NOVLE DEEDS OF CRIMINALS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2318, 4 August 1898, Page 49

NOVLE DEEDS OF CRIMINALS.

The late Charles Peace, of anything but blessed memory, was probably one of the most callous, incorrigible scoundrels who ever went to the gallow3 ; yet it is said of him thit he had a weak spot in his black heart loi the widow and the fatherless, whose needs he had been known to supply out of his illgotten gains while on many of his notorious burgling expeditions. But a case more in point was that of an American convict who, after being released from durance vile must needs forthwith qualify for reincarceration. Alter robbing a private dwelling house while the u&ual mmales were temporarily absent, he set fire lo the structure 111 order to destroy all evidence of its having been looted. The dwelling was soon well ablaze, and the thief wps making off when he heard the lusty voice of a child crying in the upper portion of the house. Every moment the flames became fiercer, but the criminal hesitated whether to fly or to rush upstairs and lescue the infdnt that vras evidently there. Another plaintive cry and he was bounding up the stairs, almost choked by the smoke. From one room he had to run to another before he could discover the object of his search, but finding the child at last he wrapped a blanket round it and essayed to descend.

By tins time, however, the flames had reached the stairs and cut off that means of egress, so there was no alternative but to descend from one of the windows. Seizing all the bedclothes he could lay his hands on, he hastily twisted and tied them &o as to form a rope, and having secured the one end to the leg of a bedstead, which he dragged close to the window, he slid down the rope to the ground. When he had committed the frightened child to the c;;re of a neighbour, he deemed it prudent to make off as speedily as possible, quite content that his noble act; of rescue should go unrecognised. It did not, however, go unrewarded, for a few days afterwards he was arrested for firing the dwelling and sentenced to a considerable term of imprisonment, which would hitve been a great deal longer but for the mitigating circumstances of the rescue.

One often hears that there is no such thing as honour among thieves, but actual facts point lo a different conclusion. Cases are not at 1 all rare in which criminals have elected to suffer all the consequences of their own and their accomplices' wrong-doing rather than betray the latter to the authorities, and thereby to some extent save their own skins. Some time ago an mM.'inee came to light in which a thief actually underwent a very severe punishment for an offence which he diJ not commit rather than disrlos-e the identity of the real perpetrator. The latter was a married man with a family, while his scapegoat, being a single man, "probably came to the conclusion that, there being no one dependent on him, hi 1 could best be spared to undergo whatever sentence might be meled out for the crime.

At any rate, having been arrested on sus})icion, he practically admitted his guilt in court, and was sentenced to a couple of years' hard labour for the offence — a serious case of housebrcaking. It was only some four years later, when the real delinquent fell into the hands of the police for the 'same kind of transgression, that he voluntarily acknowledged the authorship of the previous crime. A few years since the noble act of a criminal was reported from America. In a Western town an innocent-looking stranger had been arrested and put on his trial for the heinous offence of horse-stealing. Circumstances seemed to be all against him, for he hid been in the neighbourhood of the farm from which the animals had been stolen, and one was afterwards actually found in his possession. After evidence lo this effect had been given and the prisoner had over and over again denied lus imilk lie having according $0 his

own story, bought the horse in good faith and at a fair price, the jury t'olt coiusuuuied to icturn a verdict against liiru.

The judge was about to pass the usual sentence U,r tins pai titular oilence when a noto-rious-character roie in the court-room and remarked that he. gue*?ed what the stranger said was pretty nearly correct. On being a&lced to explain what he knew about the affair, he confessed that he himself was the thief, and that he had sold one of the horses to the prisoner, who bought it without the least suspicion that tho animal hdd been stolen.

That, of course, put .1 very different complexion on the caie, and "the self-accuser was forthwith invited to change places with the innocent occupant of the clock. This he did, remarking that he wished nobody but himself to suffer lor his misdeeds; but the jury were so much impressed by the handsonic manner in which he had " owned up " and saved them from wionging an innocent person, (hat (.hey unanimously requested the judge to inflict only a nominal punishment.

The request was acceded to, so the. culprit benefited to some extent from Ins noble action.