OPPORTUNITY AND CRIME.
IN the trial of the Goolds at Monte Carlo for their singularly horrible crime there were as many points of interest to the criminologist as even so strange a case as this could have been expected to contain. To begin with, the sentences—the condemnation of Goold to penal servitude for life and of his wife to death—were an inversion of those which the prisoners tried to draw upon themselves. Through- out, Goold, with a broken-down air of chivalry which would have won him respect if anything could have done so, attempted to draw all the blame on himself and to shield his wife. His wife heartily responded by excusing herself and iewarding the belated chivalry of her husband by speaking of him as a useless and drunken lout. But the Judge, in a bold and confident interpretation of motives, took Goold's magna- nimity and the woman's selfish acceptance of it as likely to represent the degree in which they lent themselves to the plotting of murder. The result is indeed an illustration of a man seeking to lose his life and finding it, as the woman's fate—though we dare say she will be reprieved —is an illustration of seeking to save one's life and losing it. After the verdict had been delivered, both the prisoners (profiting by the license which the customs of Monaco allow) announced their opinions of it for publica- tion. The burden of their remarks was that they were aggrieved persons; that they had never expected such sentences ; that Mrs. Goold had hoped shortly to be able to set up once more a dressmaking establishment, and that this estimable plan for leading a decent and useful life had bean cruelly kaccited on the head by these inconsiderate sentences. One could har•dly believe that soeh stuff seemed plausible even to the criminals themselves, were it not that experience proves that swak persons do possess a curious faculty for gulling themselves both as to their prospects of acquittal and even as to their innocence. If the prisoners could persuade them- -selves—we are only imagining it for the moment—that in some mysterious way the murder of Madame Levin got itself committed while they were only the unwilling agents of the deed, like .2: man unconsciously, fulfilling the gods' decree in a. Greek tragedy, then it is very easy indeed to believe that they supposed the act to be quite unpremeditated. We have given more than one example of the Goolds' statements because W3 do not wish to .take any one out of its context, and pre- tend that it has a self-critical value which a study of several of the statements will show that it probably does not possess. But whether it be true or not, the point that interests us most is the repeated declaration that the crime, was onpremedi- tated; that it was simply the occurrence of an opportunity to celnanit murder which made the .Goolds think of doing it. On the whole, we are inclined, ourselves to think that there is something in this. It. is not necessary to use the word." oppor- tunity" as applying strictly only to.the afternoon on which the murder was committed. The very presence of Madame Levin in Monte Carl—a woman, who wore jewels and spent money c.onspicuously—was an "opportunity." Probably the Geoids never thought of murder till the conjunction of their own needs and the displayed affluence of this unattached woman suggested it to them.
, We have often argued in favour of capital punishment and reasonably heavy sentences as a means of protecting society
against the individual. To be kind to the individual criminal 0 is to be cruel to society, which needs and deserves considera- tion far more than he. But we have, perhaps, said less about the equally important matter of protecting the man tempted to crime against himself. The fear of heavy penalties is often the exact deterrent he requires to dissuade him from seizing sudden opportunities for evil. The thought of the penalty often fortifies the weak character,—braces it to resistance at the crisis. The penalty is, in a word, prohibitive. There is ample justification for the extreme penalty of the law on this ground alone as being framed for the advantage of criminals themselves. Of course there is no thought of mere revenge in urging it. A penal code which was vengeful instead of deterring and reformative would be an appalling con- demnation of any civilisation. One may go even further, and say that to ill-educated or nerveless minds a sense of morality can only be conveyed by the visible operation of the law. An extreme manifestation of the law can alone suggest the enormity of murder. To the exaction of the death penalty a good deal of the peculiar horror with which murder is regarded is certainly attributable. Murder is a thing apart; the very word gives an ugly shock to the brain. It is not that the mere act of killing is terrible; it does not afflict man with remorse in war, or even greatly in manslaughter. It is only the act of taking a life when a life will be forfeited by the law in return that is, in all its circumstances and traditions, horrifying. It is often said by so-called humanitarians—who are humane, as we have said, to the individual at the expense of the rest— that murder is no more common in countries where capital punishment does not exist. The human instinct, it is thought, shrinks from murder so naturally and completely that no fear of death can add to the restraints a man sets upon his action. The conclusion, one would think, must be that all punishment is useless as a deterrent, and that crime must be treated only as a disease,—a doctrine from which, if it were ever put into practice, common-sense would shrink,'even if an insufficiently guarded community did not revolt. "Humani- tarians" often quote the statistics of crime in France to prove their case, forgetting that there some of the common forms of murder—such as crimes passionnels—are not classed as murder at all. Our own law, accepting the preservation of the inexorable but salutary lex talionis as proper to the worst of all acts of violence, has succeeded in separating murder in degree and estimation from all other crimes.
.Nothing is more fortifying to the. depraved or shattered mind than the remembrance that no excuse. is valid for murder. Love, • drunkenness, jealousy,—not one. of them e■xcuses it according to the .law of England. If this were not. Be, we are convinced that many more murdertit would be 00in' mated. An examination of the causes of murders shows the motives to be often so utterly inadequate to the act that one is bound to think that only the tremendous and solemn distinc- tion made by the law has prevented other motiveless persons from assuring themselves that murder was worth while. In the ease of the Goolds the British deterrent was not operative. They knew that in Monaco they would probably not be executed even if their crime were discovered. They observed how easy it would be to attract their unprotected victim to their house and kill her for the sake of her jewels and ready money, and the existence of the opportunity was too much for them. Occasio facie furem, said the Romans; and since then the saying that the opportunity makes the thief has passed into nearly every civilised language. But the French have also a variation of it. They say that idleness makes thieves. That is supremely true of the Geoids. Though the man appears never to have worked to any purpose, his wife did work bard enough from time to time. Is it not amazing that a murder for some ready money and trinkets should have occurred to them as a better solution of penury than. a return to an honest dressmaking business ? Want of occupation had made occupation at last seem impossible. An "Opportunity, like a sudden gust," arrived for the "better solution," and the rest is well known. 0, Opportunity, thy guilt is great!" Shakespeare saw the whole process in Lucrece. The warning for us is evidently that human nature needs to be screwed up in its power of resist- ance to opportunity, not to be told in effect that the reasons for holding out have become less urgent.
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