Edgar Wallace In a Pulpit

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17982, 29 March 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

Edgar Wallace In a Pulpit

Mr Edgar Wallace, the novelist, lectured on crime and its detection from the pulpit of Trinity Church, Glasgow. Every pew in the small, oaKraftered building, where the hymn hooks used at the last service still remained, was packed, and Mr Wallace’s Immaculate evening dress contrasted strangely with the sombre scheme of decoration. He said: Crime and women are the two subjects I know most about. I never talk •'about women because I do not think it is fair. I know ,so much about them that it would be a distinct breach of faith if I lectured on them. But other crimes . • (Laughter.) I have seen crimes from various angles. I have lived with criminals, and in 30 years’ experience as a newspaper reporter I have failed *to And anything that is in 'the slightest degree romantic in them. Crime is ugly. Criminals are stupid, treacherous, and dull people. The only really interesting criminals are those I write about in my book 6.

_ A Tip Ignored. Mr Wallace recalled the details of the Hay (Herefordshire) poisoning case, as' the result of which Major Armstrong was hanged, and said: Seventy-five per cent, of petty

crime is due to vanity or the desire of somebody to show off and all my port! orim.es have been committed for that reason. . , Two days before they, arrested Armstrong a reporter, who is usuallv on the side of the criminal, went to him and said, “If you have an! al ~ senic in your house take my tip and destroy it.” Yet when that man was arrested, he had two fatal doses of arsenic in his pocket, and that fac» hanged him. Mr Wallace continued: English and Scottish policemen can go up and up until they can be chief constables. In France and in Germany the (higher) officials are recruited from the young law students. They are not very often men who have any knowledge of the criminal classes. You can ony defeat the criminal by knowing him, not by theorising about him. You must know his name, his wife’s name, and the names of his , children, and how many children he has got. The old lag in London goes to the police officer in charge of his

DELIVERS SERMON ON CRIME AND WOMEN.

district for help and guidance in difficult times. But this does not mean that he has 'turned over a new leaf. I myself have had’many offers from criminals who wanted me to reform them, but I could never afford it. There is no means of reforming the habitual criminal except by hanging him or by' imprisonment for life- I have often wondered what I should do if I turned criminal. I have never Teen able to decide. Brands Scotland Never Knew. I have f recently been In the United States. I seemed to spend my time between the police stations and the morgues. I had not been in America five hours when you could not get in my room for the bottles of whisky my friends had sent me—brands that Scotland never knew. With regard to finger-prints, Mr Wallace said that only one person In a thousand has had his finger-prints taken, and no man has yet ’been convicted on the capital charge by his finger-prints alone.