In Italy we meet with a genuine, and often traditional body of criminal songs which is of great interest. It is found in chief perfection in Italy and the large neighbouring islands, Sardinia, Corsica, and especially Sicily, where the civilisation is more primitive, and the level of criminality much higher. In the _Canti Siculi_ of the able and enthusiastic folklorist, Pitré, there are twenty-seven which he describes as Prison Songs; with others rather similar in the same collection, the total amounts to forty-one (4 per cent. of the whole), mostly declarations of vengeance, laments for lost liberty, imprecations against judges and police. Some are in praise of prison, as the following:-- “Carcere, vita mia, cara, felice! Lo starmi entro di te come mi piace! Se spiechi il capo a quel che mal ne dice, O pensa che far perdere la pace. Qua sol travi i fratelli e qua gli amici,” etc.
There are also fine notes of despair, and sweet recollections of the absent mother or sweetheart. Sardinia, a land of brigandism and assassination, has produced numerous criminal songs of interest. “The Corsican songs collected by Tommaseo,” remarks Lombroso, “might be said to be almost all the creation of brigands. Nearly all breathe vengeance for a slain friend, or hatred against an enemy, and admiration for murder.” A ferocious Corsican brigand, named Peverone, who used to leave his mark behind by covering his victim with capsicums (peperoni), wrote verses which, says Lombroso, “would not be unworthy of Laura’s sweet singer.” In such a case as that of Corsica, we must, however, be very cautious how we use the word “criminal.” In that land barbarous conceptions still rule; a child is brought up from its earliest days in an atmosphere of robbery and bloodshed; what in a more civilised country we call “crime” is there to a large extent the normal social state. It is in Corsica that a parish may vote a pension to a brigand (the _commune_ of Ciammance, for example, in 1886); that more than half the persons liable to serve as jurymen in an _arrondissement_ (4400 out of 8000 in one instance) may themselves have appeared behind the bar; and where a mayor (_arrondissement_ of Sartène) may issue a proclamation in the following terms:--“Art. I. The carrying of arms is formally forbidden on the territory of the commune of Levie. Art.
II. Exception is made in the case of persons notoriously in a state of enmity.”
As a specimen of French criminal literature I will give a poem by Lebiez, the young murderer spoken of in Chapter I.; it is addressed to a young girl’s skull:-- “De quelque belle enfant restes froids et sans vie, Beau crâne apprêté par mes mains, Dont j’ai sali les os et la surface blanchie D’un tas de noms grecs et latins, Compagnon triste et froid de mes heures d’étude, Toi que je viens de rejeter Dans un coin, ah! reviens tromper ma solitude, Réponds à ma curiosité. Dis-moi combien de fois ta bouche s’est offerte Aux doux baisers de ton amant; Dis-moi quels jolis mots de ta bouche entr’ ouverte Dans des heurs d’égarement...Insensé!...Tu ne peux répondre, pauvre fille; Ta bouche est close maintenant, Et la mort, en passant, de sa triste faucille A brisé tes charmes naissants. Triste leçon pour nons, qui croyons que la vie Peut durer pendant de longs jours! Et jeunesse, et bonheur, et beauté qu’on envie, Tout passe ainsi que les amours! Aussi, quand, vers le soir, âpre et dur à la tache, Je travaille silencieux, Mon esprit suit le monde et, tout inquiet, s’attache A des pensers plus sérieux, Je rêve au temps qui passe...alors je te regarde, Et, songeant aux coups de destin, Sur ton front nu je crois lire en tremblant: ‘Prends garde, Mortel, ton tour viendra demain.’”
When his papers were returned to him by the police, Lebiez wrote on the margin of this: “Poor verses! but, bad as they are, they are a faithful picture of the state of my mind in moments of solitude. In the world I am amiable and gay. I am taken for a wild fellow, who mocks at everything; but if they knew my character thoroughly, if they were aware that when I laugh and joke I have just come out of a solitude of despair and tears! If they knew that there are sobs at the bottom of my heart when smiles cover my lips, they would not say that I mock at everything. My gaiety is only a mask which hides the anguish which has for so long torn my heart.”
