seem like a paradox; but I am inclined to think that our non-success in putting down actual crime and wickedness which do not come within range of the law arises from the fact that our jurists have not made a proper study of the criminal nature.  Grod made the cobra, the cruel wolverine, and the thrice-cruel tiger; we study the animals and deal with them adequately; but some of us do not study our human cobras and wolverines and tigers.  I scarcely ever knew of a case of a convict who would not moan about his own injuries and his own innocence.  Even when these men, whose criminality is ingrained, are willing to own their guilt, they will always contrive to blame the world in general and society in particular.  It is almost amusing to hear a desperate thief, who seems no more able to prevent himself from rushing on plunder than a greyhound can prevent itself from rushing on a hare, complaining that employers will not trust him.  It is useless to say, “What can you expect?” The scoundrel persists in crying out against a hard world which drove him to be what he is.

Some ten years ago the arch-rascal among English thieves was living quietly in a London suburb; he used to solace himself with high-class music, and he was very fond of poetry.  This dreadful creature was a curious compound of wild beast and artist.  During the day he went about with an innocent air; and the very police who were destined to take him and hang him learned to greet him cordially as he passed them in his walks.  They thought he was “a sort of high-class tradesman.”  Now, when this cheery little man with the decent frock-coat and the clean respectable air was sauntering on the margin of the breezy heath or walking up by-streets with measured sobriety, he was really marking down the places which he intended to plunder.  Here his trained pony should stand; here he would make his entrance; that bedroom door should be fastened inside; this lock should be picked.  The wild predatory beast drove the police to despair, for it seemed as if no human being could have performed the feats which came easy to the robber.  The hard earning of good men went to the rascal’s store; the cherished household gods, the valued keepsakes of innocent women were transferred callously to the melting-pot.  He went coolly into bedrooms where the inmates were asleep; had any one awaked, there would have been murder, and the murderer would have decamped long before the door could be broken open.  Now my point is this—­the wretch whom I have described never ceased to inveigh against the wrongs of society.  Two unhappy women served him faithfully and followed him like dogs; but he did not apply his theories in his treatment of them, for they were never without the marks of his brutality.  In the very presence of his bruised and beaten slaves he talked of his own virtues, of social inequality, of the tyranny of the rich, and he held to his belief in his own innate goodness after he had committed depredations to the extent of thousands of pounds, and even after he was answerable for two murders.  That man never knew himself a villain, and it was only when the rope was gradually closing round his neck that the keen sleuth-hound remorse found him out, and he had the grace to save an innocent man from a living death.  This monstrous hypocrite was another typical scoundrel, and his like people every prison in the country.