subject, "The Career of Robert Butler," will be read with interest because of the care and completeness which characterise the sketch. Mr Irving says of Butler, the Dtmedin murderer, that his career as criminal and his natural wickedness " may well _ rank him with Charles Peace in the hierarchy of scoundrels." The ensuing comparison brings out most tellingly the points of resemblance and of contrast in the two men: —

Like Peace, Butler was, in tho jargon of crime, a " hatter," a " lone hand," a solitary who conceived and executed his nefarious designs alone: like Peace, he supplemented an insignificant physique by a liberal employment of tho revolver; like Peace, he was something of a rausioian (the day before' his execution he played hymns for half an hour on the prison organ); iiko Peace, he knew when to whine when it suited his purpose; and Irke Peace, though not with the same intensity, ho could bo an mi comfortably persistent lover when tho fit was on him. Both men were cynics in their way, and viewed their follow men with a mca-sure of contempt. But here parallel ends. Butler was an intellectual, inferior as a craftsman to Peace, tho essentially practical, unread, naturally gifted artist. Butler was a man of books. Ho had been schoolmaster, journalist. He ha-d shurTied the lives of great men. and as «. criminal had devoted special attention to those of Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Butler's defence in the Ttomcrlrn murder trial was a feat of skill rruito bevond the power of Peace. Peace was a religions mail after tile fn.chion of the medieval tvrant: Butler an infidel. Peace, dragged into thr» Tight of a court of justice, cut a sorry figure: Butler shone. Pence escaped a conviction for mnrder bv Inttfnc another suffer in his place; Butler escaned a simitar experience W the slieer intremiitv of his dofnnec. Peic" had tlie modestv and reticence of the smcer" nW'-t.; Butler the loqnacious vani'fc*. nf the Titentrv or farcnsio cosxxanb. sod 3b is

difference, Butler was a murderer by instinct and oonviction, as Lacenaire or Buloflt; "a man's life," he said, "was of no more importance than a dog's; Nature respects the one no more than the other, a volcanic eruption kills mice and men with the one hand. The Divine command : ' Kill, kill, and spare not,' was intended not only for Joshua but for men of all time; it is the example of our rulers, our Fredericks, and Napoleons."

Butler was of the true Prussian mould. " In. crime," he would &ay, "as in war, no half-measures. Let us follow tho example of our rulers whose orders in war run: ' Kill, burn, and sink, and what you cannot carry away destroy.' " Here is the doctrine of frightfulness applied almost prophetically to crime. To Butler murder was a principle of warfare; to Peace it was never more than a desperate resort or an act the outcome of ungovernable passion.

For his third subject Mr Irving goes to France in the eighteenth century, and gives an absorbing account of the crimes perpetrated in Paris by Derues, the poisoner. Here the diabolical nature of the crime is only equalled by the savagery of the sentence.' Prior to his execution IDerues was tortured bv the "boot" to extort a confession; he was then broken on the wheel before being burnt alive; and his ashes, scattered to the winds, " were picked up eagerly by the mob, reputed, as in England the pieces of the hangman's rope, talismans." And this happened less than a century and a-half since.

Tho crime of Dt Castamg, the fourth subject in the book, belongs to the beginning of the nineteenth century. "It is not often, happily," writes Mr Irving, " that a young man of gentle birth and good education is a double murderer at 26. And such a soft, humble, insinuating young man, too! Good to his mother, good to his mistress, fond of his children, kind to his parents. Yet this gentle creature can deliberately poison his two friends. Was ever such a contradictory fellow? 3 ' Mr Irving goes to America for his nest two oases—viz., Professor Webster and " The Mysterious Mr Holmes." Webster's crime, the murder of Dr George Parkman, commonly known as* " the -! Boston tragedy," is chiefly remarkable because of its slight incentive and because it took place in academic circles. Holmes was a murderer on a wholesale scale, and was equally daring as liar and bigamist. "The weak spot in ' Holmes's armour as an enemy of society was a dangerous tendency to loquacity, the defect r,o doubt of his qualities of plausible and insinuating address and ever-ready mendacity " .France furnishes the remaining criminals in Mr Irving's catocrory—namely the Widow Gras, Vitalis and Marie Boyor, the Fenayrou case, and Eyraud and Bompajd. Grouped under the heading of "Partnershro in Crime," it is noticeable that in each instance one of the partners is a woman. The conclusion reached after a perusal of a book more absorbing than the most sensational novel is that, while the criminal is a contradiction of the Christmas spirit, yet m the diffusion of tho Christmas spirit Res the real and pasting cure of criminality. The criminal is at war with society, bnfc the coming of Christmas spells peace, bringing with it that diffusion of general goodwill which renders tho criminal an anachronism and the perpetration of crime a practical impossibility.