He Has No Better
Future Before Him, And May Easily Come To Look Upon Death
With Brutal Insensibility And Defiance.
The indifference
exhibited by the garrotted man getting up to adjust his chair
is probably common amongst criminals of his type.
Again, take such a crime as that of the Cuban's: the passion
which leads to it is the fiercest and most ungovernable which
man is subject to. Sexual jealousy also is one of the most
frequent causes of murder. So violent is this passion that
the victim of it is often quite prepared to sacrifice life
rather than forego indulgence, or allow another to supplant
him; both men and women will gloat over the murder of a
rival, and gladly accept death as its penalty, rather than
survive the possession of the desired object by another.
Further, in addition to those who yield to fits of passion,
there is a class whose criminal promptings are hereditary: a
large number of unfortunates of whom it may almost be said
that they were destined to commit crimes. 'It is unhappily a
fact,' says Mr. Francis Galton ('Inquiries into Human
Faculty'), 'that fairly distinct types of criminals breeding
true to their kind have become established.' And he gives
extraordinary examples, which fully bear out his affirmation.
We may safely say that, in a very large number of cases, the
worst crimes are perpetrated by beings for whom the death
penalty has no preventive terrors.
But it is otherwise with the majority.
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