A CAREER OF CRIME.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2156, 22 January 1881, Page 3

A CAREER OF CRIME.

By the execution of William Joseph Distin in Bristol the State may be said to have abandoned in despair all attempts to reclaim an irreclaimable criminal. The Bristol murderer was one of that numerous class, “the failures of society.” Fourteen years ago he made bis first appearance before the magistrates on a charge of violently assaulting his own father, and the three months’ hard labor to which he was sentenced appears to have kept him in order for three years. In 1869 he was fined for being drunk and incapable. In the next year he attempted to commit suicide, but faded. After another three years’ absence his appearances at the Police Court began to be more frequent. In 1872 he was twice " drunk and disorderlyin 1873 he was four times up for assaulting the police when drunk, and on two of these occasions he was also charged with assaulting bis mother. In 1874 he was sentenced to hard labour for assaulting his sister Emily ; and in 1876 to a similar term of punishment for assaulting his sister Bosa. In 1877 he took to stealing, but this apparently was his only theft. For nearly eighteen months after his release ho kept out of the hands of the police, but in December, 1879, he broke loose again. After twice being drunk and disorderly he stabbed his paramour in the face in June, and was sentenced to three months’ hard labour. Almost immediately after his release he went back to his mistress and murdered her. After having been sent to gaol thirteen times, without being improved by the process, be has at last been hanged. Ho will trouble the police no more, but the confession of failure involved in resorting to such a resource is none the less humiliating on that account. — “ Pall Mall Gazette.”