There are one or two examples of newspapers written and conducted by prisoners. The Abbé Crozes, in his _Souvenirs de la Petite et de la Grande Roquette_, gives us specimens and a facsimile page of one of these, the _Tam-Tam_, which, however, only lasted a very short time. Here are a couple of fragments from this remarkable journal:-- FABLE EXPRESS.
“Un grand tambour-major, pressé par la famine, Dinait d’une maigre sardine Et s’en régalait sur ma foi! _Morale._--On a souvent besoin d’un plus petit que soi.”
ECHOS ET BRUITS.
“Nons apprenons avec plaisir à nos lecteurs le projet formé par la Société Agricole de France, de se servir des oreilles de Transparent, pour se livrer à des essais sur la culture des champignons.
L’abondance et la qualité du fumier que contiennent ces vastes esgourdes, leur grandeur, leur système d’aération promettent aux amateurs de cèpes les résultats les plus satisfaisants.”
Very different from the _Tam-Tam_ is the _Summary_, a newspaper published at the Elmira Reformatory, New York. This newspaper, largely written by prisoners and, at one time at all events, edited by a prisoner, contains, besides original contributions and the news of the Reformatory, a summary of general news; and by its tone and its method of selection, it compares favourably, as it has been said, with many newspapers published outside prison-walls. The following contribution to the _Summary_ is from “a bright young burglar,” about eighteen years old, and is entitled “God and the Robin”; it has an allegorical and personal significance:-- “Early in the morning, long before the lazy cock crows, you may hear the robin singing his welcome to the sun. He has been watching through the darkness for the first rays of coming day, and as they appear he pours forth the melody as an expression of his joy. All is quiet till his music rends the air, and as you listen you are inspired with thoughts of Him who made the robin and you. Perhaps the sweet song is a prayer of thanks to God for sheltering him from the dangers of the night. Do they know of God? Who can tell? Perhaps He is the cause of what we in our ignorance call instinct. Once as I listened to their music I fell asleep, and dreamt of a house near the sea. It had a lawn in front, on which was a robin hopping in search of food for her young. But as she hopped about the sky seemed to grow darker. I knew that a storm was approaching, and when it came I saw the robin cling to the tree for shelter. But the wind was fierce, and it tore her from the branch, and in spite of all her efforts it bore her away out over the ocean, farther and farther from the land, till at last, when its energy was spent, its fury gone, it left her on the ocean with no land in sight to guide her to her home; and as she flew she thought of her little ones at home, and of her mate. She thought she was flying to them, but every little effort was taking her farther away, though she knew it not. When at last she began to tire, she looked at the restless waters, but they offered her no relief; and in her frightened cry I seemed to hear her say, ‘O where shall I rest my weary wing?’ But in the murmuring of the ocean she heard no reply, so she could but fly on till darkness came, when, utterly exhausted, she fell upon the cruel waves and died. And He who made her will receive her when the course of life is past. Cannot the little robin find in that house of many mansions a place to rest her weary wing? Is heaven made for man alone? Are not these little creatures who never offend God, but worship Him with the purity and happiness of their little hearts, entitled to the joys of hereafter? Who can doubt it?”
The following interesting dialogue in the Socratic manner--“An Imaginary Conversation between two Members of the Casuistry Class”--is also by a very young criminal, who was also something of a poet:-- “Did you not agree last Sunday with the member of our class who said that life in prison is a state of slavery?
No, I did not. In fact, I am astonished at your question. I rather think it is _not_ a state of slavery.
That is a very curious belief.
It may appear to be; but I think it can be proved to be logical. You say that imprisonment for wrong-doing is slavery; but what is slavery?
I should define it to be the involuntary subjection of one person to the will of another.
But cannot a person be a slave to passion and to other qualities of mind as well as to persons?
Yes.
