Chatting with an Age-Herald reporter last night, he gave a most interesting and instructive talk on the noted crimes that have occurred during the past ten years. Professor Windsor has studied most of the criminals that have become prominent, and in a purely scientific way he has gone back of the outward evidences of criminal depravity to understand the physical and possibly hereditary conditions that brought about the overt acts. His fund of information on this subject is almost an inexhaustible one.
In discussing the Maxwell murder, he said: “I was in Texas at the time of the St. Louis tragedy. A friend of mine sent me a picture of the alleged murderer, with a request that I give my theory of the crime. Like many newspaper cuts, it was decidedly unsatisfactory; but the man who made it had caught enough of the likeness to enable me to know the chief characteristics of Maxwell.
“Explaining the disadvantages under which I labored, I at once wrote to him, and gave my theory of the crime; and when, at last, the matter came out, I found that I was right.”
“Do you study every criminal case that comes under your observation?”
“Of course I do. A man who is alive to science can not help doing it. Whenever I hear of a crime and learn the circumstances of its commission, I at once begin to devote my own mind to the combination of mental qualities which could have rendered it possible. Of course it is impossible to understand how some of the terrible acts could have been committed; but you would be surprised to know how much is revealed by seeing either the man or a good portion of him.
“The mental characteristics of criminals have much to do with not only the crimes they commit, but the manner in which they perpetrate their deeds, and in a consideration of what has been accomplished, heredity plays a strong part. Some men are born with an adeptness for crime of a certain character. Let the opportunity arise, and they yield to the stress of circumstance and become guilty men. I have seen a number of noted criminals who would not have been such, except for the unfortunate circumstances that made them do an act which left them notorious.”
“How about these bank cashiers who keep skipping off to Canada?” was asked.
“Well, there is one singular fact about them. The men who leave seldom have acquisitiveness well developed. They have not a sense of values, and when they are put in positions of trust, they fail to appreciate how much is entrusted to them.”
“Then they go to squandering?”
“Yes, in one way that is true. They fail to appreciate their responsibilities and take chances. Their carelessness soon tells, and before they know it they are involved. This is the story of more than half the defalcations that have been made public during the past decade. It is not that the men were dishonest to begin with, but they did not appreciate the value of the securities that were entrusted to them, and by their laxity allowed themselves to become involved, and then yielded to temptation through a sense of shame. There are not nearly as many men who are criminals per se as the world believes.