Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts

by Thomas Holmes

The study of human nature is always interesting, but to study a criminal is an engrossing task. Anyone who undertakes this had better have no preconceived ideas; if he has he will have much to unlearn, for no two criminals are alike. Prison is probably the worst place in which to study a criminal. He is then under control; his actions are not ordered by himself, but by others, and he must obey. He, naturally, wants to make the best of his imprisonment; he, therefore, behaves himself, and his true nature or his fatal passion is not exhibited. When a dipsomaniac is detained where it is not possible for the passion of drink to be gratified, that passion lies dormant; it seems extinct, and the man flatters himself that it is dead; but when he is again at liberty, the lust for drink springs into active and powerful life.

It is just so with the criminal. In prison there is no possibility for him to indulge in his particular crime, therefore the lust for that crime is for the time being non-existent; but with liberty his lust again awakes, and the criminal finds, like the dipsomaniac, that not in protected retirement, but in full liberty, with every temptation around, and every possibility of falling, comes the time of danger; then the battle has to be fought and the victory won, if it is to be fought at all or ever won. At liberty I have seen such men; when at liberty I have made friends of them, the shelter of my own house has not been denied them, and I have had unique opportunities of studying them, and of trying to find out what it is that leads an industrious and skilled man again and again to the perpetration of crime.

The idle, loafing criminal has no attraction for me. I like him not, and have neither time nor effort to waste on him; but for the intelligent and industrious criminal I feel some degree of pity. I speak with such men, and find that they not only know right from wrong, but they can also weigh the consequences of their crime; moreover, they know perfectly well that criminality does not pay, and never will pay them. Further, many of them, in spite of repeated conviction, have earnest desires to do right. Again, a frightful tragedy is compressed into the life of a human being who earnestly wishes to do right, and yet is compelled by some inward power to do wrong, absolutely wrong, even to the perpetration of serious crime. Take the case of a really industrious man, who has trained ability that enables him to lead a comfortable life, and who, moreover, respects himself, and enjoys the respect of others, a man who loves Nature and liberty, and likes to do kind actions and good turns to other people. When such a man foregoes business, home, comfort, liberty, and the opportunity of doing kind deeds for the sake of indulgence in one particular crime, especially when that crime—if undetected—can bring him but trumpery gain, what doubt can there be but that the criminal is possessed of some kind of mania?

Kleptomania, dipsomania, and homicidal mania by no means exhaust the category of criminal manias that affect humanity. I have noticed for years that many criminals are charged again and again with a repetition of one kind of offence. Some people are born thieves, and will steal on any and every occasion possible anything they can lay their hands on; but the men and women I have in mind are altogether of a different class, and limit their thefts to one particular article, never stealing any other, and, what is more important, never feeling any inclination or temptation to steal any other article or class of goods.

Only a short time back an exceedingly well-dressed man stood in the dock at North London charged with stealing a watch from a jeweller’s shop. He was of middle age, and quite intellectual in appearance. His frock-coat with silk facings, his silk hat, gloves, etc., all combined to make him as unlike a criminal as possible; yet when arrested with the watch in his possession, he told the police at once that he was well known at Scotland Yard; and so it proved, for there were nine convictions against him. He had been at liberty for over two years, and had lived honestly. His father, who was exceedingly well-to-do, and was much respected in his profession before he retired from business, allowed him sufficient money monthly to live upon. In conversation with him, I learned his father’s address and the address where he himself had been living. I wrote to his father, and the reply I got was full of pity and love. He had no hard words of condemnation to say about his son; he was very sorry, but he could not understand his son’s inexplicable mania for stealing watches. There was no necessity for him to steal a watch. His father had provided him with one, and allowed him a sufficiency of money, for he was not in poverty. I saw the people with whom he lodged, and they spoke in the highest terms of him. For two years he had lived with them, and had won their esteem and love; they had not the least idea that he had ever been convicted. Yet eight times he had been convicted for watch-stealing. His first offence was stealing a watch when quite a young man. After his discharge, his friends got him an appointment on a ship making long voyages, and he was away two years. No sooner does he come back to England, than again he is in trouble for watch-stealing, an offence that he has repeated so often that now, when over forty years of age, he finds himself in prison for the ninth time for the same offence. He sat crying in the cell after his last conviction, when I called him to me and begged of him to tell me why he stole watches. He could not speak for a time, and then he said: ‘I don’t know, indeed I don’t. Yesterday I was a happy man, and now I am here.’ ‘But tell me how it happened.’ ‘All I can tell you,’ he said, ‘is that as I was going along the street and passing the jeweller’s shop, something said to me, “Go in and get a watch! Go in and get a watch!” and I had to go in and get one.’ But he got it in such an unspeakably clumsy and blundering way that it was impossible for him to escape arrest.

Now, this man is a type of many; for to my knowledge there are large numbers of criminals who commit but one sort of offence, and are in every other direction honest and decent citizens. Here is a good-looking middle-aged woman whom I have known for years, and who twenty times at least has been sent to varying terms of imprisonment. An incorrigible shoplifter she is called, and so I thought her till I came to understand her. Repeatedly as she was charged, the pathos of the whole thing grew upon me; for her silence in the dock and her tears in the cells were irresistible, so we became friends, and she told me her secret. When she came out of prison I found her decent lodgings, hired a sewing-machine, and secured her plenty of work. She was not idle, and was soon beyond the necessity of stealing. I flattered myself we were on the way to success, and I said to her, ‘Your devil shall be cast out!’ when all of a sudden the old offence was repeated, and again to prison she went. My heart went out to the wretched woman as she sat weeping in the cell. I could not condemn her, for I knew. With a piteous look into my face she said, ‘Don’t blame me, Mr. Holmes, don’t blame me; I can’t help it. I would if I could, but I must steal boots.’ Knowing this, I had provided her liberally with boots to minimize the temptation, but all in vain; so far as I could ascertain she had not stolen anything but boots. I determined to try a new plan with her, so when she had served her term I sent her into the country to work I had secured for her, hoping that change of scene and air might have a good influence. She wrote me several letters, and sent me flowers and fruit, but in every letter she wrote me boots were referred to, and in one, otherwise lucid, she mentioned them without much reason four times. She was not in need of boots, and though I knew it was not of much use, I sent her a pair, but they did not prevent her from stealing others, and far away from London she was sent to a month’s imprisonment. And so I suppose it will go on to the end of the chapter, for she came back to London, and though I have not seen her since, and have heard but once from her, I have not the slightest doubt that she is in prison for her old and oft-repeated offence.