Then your definition is obviously incorrect. I would define slavery as a state in which one’s actions are regulated by some power over which he has no control. Would you agree with me?
Well, I think I would.
Very well. Having agreed upon a definition of slavery, we will discuss whether life in prison is slavery. Now, let me ask, why are men sent to prison?
Usually for violating the law.
Well, do you believe that men steal, for instance, voluntarily?
Undoubtedly.
Your tone is rather confident, so I daresay you can tell me _why_ men steal?
In order to get certain articles that will enable them to live more comfortably, or which they desire to have.
That is, you mean that they have certain feelings--such as laziness, love of gain, etc.--which they wish to gratify?
Well, yes.
But if a man had not these feelings he would not steal?
I think not.
Then these feelings regulate his conduct in stealing?
It seems so.
But you agreed that he whose conduct is regulated by some power other than his own free will is a slave.
Well, I am afraid you have caught me again.
But do you admit it?
I do.
Then he who prevents this man from stealing is emancipating him, not enslaving him?
I see you are right.
Then one who is in prison for wrong-doing is a free man, not a slave?
Yes. But suppose that the man has been sent to prison unjustly; what then?
To answer your question, I should have to know what your conception of true freedom is. True freedom is, as it appears to me, the triumphing of the spirit or better part of man over the flesh or weaker part; that is, acting according to one’s highest conception of what is right. Do you agree with me?
I do.
I do.
Then do you not think that the truly righteous man, be he in prison or out, is free? Do you not see that a man who does right, even though he lose fortune or life by doing so, is freer than the one who allows his conduct to be regulated by fear, malice, or other passions? Remember that a man may be free in a dungeon and bound down with chains, and that he may be an abject slave and be clothed in purple.”
The _Summary_ perhaps does something to encourage priggishness, but priggishness, it need scarcely be said, indicates a far higher moral level than the vacuous brutality which lies behind so large a proportion of prison inscriptions.
So far we have been dealing with writers who are first and above all criminals. It is necessary to mention a few artists and men of letters who, while distinctly criminals, are not primarily criminals. Villon is generally named at the head of these, and with good reason, as he has himself supplied the evidence by which he must be counted a criminal. But Villon was a poet, and a great poet; his crimes never degraded his art. It is worth noting that almost the only passage[74] which Lombroso quotes to prove such degradation is, on independent grounds and apparently with good reason, regarded by Jannet, Villon’s editor, as spurious.
Cellini, as self-revealed in his wonderful autobiography, bears more distinct marks than Villon of instinctive criminality. Crime is, however, rare among great sculptors; on the other hand it has been, as Lombroso points out, very common among painters; numerous are the examples of murder, cruelty, theft, sexual offences, among distinguished painters; alcoholism is also very common.
Casanova, a man of various and extraordinary abilities, has in his _Memoirs_, of which the strict historical accuracy is now generally accepted, produced one of the most valuable and interesting records of the eighteenth century, and at the same time a most complete and complaisant history of his own criminal offences. It is difficult to say whether in him the criminal or the man of genius is most prominent.
A living poet of some eminence, M. Paul Verlaine, furnishes an interesting example of the man of genius who is also distinctly a criminal. M. Verlaine is the chief of the so-called “Decadant” school. The precise rank that he will ultimately take as a poet is not yet clear; while on the one hand he has been unduly neglected, on the other he has been unduly extolled. At his best he excels in delicate passages of vague and mystic reverie, in sudden lines of poignant emotion. His style, a curious mixture of simplicity and obscurity, is studded with words borrowed from the criminal’s argot. His latest volume[75] contains poems which well show his curious power of expressing the most delicate _nuances_ of sentiment side by side with the crudest, most unabashed impulses of cynical depravity, self-revelations of sexual perversity, which might have earned for the book a title in a line of its own, “L’embarquement pour Sodome et Gomorrhe.” I do not propose to quote any of these but from a short but interesting series written during an imprisonment of several years at Brussels. Here is a poem describing the life of the prisoner:-- “La cour se fleurit de souci Comme le front De tous ceux-ci Qui vont en rond En flageolant sur leur fémur Debilité Le long du mur Fou de clartè.
