COMMITTED WITHOUT QUALM.

North Otago Times, Volume CVII, Issue 17748, 17 March 1927, Page 2

COMMITTED WITHOUT QUALM.

Edgar

Wallace,

CONSCIENCE THAT BEGINS AT GALLOWf.

(By

in the "Sunday

Chronicle" ) . The remariiable s»tatement that; murderers have no consciences is made in this striking article by Mr Edgai "Wallace, the famous novelist and eriminologist Their minds are concentrated apon one vital piroblem — tlieir eafety. At the inquest on Edward Arthur Oreed, the victim of the Bayswater murdei , ' the coroner, Mr H. R . Osborne, commented that if a person was disoovered twenty-fiv© years henee to have committed a murder he might yeo be hanged. The person in this case, wnoever he was, might lay that to his conscience. _ "Conscience,': says Mr Wallace. "1 thmb not. Consc'-ence only begins working; in that kind of indiyidual when the liangman is packing lus bag and saying good-bye to his family before catching tlie train that will get him to Pontonville in daylight." An appeal by a coroner to the cc'iiscience of a- murderer oi murderers would in ordinary ctrcumstances have behind it an excellent reason But the Bayswater shop murder does not come mto the category of ' 'ordinary circumstanees,'.' because the type of crixne is oue of the iraresi Jn England. Murders or passion, mtirders (poisonings) for gain, and' murders of Vengeance committed in the heat of iealously ar© eommon enough, but ihe Bayswater crime belongs to the same class as the Deptford murders for which the brothers Stratton were hangted, th© Camhridgeshire murder, where the miscreant escaped from justic, and, to some extent, th© Donovan and Wade murders. RARE PROFESSIONALS. The unfortunate shopkeeper who was brutally done to death at" Bayswater obviously died at the hands of one qr tv/o criminals who had always been in the hands of the police — that is to say, ■fjxofcssional shop or office breakers. The care they took to avoid leaving finger prints in proof of this, and there are other circumsf.ances to snpport th© view that the murderers belong to the clasy- which fills our" prisons year in and year out. ■ ^ 'That, as 1 aay, iB m nnu'sual happening, for 80 per cent. of murderers are men and women who, until they made fcheir appearance in the dock, have never seen the interior of a police court except, perhaps, as spectators. Crippen, Armstrong, Seddon, Canham Read, Thorne. and Bywaters. to name s few, were of this type. Mahon was an exception, but Hahon was a little mad Professionaj. housebreakers^ ^nd Eurglars are very seldom guilty of "offences against th© person," and that tliese Bayswater murderers were professional criminals admits of no douht. WHAT PRISON DOES. Anu no professional criminal is blessed with a conscience. Prison is the grand absolufcion for all sins and th© destroyed of all consciences — from the criminal' s point of view. This is tru©_ in a lar'gh degree of ithei smaller kind of larcenist, who never goes much beyond the nine month's hard labour stage, but it is completely true of men who hav© served penal servitude and have been inmates of one of our -penal establishments It m human'iy impossibie for ti man co have served five years in Pankhurst (foi example) and to have retained anything fin© in him, anless h© is a, man of exceptional cliaracter — and men of exceptipnal eharacter seldom go to Pankhurst or any other prison. Th© real horrors. ot prison life cannot be set down in celd print for general readi.ng, tbey "belong to the realms "of psychoi-pathology . ht. is sufficient to say tbat coiitact w.ich abysmal degradation atronhies that group of moral values which is Jcosely labelled ' 'conscience." AMTJSED REGRE1. I hhve vet to meat an habitual thief possessed of this quality. They speak amused iegret, but the regret is th© sam© as that which normal people experience when they are recalling the pleasant naughtiness of their past. Men who commit murder in cold blood, who set forth with the mtention of taking life^ ar© not, likely to be made uncomfortabl© by tbe stil! small , voice Not only that, but murderers who are temporarily sare have no rooni in their mental outfit for such frippery. • Their shallow minds are concentrated Ujion one vital problem — their safoty. Will so-and-so blab? Will this woman butray them, or that man lead the po! ice to« the right trail ? Every uniformed policeman they see is a rominder of their insecurity — every newspaper paragrapli about their crini© a new anxiety The men who slew Mr Creea whl. in all probability, read this artioie. and if my deductions ar© right will have causse for a new diseomfort BHADOW - OF THE SCAFFOLD If there. are two, the man who had Ieast to . do with' the murder (in all probability only one man struck the blow, and the other may be innoeent of any intention of eommitting the crime) will considei the pos'sibilitv of '•'turning i King's evideiice." , But conscience? I think not. CouAC.'snce only begins working in that kmd of indivduai when the hanrmar;. is packmg his bag and saying" gc.od-byo to his family before oatclunc: the train that will get him to Pcntonville In daylight. I* cannot remember a smgle cases whev© conscience has brought a murdrer to give himsslf up. I do not refer, of course, "to the typical woman-mur.d©rer wlio, it a fit o'f jealousy or temper, kills^ his wil© or paramour, and afier walking about the street? all nlgh'u marches _ to the nearest policeman and admits his gailt. He .is merely an aceidental murderer. To exreefc men of th©' sori who murdered Mr Creed to. follow a similar course is as fioolish as expecting a picknocket to writ© a learnecl treatise on the 'Ph.vchology of Crime."