But other manias, and much more dangerous and serious than watch or boot stealing, exist, as I have found out to my sorrow. Seven years ago a little man was waiting for me outside the police court. He wanted a helping hand, he said, and had been advised to come to me. I looked at him, and saw at once that he had character and backbone. He was about five feet four in height, slightly built, and straight as an arrow, evidently full of nervous energy, but his eyes told me plainly that he had spent many years in prison. ‘What was your last stretch?’ I said to him. ‘Fifteen years!’ ‘Burglary?’ ‘Yes.’ I knew by his sentence that it was not his first term by any means, and on inquiry I found that though only forty years of age he had been sentenced to more than twenty-five years’ imprisonment and penal servitude at different times for burglary. He had been released in May, and it was now the end of June. With his gratuity he had bought a decent suit of clothes. He had, he said, tramped London over to look for work, and now he found himself footsore, helpless, and penniless. He’d had enough of prison; he did not want to go back there. I looked closely at him and felt the dint of pity, for I saw he had industry and talent. So I gave him my hand, telling him that it should not be my fault if ever again he saw the inside of a prison’s walls.

The redemption of that promise cost me much, but it taught me much; it has shown me how good and evil exist side by side, and it has taught me that tenderness, pity, and love may dwell in the heart of the fearless criminal. It has taught me how hopeless is the lot of the released criminal unless personal friendship be accorded him. He was a bookbinder, and I could not get him work. He had a wife, and it was expensive work keeping the pair. He was anxious to work, and my failure to procure it disheartened him. I wrote scores of letters for him, and made calls upon some firms, but no one would have him. ‘Not in the union!’ said some. ‘Discharging hands!’ said others. ‘Could not have a man like that at any price!’ said a third. ‘It’s no use,’ he said bitterly; ‘you see you can’t get me work. I shall have to go back to it.’ I found a way out of the difficulty by buying him tools and materials, and setting him up in business for himself. He was a splendid workman, who could not do a slovenly job. I and my sons kept him going for a month, and then, having various specimens of his work, we canvassed for orders, and work became plentiful. But I learned much in that canvassing. I called upon a number of very good religious people—indeed, their goodness almost overpowered me, so effusive were they in their good wishes and promises of work—work that never came save in two instances, when it was expressly stipulated that I should myself fetch away and return the work to them when it was finished, and I was positively to keep their address secret; they were afraid of being burgled. Yet they had shaken hands with me and said, ‘God bless you, God bless you in your efforts for the poor fellow!’ When I returned the work, they complained about the price. So I charged them less, and made it up myself. They were not prepared to risk much more than prayers on his salvation.

I was glad when work became plentiful, and such customers could be dispensed with. For it did become plentiful. Several of our London magistrates gave him good work, and took a great interest in him. He was a constant visitor (for work) at the house of one of our judges. Many clergymen in North London treated him with confidence and respect, leaving him alone in their libraries for hours. Several of them called on him more than once, presumably about work, but in reality to strengthen and confirm him. Exact, methodical, industrious beyond measure, honest in his dealings, he was to me a friend, a study, and a delight. I never talked his past over with him, preferring to centre his hopes and his thoughts on the future. He spent many hours in my house, and one night over a pipe his secret came out. I told him that I could not understand how such an intelligent, industrious, skilful workman as he was could be a burglar. He not only knew it was wrong and a crime, but he also knew it was folly, and could not pay. He looked at me for a moment, and then said: ‘You have seen the power of drink; you know the fascination of gambling. Bring drink, gambling, horse-racing, and roll them into one, and they do not equal the fascination of burglary. The silence of the night, every sense on the alert, the element of danger, the chances of failure and success, all combine to make burglary a fascination. Why do some men get drunk? Because they must. So I was a burglar because I was compelled to be a burglar.’

There was no doubt about the truth of this; it admitted of no argument, for his manner of saying it was convincing. But it troubled me, for I felt that the demon might not be dead, but only sleeping, while he himself laughed at the idea that he could again commit burglary. I had misgivings, and began to cast about for some new weapon wherewith to fight his enemy. He was then living and working in one furnished room, for beyond his tools, etc., he had no goods. After he left me I said to myself: ‘This man wants a stake in society—something to lose.’ I provided that something next morning, for I took an unfurnished house for him. I stood security for sufficient goods to furnish it nicely, the payments to extend over two years. He and his wife moved in, taking with them the tools, and when I called on them in their new home both of them cried like children. I explained to him the conditions on which the goods would belong to him, and what pride he would feel and what satisfaction he would enjoy when he felt his home was his own, the result of his own honest labours. Satisfaction! Why, he felt ecstatic joy at the thought of it; his eyes fairly glistened, and he told me that he would never waste a penny or an hour till he had paid for everything. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and when you have worked for the goods, and paid for them, and they are your own, how would you like some rascally burglar to rap you on the head some night, and then clear your home out.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s a shrewd hit, but he had better not try it.’ I said no more to him, but stayed for a cup of tea, when we drank success to his new home.