Tournez, Samsons sans Dalila, Sans Philistin, Tournez bien la Meule au destin. Vaincu risible de la loi, Mouds tour à tour Ton cœur, ta foi Et ton amour!
Ils vont! et leurs pauvres souliers Font un bruit sec, Humiliés, La pipe au bec. Pas un mot ou bien le cachot, Pas un soupir. Il fait si chand Qu’on croit mourir.
J’en suis de ce cirque effaré, Soumis d’ailleurs Et préparé A tous malheurs. Et pourquir si j’ai contristé Ton vœu tetu, Société, Me choierais tu?
Allons, frères, bons vieux voleurs, Doux vagabonds, Filons en fleur, Mes chers, mes bons, Fumons philosophiquement, Promenons-nous Paisiblement: Rien faire est doux.”
I do not know any more interesting document in criminal literature than one poem, _Læti et Errabundi_, contained in this volume. Fully to understand the significance of this remarkable poem, it is necessary to state that Verlaine’s imprisonment was due to an attempt on the life of his comrade in sexual perversity, himself also a poet of some note. The latter left Europe, and it is not now known whether he is alive or dead. To him _Læti et Errabundi_ is addressed.
I quote the concluding lines:-- “On vous dit mort, vous. Que le Diable Emporte avec qui la colporte La nouvelle irrémédiable Qui vient ainsi battre ma porte!
Je n’y veux rien croire. Mort, vous, Toi, dieu parmi les demi-dieux! Ceux qui le disent sont des fous. Mort, mon grand péché radieux.
Tout ce passé brûlant encore Dans mes veines et ma cervelle Et qui rayonne et qui fulgore Sur ma ferveur toujours nouvelle!
Mort tout ce triomphe inouï Retentissant sans frein ni fin Sur l’air jamais évanoui Que bat mon cœur qui fut divin!
Quoi le miraculeux poème Et la toute-philosophie, Et ma patrie et ma bohème Morts? Allons donc! tu vis ma vie!”
Verlaine’s very remarkable head, though large, is the head of a criminal much more than of a man of genius, with its heavy jaw, projecting orbital arches and acrocephalic occiput, with central ridge--the head which the acute Lauvergne called Satanic, and which, in its extreme form, he believed to announce the monstrous alliance of the most eminent faculty of man, genius, with the most pronounced tendencies to crime. M. Verlaine has long been a victim to chronic alcoholism, and the author of the _Fêtes Galantes_ and of some of the most tender lines written in our day is now most often found within the wards of Parisian hospitals.
“Je compte parmi les maladroits.
J’ai perdu ma vie et je sais bien Que tout blâme sur moi s’en va fondre: A cela je ne puis que répondre Qui je suis vraiment né Saturnien.”
A few words may be added concerning criminal art as shown in design. Lombroso reproduces numerous drawings, etc., made in prison. They are generally very rough and slight, never beautiful, but frequently expressive, rendering character, now and then, in face and attitude, with ease and felicity. Scenes of murder or robbery, law courts, men hanging from the gallows, women, mostly nude, with huge or pendent breasts, men or women in extravagantly perverse sexual attitudes--these are the visions which come to the criminal in prison, and to which he seeks, by such means as may be within his reach, to give artistic expression. Sexual imagery, not beautiful but gross and ugly, undoubtedly has the chief part in these designs; but it is scarcely necessary to point out that the artificial conditions under which the prisoner lives is largely responsible for this characteristic of his art, although not for its generally deliberate ugliness.
