CONVICT WHO STUDIED CRIMINOLOGY.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13413, 10 May 1912, Page 8

CONVICT WHO STUDIED CRIMINOLOGY.

Before Lord Guthrie, in the High Court at Glasgow, two men of respectable appearance, xia.rrjed John Thomson and Robert O'Neii, were charged with stealing a jacket from a pawnbroker's sale room in Bedford street on a recent date Thomson admitted the charge, and O'Neii was convicted by a majority of the jury.

Asked by Lord Guthrie if he had anything to-say, Thomson addressed the Court at great length. He said that when last released from prison he began business as a tailor and dealer in Bridgeton, and his promises became a sort of released prisoners'' rendezvous. Thoro j woro few prisoners came out of Peterhead but visited his shop. He carried tho business on until August last, and then got work in Clydebank, where he remained until two hours prior .to his arrest. In refernce to the theft, prisoner described it as a trivial, trashy, despicable act, which ho ascribed to want of sleep and too -much stroug' drink. Ho had had nine previous convictions, and five sentences of penal servitude in succession. He studied criminal reformation, and had read all tho works on tho subject. It was his opinion that long days in the cell wore not ?„ cure, and long periods of imprisonment wero not reform a tx-y. On the other hand, ho found that men who had been in prison and undergone flogging never committed another offence, and never returned to prison. The act to which ho had pleaded guilty was not dons of Ms-free will, but was an act of sub-consciousn«s's. In closing, prisoner expressed the hope that the Court would not bo so unforgiving as to let him losa this,, his last chance.

His Lordship said he had considered all that prisoner had said, and also had s<?en evidence of what ho had been doing in prison in tho way of cortain writings that showed decided mechanical ingenuity, but he was afraid that was a very double-edged view. Prisoner's ; present position was due to drink, which originaly took him there and kept him, there for 23 years, and into which !he fell when over he got out again. Ho was 51 years of ago, and had been about 23 yoars in prison. In the ordinary oourso ho should have 10 years' imprisonment, but his . Lordship would make it fivo ypars' penal servitude instead. Addressing O'Neill, Lord Guthrio'said his record was a vary bad one, and he would repeat- his previous sentencQ of. five years' penal servitude.