QUEER PEOPLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18759, 12 January 1923, Page 8

QUEER PEOPLE

ASI SEEN GY A GREAT DETECTIVE. “When a real detective sits down to tell us a chapter or two from the story of his life, he can be sure of an eager audience,” says tho London Daily telegraph, reviewing “Queer People, ’ “and Sir Basil Thompson is a detective of high degree. In his book wo have the official expert's account of his cases through some crowded years. Sir Basil took charge of the Criminal Investigation Department in June, 1910, in succession to tho late Sir Melville Macnaghten. He came with a wide acquaintance among criminals, chiefly those of tho professional class, for as Governor of Dartmoor he had been in charge ct 1200 of them. His einerience has not led him to favour any very subtle theories about the causes of crime. He will not even accept tho familiar doctrine ‘that there is an almost invariable tendency on the part of criminals to repeat the method in which they have been successful on a former enterprise. . . ■ Most of the practitioners vary their methods according to local conditions. You will find the blackmailer taking an occasional hand in a burglary ; a pick-pocket indulging in shoplifting; an area thief boldly breaking in through the front door.’ ” MURDERER NOT A CRIMINAL BY NATURE.

“Among ooriminals Sir Basil does not include the murderer.

‘When you read of crime in the magazines or the detective novels it is /nearly always murder. You have to be in'charge of a prison in order to realise that the murderer is rarely a criminal by nature et nil. But for the grace of God he is. just as you and I, only more unlucky. For the real criminal you have to go to the crimes against property. Most murders are committed without any deep-laid plot, whereas the professional thief or forger or fraud has carefully planned his depredations before he sets out to commit them. The murderer is repentant and is planning only how ho can earn an honest hying after he is discharged; the others are thinking out schemes for fresh adventures.’_ “It is rash, for the layman to criticise the specialist, but surely there is a fallacy in this argument. The murderers with whom tho governor of a convict prison becomes acquainted must in tho nature of things bo a select party. The ordinary 'murderer does not go to Dartmoor, but tho scaffold. Those whose lives are spared cannot bq' fair examples of tho psychology of murder.

“We are shown some wonderful photographs of tho workshops of crime, the machinery of ‘a note forger’s den,’ whore technically admirable copies of tho first issue of Treasury notes wore manufactured, and tho apparatus of a modern Fagin in ‘a receiver’s shop which contained the proceeds of more than 60 burglaries.’ It looks like an exhibition of objects of bigotry and virtue.’

“Some of tho criminals of peace, wo read without surprise, were heroes of war. ‘ln oho case a man who hod been convicted for burglary won. the Victoria Cross,’ and well deserved it. After his Cross waJ won ho wont back to the front and was killed in action. Sir Basil describes him as ‘a rough, silent Lancashire lad who had come to grief, I believe;* through a love of adventure, and 'riho was as free from egotism, pose, and self-consciousness as any of the men I knew.’

A GREAT COUP.

“The greater part of the book is given to Sir Basil’s own war sendee as chief of the special branch which dealt with tho enemy secret service. It began by a coup, the credit of which is given to ‘ a subdepartmont of the War Office directed by officers of groat skill. They had known for some lime /that one Karl Gustav Ernst, a barber in the Caledonian road, who was technically a British subject was tho collecting centre for British espionage. . . . Altogether his correspondents numbered a2. They were scattered all over the country at naval afed military centres, and all of them were German. The law in peace time was inadequate for dealing with them, and there was tho danger that if our action was precipitate the Germans would hear of it and send fresh agents about whom we might know nothing; it was decided to wait until a state of war existed before arresting them. On . August 5 tho orders went out. , Twentvono out of the 22 were arrested simultaneously. One eluded arrest by embarking for Germany.’ “The result was, first, to secure secrecy for tho mobilisation and despatch of the 8.E.F.; secondly, to inflict an injury on the Gorman Intelligence Department, from which it never recovered. ' “Sir Basil has much to toll of the German agents who did subsequently make their way into England, some of them like Carl Hans Lody and Fernando Buschman, gallant and honourable men ; some hirelings of the basest type. His account of their methods and their ' defection will suggest to students ot history that a spy of any useful ability was as rare in the war of 1914-1918 as in the wars .of the past. Perhaps the case of, the ‘Swedish’ stoker may bo cited uatypical. He acted the part well, he almost imposed on Sir Basil and then, having been removed to the police station cells, he to call to a companion in Gernian, and in German conducted a conversation. . , “Those who wish to probe further mto the manner of the killing of Rasputin will find an elaborate account. The deed,' was done, according to Sir Basil, because Rasputin revealed that the Czar was to separate peace on January 1, **■ ** Basil also reports that tho Czar P®™? seemed more cheerful than when ho heard of Rasputin’s death. PUBLICITY THE BEST WEAPON. “Tho special branch was rather more closely concerned with home affairs, and next in importance to counter-espionage came tho prevention of sabotage in munition works Sir Basil Thomson has no conclusive evidence of any serious attempt and ho limits himself to the statement that it would’not bo safe to say that none of the accidents that took place during the war was caused by sabotage. Ho plamh has his suspicions about a fire and explosion in Lancashire and an explosion at Arklow, but his most elaborate examination of evidence is in the case of the d.sns. ter and his conclusion is that, vhilo tne facts wero consistent with sabotage, there was no proof; and the case of Silvertown must remain among tho mysteries of tho "'‘‘The book closes with an account from the point of view of the chief of the sp«ual branch ot tho industrial the Armistice and the condition of Russia. Sir Basil holds that m England, at any rate, ‘publicity has been the best weapon of defence against the forces of disorder ard apparently ho never beliei eel m the possibility of a general strike. As for Russia, ho holds that nothing can be done there till tho Communist power is vanqmsnod and he does not believe that any .change of heart of Lenin’s will alter the existing conditions of anarchy and terror.