Dr. Laurent, in his work, _Les Habitués des Prisons_, has treated this matter more completely than any other writer known to me, and has reproduced some very characteristic and instructive examples of this art, although he has not dared to reproduce the more extravagant designs which he describes. What has chiefly impressed him among the large number of drawings by prisoners which have passed through his hands is the absence of any elevated thought, of any noble sentiment. In the erotic designs there is occasionally an imaginative audacity, but love is always regarded as a purely physiological act, and everywhere else the design is pathetically commonplace; it is naturalistic in the lowest sense of the word, adding nothing, suppressing nothing; and these drawings have therefore a remarkable family likeness. If there is any great artist of whom they ever remind us it is Ostade, with his perpetual research of the mean and degraded, physically and morally, in humanity. Dr. Laurent draws special attention to a design which appears to represent some winged angel of hope; there is something in the bold, predaceous face of this vulgar fairy, in the coarse firm attitude, so suggestive of the things that alone have left a firm impress on the artist’s mind, that is very pathetic. In one of those designs only is it possible to catch a glimpse of the ideal; it is the figure of a woman by a clerk of some education, and possessed of personal qualities which brought him into relation with women of a somewhat superior type. The face in this drawing has a tender and melancholy air; even here, however, the body is drawn in too crude and realistic a manner. Where these artists succeed best is in the photographic delineation of commonplace or unpleasant human types, such as may be seen in large cities, especially after nightfall. There is usually something hard, cynical, degraded in these types, in their whole bodies as well as their faces; they remind us of what was said of portraits executed by Wainewright, that he had contrived to put the expression of his own wickedness into them.
These artists also do not succeed in caricature, and rarely attempt it. To be successful here involves some judgment, delicacy, and insight, and these the prison artists do not appear to possess.
In the nude, as I have already mentioned, prison artists take great delight, and they even achieve a certain amount of success. There is a certain Hogarthian vigour and ease with which the faces and forms of these coarse, low-browed, animal, energetic women, with their large pendent breasts, are brought before us. The only prison sketch I have seen showing anything more than a crude sense of beauty, any real appeal to the imagination, or distinct science of form and composition, is a group of nude women in extravagant attitudes, which Dr. Laurent reproduces; he says nothing of the artist, except that he was probably a Saint Anthony by necessity, who, in this scene as of a Sabbath of witches, has given expression to the dreams that tormented him. It is a genuine piece of fantastic art, and seems to recall certain designs of the Belgian artist, Félicien Rops. This design escapes to some extent--and to some extent only--from the judgment which Dr. Laurent pronounces on the treatment of sex by criminals:--“Sex is not for them a sacred and mysterious thing, a mystic rose hidden beneath the obscure vault of the body, like a strange and precious talisman enclosed in a tabernacle. For them it is a thing of ugliness, which they drag into the light of day and laugh at.”
One of the most interesting and instructive departments of criminal literature is that dealing with the criminal’s mental attitude towards crime. In considering the problems of crime, and the way to deal with them, it is of no little importance to have a clear conception of the social justification for crime from the criminal’s point of view. Not only is he free from remorse; he either denies his crime or justifies it as a duty, at all events as a trifle. He has a practical and empirical way of his own of regarding the matter, as Dostoieffsky remarks, and excuses these accidents by his destiny, by fate. “What contributes to justify the criminal in his own eyes is that he is quite certain that the public opinion of the class in which he was born and lives will acquit him; he is sure that he will not be judged definitely lost unless his crime is against one of his own class, his brothers. He is secure on that side, and with so good a conscience he will never lose his moral assurance, which is the main thing. He feels himself on solid ground, and by no means hates the knout which is administered to him. He looks upon it as inevitable, and consoles himself by thinking that he is not the first nor the last to receive it. Does the soldier hate the Turk who sabres him? By no means!”
