The "wire-tapping" game consisted in inducing the victim to put up money for the purpose of betting upon a "sure thing," knowledge of which the thief pretended to have secured by "tapping" a Western Union wire of advance news of the races. He usually had a "lay out" which included telegraph instruments connected with a dry battery in an adjoining closet, and would merrily steal the supposed news off an imaginary wire and then send his dupe to play his money upon the "winner" in a pretended pool-room which in reality was nothing but a den of thieves, who instantly absconded with the money.
In this way one John Felix was defrauded out of fifty thousand dollars on a single occasion.[5] Now the simplest legislation could instantly remedy this evil and put all the "wire-tappers" and similar swindlers out of business, yet a bill framed and introduced in accordance with the suggestion of the highest court in the State was defeated. Instead the legislature passes scores of entirely innocuous and respectable acts like the following, which became a law in 1890:
An Act for the Prevention of Blindness
Section 1. Should ... nurse having charge of an infant ... notice that one or both eyes of such infant are inflamed or reddened at any time within two weeks after its birth it shall be the duty of such nurse ... to report the fact in writing within six hours to the health officer or some legally qualified practitioner of medicine ...
Section 2. Any failure to comply with the provisions of this act shall be punished by a fine not to exceed one hundred dollars, or imprisonment not to exceed six months, or both.
The criminal law which had its origin when violence was rife is admirably adapted to the prevention, prosecuting and punishment of crude crimes, such as arson, rape, robbery, burglary, mayhem, assault, homicide, and "common-law" larceny,—theft accompanied by a trespass. In old times everything was against the man charged with crime—at least that was the attitude of the court and jury. "Aha!" exclaims the judge as the evidence goes in. "You thought you were stealing only a horse! But you stole a halter as well!" And the spectators are convulsed with merriment.
We take honest pride in the protection which our law affords to the indicted prisoner. It is the natural expression of our disapproval of a system which at the time of our severance from England ignored the rights of the individual for those of the community. We touched the lips of the defendant and gave him the right to speak in his own behalf. We gave him an unlimited right of appeal on any imaginable technicality.[6] But while we have been making it harder and harder to convict our common criminals, we have to a very great extent failed to recognize the fact that all sorts of new and ingenious crimes have come into existence with which the law in its present state is utterly unable to cope. The evolution of the modern corporation has made possible larcenies to the punishment of which the law is entirely inadequate. "Acts for the prevention of blindness" are perhaps desirable, but how about a few statutes to prevent the officers of insurance companies from arbitrarily diverting the funds of that vague host commonly alluded to as "widows and orphans"? The careless nurse is a criminal and may be confined in a penitentiary; while perhaps a man who may be guilty of a great iniquity and known to be so drives nonchalantly off in his coach and four.
What is crime? We may well ask the question, only eventually to be confronted by that illuminating definition with which begins the Penal Code—"A crime is an act or omission forbidden by law and punishable upon conviction by ... penal discipline." Let us put on our glasses and find out what these acts or omissions are. When we have done that we may begin to look around for the criminals. But it will be of comparatively little assistance in finding the sinners.
So-called criminologists delight in measuring the width of the skulls between the eyes, the height of the foreheads, the length of the ears, and the angle of the noses of persons convicted of certain kinds of crimes, and prepare for the edification of the simple-minded public tables demonstrating that the burglar has this kind of a head, the pickpocket that sort of an ear, and the swindler such and such a variety of visage. Exhaustive treatises upon crime and criminals lay down general principles supposed to assist in determining the kind of crime for which any particular unfortunate may have a predilection. One variety of criminal looks this way and another looks that way. One has blue eyes, the other brown eyes.[7] Some look up, others look down. My friend, if you examine into the question, you will probably discover that the clerk who sells you your glass of soda water at the corner drug store will qualify for some one of these classes, so will your host at dinner this evening, so, very likely, will the family doctor or the pastor of your church.
The writer is informed that there has recently been produced an elaborate work on political criminals in which an attempt is made to set forth the telltale characteristics of such. It is explained that the tendency to commit such crimes may be inherited. You are about as likely to inherit an inclination to commit a political crime as you are to derive from a maiden aunt a tendency to violate a speed ordinance or make a "disbursing" noise.
Let some one codify all the sins and meannesses of mankind, let the legislatures make them crimes and affix appropriate penalties, then those of us who still remain outside the bars may with more propriety indulge ourselves in reflections at the expense of those who are not.