THE SECRET MOTIVE OF SECRET SOCIETIES.

Waikato Times, Volume XX, Issue 1698, 24 May 1883, Page 4

THE SECRE T MOTIVE OF SECRET SOCIETIES.

The motives which impel ordinary men, and especially ordinary men without personal wrongs to avenge, to enter secret societies embodied with an intention to kill aic doubtless many and dneise ; but, siys thft Spectator, we take it, the dominant one in all is the desire for power. In » time and place of secret societies a stio.tg-willed man, full of a desire to be somebody, to be efficient, to exercise real .'.nd direct power, knows that if he outers such a society and rises high, his ambition will speedily lie gratified to the fullest extent. "With little money, no birth, and no ascendancy abroad, he may within and through the society exercise .1 power which, to him who wields it, mi ust seem tremendous, far transcending the power of any Minister or any geneul. The power, it must be reincmbeied is neeessai ily far gi eater in hib eyes than those of .any oulsideis. The world knows only his nets buthe Knows also lna own designs, and in their easy pio'-pccls of lealisation they appear to him like acts- He fotL in not killing, a-, it he had spaicd. The world sees that a man, possibly a great man, has fallen ; but the man who made him fall feels as if he ueic disfciibutiiig death and hfe.weie an arbiter of destiny,a potentate secictly wielding the lightning at his will. He feels almost like a deity. That -was, it is known, the feeling of Thomasscn the "monster" of Bremerhaven, who delighted in dining with passengers about to fail in ships which he had doomed by bis clock woik apparatus to sink in mid ocean ; and that is the attraction which, as all their confessions attest, has always carried away .successful poisoneis. They feel the sense of power in its most concentrated and ecstatic form, power over the issues of life and death, the power which, to whomsover it belongs, be he Cjesar or .Sultan, or ciiminal, sepaiates him utterly fiom his kind. The leading spirit of a seciet society enjoys that, and in a Inghci degiee than the poisoner, for he can act by othcis, an I even at a distance, and In-, volition docs not lliorefoie seem to him>elt impeded and weakened in its thundeibolt diameter by the small trickeiies and piecautions and petty efforts essential to the poisoner's success. He wills like a despot, and the victim falls. That is theluMiiy of the position, and we can only conceive that to men with a stioug thust for power — and that thirst is in some men the most intense of all ua\ ing- -with steady nerves and indiluted heaits, that fascination may be neaily n resistible, more especially as theie is added to it another, the fascination so so\creign wiih a large section of mankind — with one-half, for example, of all English gentlemen — the fascination of hunting game which may turn and rend them All the pvidence given at Kilinaiuliani suggests that when the assassins were hunting Mr Forster 01 Mr Diukc t lie dominant sense among them was that of being uigagul in a battue of a very large and \eiy dangeious game. Caicy in paiticulai tluoughoiit Ins nariative tells ot ins aiianging signals and giving signals, and maiking distances, and retiring to safe points of obscnation, exactly .is he would base told of some grand tigi-r hunt, in which be was so inteiested that no detail escaped him, yet in which it was expedient that the actual conflict -lioiild be left to stiongcr hands. Mr "Boswoith Smith, m his new ".Life of Loid Lawicncc, " tells how a petty prince oideiud an enemy to bu killed, and sent with the mui dei er a runner to aid or toiepoit. The man, uttcily faithful to the pi nice, saw the deed done, and ran ninety miles continuously to his master to lepoit success, was icccived with delight, and dismissed, and then — and then stooped down to l.iisc the caiptt pottUrc of his master's chamber, ccitain that he should hear the older for his own assassination. It came, as he expected, and he fled on fastei than the piince's horsemen to his own home in the mountains, to lelate the stoiy to .'ohn Lawrence. That piincp was but (Jaicy in another clime, and his older to his i miner would create m lus piineipality as little suipiise as it did in the runnel himself, who yet flew on to the betuij.il he knew to be fo ne.iily ccitiin. Why, under such cireiiinslancLS, confidence exists at all, while the lunnei .sencs the piince, why, in an liisli set let socu tj , anj one ti lists anyone else, is only to be explained by the belief each man enteitain.s that the catastrophe will m.t happen to him ; that he will be successful : ,'ind that, being successful, f.nth will be kept. 15nt the conscience? The conscience of the despot w lio is often mllicting unpist penalties docs not seem to wake while he is inflicting them, nor dtiestli.it of biig.inds. It there is one I lung ceifain in llic history of ciimc, it is that habitual minder acts like some poweilul ding as a stiqieficr to the conscience. The gieat poisoners have seldom betiayed a ti ace of it, or the great piiates, or the. great brigands. That it can wake, even in such men, we dimly belies c ; but it is slow to waken. The Thugs, who seem, while their career lasts, absolutely without ib, do, we believe, after years of their quiet, industrious seclusion — they all make tents for the ai my —show most distinct traces of it, tuices so deep that their experienced watchcis will not allow visitors to allude to their crimes ; but it wakes more slowly than in any class of criminals. It impels them to confession to an abstinence fi oin small crimes — a striking peculianty of the Thugs, as of many of the woist Flench Teuorists— but not till the stupefaction has passed away to personal remorse. We can offer no explanation of the phenomenon, except the very obvious one that no man in whom conscience was \igoious would join such a society, or the possible hypothesis that to such a man a human being does actually become, as it weie, game ; but of the fact there can be no question, and its existence is one more justification of the hoiror with which mankind legaids .such associations. We all know the tiemendous effect of opinion upon conscience, frequently almost stupefying it pciinanently ; and such associations, it would seem certain, generate within themselves an opinion under w Inch the sense of criminality in murder tlisappeais — an opinion, doubtless, helped by the internal law dooming every recalcitrant to death, and so producing the feeling that crime is not crime, but only obedience to irresistible necessity. Carey, as yet. is only anxious to defend himself from the charge of being " an infoimer." Years hence, the piessure on his conscience will be other than that ; but till then, theie is in all who take assassination as a work a blood drunkenness.

Lord Kame^ used to relate a story of a man \\ ho claimed the honour of his acquaintance on rather singular grounds. His lordship, whon one of the justiciary judges, returning from the North circuit to i'eitii, happened one night to sleep at Dunkeld. The next morning, walking towards the ferry, but fearing he had missed his way, he asked a man whom he met to conduct him. The other answered, with much coidiality. " That I will do with all my heart, my lord, Does not your lordship remember me ? My name's John X. ; I have had the honour to be bnfore your lordship for stealing sheep." " Oh, John, I remember you well ! And how is your wife ? She had the honour to be before me too for receiving them, knowing them to be stolen." "At your lordship's service. We were very lucky indeed to get off for want of evidence'; and I am still going on in the butcher's trade." " Then," replied his lordship, "we may have the honour of meeting again." A paw years ago Captain Boycott had to be escorted by a strong 1 military force from his house to the railway station on his way to England. He made a visit to America, and, finding no place like home, returned to his boycoHed house and set about the work ofanaking his peace with the people. He went at it so earnestly and, with such honest intention that he is how frco to go -where he please? without jpolioe protection,