To be caught is the foolish part of the business. “You are a lot of fools to get in here, myself included,” is one of the prison inscriptions noted by Mr. Horsley. “Had God wished me to be different, He would have made me different,” said Goethe. In the same spirit is the philosophy of crime set forth by a man known to Lombroso: “If God has given to us the instinct to steal, He has given to others the instinct to imprison us; the world is an amusing theatre!” It is rare, however, for the criminal to take so lofty a standpoint as this; more usually he bases the justification for his own existence on the vices of respectable society--“the ignorance and cupidity of the public,” as one prisoner expressed it--that he is shrewd enough to perceive; “it is a game of rogue catch rogue,” a convict told Mr. Davitt. A youthful French brigand in the days of Charles IX., as he impassively ascended the scaffold, declared that he was innocent, because he had never robbed poor people but only princes and lords, the greatest robbers in the world. “We are poor rogues, and so hanged, while others, no less guilty in another way, escape,” pleaded Captain Bartholomew Roberts’s fifty-two pirates, executed at the beginning of the eighteenth century. “Law for the rich but none for the poor,” is a modern English prison inscription which would probably have expressed its writer’s meaning better if it had been transposed. _Quels gredins les honnêtes gens!_ An Italian criminal wrote in a book of “Moral Maxims” by Tommaseo: “When you have read this book become a priest or a master; if not it will be of no use to you. There are fine maxims in this book, but maxims are no good in this world, where the god of gold reigns alone. He who has money is brave and virtuous; all the maxims of Tommaseo are of no use to him who has none; he will still be treated with contempt.” A Milanese thief said to Lombroso: “I do not rob; I merely take from the rich their superfluities; and, besides, do not advocates and merchants rob? Why accuse me rather than them?” “Knowing,” wrote the murderer Raynal, “that three-fourths of the social virtues are cowardly vices, I thought that an open assault on a rich man would be less ignoble than the cautious combinations of fraud.” J. G. Wainewright, when in prison, said to a visitor: “Sir, you city men enter upon your speculations and take the chances of them. Some of your speculations succeed, and some fail. Mine happen to have failed.” An Italian thief, one Rosati, said: “I am proud of my deeds; I have never taken small sums; to attack such large sums I consider a speculation rather than a theft.” Another Italian thief said that there were two kinds of justice in the world: natural justice, that which he himself practised when he shared the proceeds of his thefts with the poor; and artificial justice, that which is protected by social laws.
The criminal is firmly convinced that his imprisonment is a sign that the country is going to the dogs. A prison inscription quoted by Lombroso runs: “I am imprisoned for stealing half-a-dozen eggs; Ministers who rob millions every day are honoured. Poor Italy!” “We are necessary,” a brigand chief said proudly to his judges; “God has sent us on the earth to punish the avaricious and the rich. We are a kind of divine scourge. And for the rest, without us what would you judges do?”
This conviction of the criminality of the honest is engrained in the criminal mind, and one meets it at every turn. “Who doesn’t deserve the galleys?” was a remark often heard by Dr. Lauvergne at the convict establishment at Toulon, and the same idea was cynically expressed by Lacenaire:-- “Buvons à la sagesse, A la vertu qui soutient! Tu peux sans crainte d’ivresse, Boire à tous les gens de bien.”
Most people must have observed, in talking with persons of vicious instincts, the genuine disgust which these so often feel for the slightly different vices of others and their indifference to their own. So the man in prison feels indulgence for his own offence and contempt for his more cautious brother outside who continues to retain the respect of society, feelings which the latter heartily reciprocates. Every individual, whatever his position, feels the need of a certain amount of _amour propre_. “I may be a thief, but, thank God, I am a respectable man.”
Among the criminal songs still found in Sardinia there is one (quoted by Lombroso from Bouillier’s _Les Dialectes et les Chants de la Sardaigne_) that may be quoted here. “Tell me,” asks Achea of the priest, “if I have nothing to eat, and if I find wherewith to appease my hunger, may I take the goods of another?” “Believe me, if you have nothing to eat, and you meet with something, you would be a fool not to take it.” “That is a good counsel, but here is a difficulty: what I have taken in this way, ought I to return it?” “No. The observance of the law would subject you to a fast too severe; you are a great fool if you do not understand that in the face of necessity all things belong to all.” That is the morality of a lawless and primitive society, but it has points of contact with some of the latest and highest developments of social morality. Tolstoï would justify it; as, to a certain extent, a respected archbishop has justified it.
“The laws of society,” remarked an educated convict to Mr. Davitt, “are framed for the purpose of securing the wealth of the world to power and calculation, thereby depriving the larger portion of mankind of its rights and chances. Why should they punish me for taking by somewhat similar means from those who have taken more than they had a right to? My dear sir,” said he, “I deny your contention that there is any such thing as honesty in the world at all.” This man, who had a considerable acquaintance with literature and philosophy, maintained soberly that “thieving was an _honourable_ pursuit,” and that religion, law, patriotism, and bodily disease were the real and only enemies of humanity. “Religion,” he would observe, “robbed the soul of its independence, while society’s social laws, in restraining the desires and faculties given by Nature to men for the purpose of gratification, declared war against the manifest spirit of the law of our being.” Patriotism he termed “the idolatry of an idea, in the stupid worship of which the peace of the world, and the wellbeing of its inhabitants, were sacrificed by the lawmakers and others who profit thereby.”
Lombroso found the following note written with a piece of iron in a politico-economical work, under the chapter of “Considerations on the Co-operative spirit”: “The best governed nation is that which has fewest thieves. Do you want to abolish thieves? See to it that the working man and the peasant have work to do, and are better paid for it; then they will be content, and will have nothing to say against the government; in consequence they will do their duty, and will not be forced to do evil.” Another, reading a book about an official who had been removed from the administration of taxes, wrote: “I advise you all to be public thieves, and then you will be free citizens and men who are useful to society, and will be decorated with medals and crosses. This man here was a public thief; but I am only a private robber; if I had been a public one I should not have been here.” Again: “Why are those who wear coarse breeches treated in one way, and those who are dressed finely and wear yellow gloves treated in another? Why are the first called thieves while the others are said to have committed undue appropriation? Have not both classes broken the commandment which says simply ‘Thou shalt not steal’?” In a confession made to Gisquet, the prefect of police, a different standpoint is taken up; the criminal justifies himself, not on moral grounds, but as a man of the world: “You regret the robbery that I have committed, and you call it a bad action; the insignificant act for which I have been condemned is the first link in a chain which will not, I hope, finish so soon. If I were not a thief by vocation, I would be one by calculation. I have faced all the good and the evil of other occupations, and I find that this is the best. What would have become of me among honest men? A bastard, with no one to take care of me, what could I do? Become a shopman, earn at the most six hundred francs a year, and having sweated all my life, grow old and ill and finish at a hospital. Take men in the mass and you will find them all humiliated, slaves, disgraced; it is never talent and honesty that are recompensed; vice prospers more often than virtue.
“In our profession we depend on nobody; we enjoy the fruits of our experience and ability. I know well that we may end in prison; but out of the 18,000 thieves in Paris not one-tenth are in prison, so that we enjoy nine years of freedom against one of prison. Besides, where is the working man who is not sometimes without work? For the rest, the working man has to pledge his things at the pawn-shop, while we, when we are free, want for nothing, and lead a life of constant feasting and pleasure.
“The fear of being arrested, and the pretended remorse that people talk of, are things to which one soon gets accustomed, and which finish by giving a pleasurable emotion.
“And then, if we are arrested, we live at the expense of others, who clothe us, feed us, and warm us, all at the cost of those whom we have robbed!
“I will say more. During our detention in prison we think out and prepare new means of success.
“If I regret anything, Mr. Prefect, it is that I am condemned to only a year. If it had been for five I should have been sent to a central prison, where I should have met some old hands, who would have taught me some new trick, and I should have returned to Paris clever enough to live without working.
“They talk of thieves as of persons always in misery, and who always finish their lives in prison; but they think of those whom they have seen in their apparent state when arrested. They do not consider that many have secret resources, and that most of them are clever enough to get on without ever having anything to do with justice.” This man, it is clear, had aspirations and ideals which, though they found satisfaction by a different method, were much the same as those of ordinary persons. He represents the professional criminal.