THE PLAUSIBLE MAN.
WE are unable, on careful consideration, to agree with those of our contemporaries who condemn Mr. Justice Cave for the leniency of his sentence on Dr. Clutterbuck, the clergyman whose case we reviewed at length in our issue of November 14th. Primci facie, no doubt, they are right, and four years' penal servitude is a light sentence on a man who, being well trained, well placed in the world, and well paid, met pecuniary difficulties which were his own fault by cheating his friends of 216,000, or rather, as the counsel for the Crown affirmed, of 05,000, in order to right himself by speculations on the Stock Exchange. It is impossible to clear the prisoner of the charge of cruelty in the case of one of his victims, and of hypocrisy amounting in another case, if the evidence can be relied on, to sacrilege of a peculiarly grievous character, because of the certainty that the criminal must have been conscious of the sin involved. His offence was as great as the forgery of an intimate friend's cheque—that is, it involved a treachery as well as a crime—and therefore apparently de- served the sentence usually awarded to the forger, seven years'. Nevertheless, we suspect that the Judge, as usually happens, was in the right. He is not bound to think, as counsel pleaded, of the prisoner's social fall, for though that increases the weight of the punishment, it also increases the moral extent of his criminality. Nor is he bound to think of the terrible fate of
the guilty man's wife and children, for if !ile did, no criminal with innocent belongings could ever be punished, and we should be landed in this absurdity, that a thief's sentence ought to be doubled because he had persisted in remaining a bachelor. But we think a Judge may remember when a criminal's sentence involves a second penalty which is a direct and tangible addition to the one nominally inflicted on him. If Mr. Justice Cave had been able to say that the sentence on Dr. Clutterbuck was four years' penal servitude and a fine of £10,000, nobody would have ventured to cavil at its leniency; and that is the sentence actually inflicted on the wretched Inspectcr of Schools. His post and his pension, taken together, were worth that, and the sentence carries the forfeiture of both. That is enough, for if not the chief, one object of punishment is to act as a deterrent ; and the fine will deter men in Dr. Clutterbuck's position at least as much as the four years of slavery, the horror of which they do not completely realise. Moreover, no really impartial Judge can ever quite ignore the question of motive ; and it is more than probable, it is nearly certain, that Dr. Clutterbuck was no mere thief. His defence was probably literally true. He cheated his friends in a most wicked way, justly punished by a Criminal Court ; but it was not in order to pocket their money, but to give himself the means of winning back both his own and their property by what he evidently regarded as a nearly inevitable process. He poured the whole sum acquired by false representations into the hands of outside brokers, or keepers of "bucket shops," because they promised him from 20 to 100 per cent. to be earned by their genius for specula- tion. He was a cheated man, if such promises are cheating, as well as a cheat, and is entitled, at all events, to some of that compassion which we all feel for a fool.
There never was such an amazing case. More than twelve educated persons, carrying on professions in a fairly success- ful way, actually believed, and swear they believed, that Dr. Clutterbuck could obtain for them 10 per cent. per annum from the British Government as interest on a secret loan I Critics would ridicule a novelist if he invented such an inci- dent, and we should have said it was absolutely impossible, but that it happened to be true. As every journalist in England has asked, what can be the explanation ? No doubt the one we offered a fortnight since, the profound influence of authority even in pecuniary matters, is, as a general law, correct ; but in particular cases we always notice that the witnesses testify to some special plausibility or power of exciting confidence possessed by the victimiser, and we should like to ascertain more precisely in what that power consists. The old idea, the idea of the elder Mrs. Trollope and all her generation, that anybody could rob in safety who pretended to extra piety, is utterly rejected by the men of to-day, who think they could see through every -Vicar of Wrexhill at a glance. They are a great deal too confident, as they would know if they asked any experienced Nonconformist deacon as to the worst cases he had ever known of the embezzlement of trust-money—a profession of piety often "paying" with the lower class of solicitors and "respectable seat-holders," though it does not with ministers—but still there is some truth in their allegation. The educated of to- day are slow to believe the sanctimonious when they ask for con- fidence in pecuniary affairs. They suspect anybody—except, indeed, General Booth, whose real foothold is not piety but philanthropy—who says to them : In the name of God, whom I especially reverence, give me your dinner.' Chadband is understood till be has nearly disappeared. Nor, we should say, are they very prone to trust those who are very glib about money, who can recommend "splendid investments," and who "will let you have a few shares because they have too many." The deep suspicion of the new generation as to the motives of any one who parts with anything he can keep, generally—with an exception to be noticed below—protects them from that variety of plunder. Some of them believe in Americans who sell mines at a tenth of their value, "for want of capital to work them ;" but they would not believe the same men if told that they greatly desired to enrich English- men with capital to spare. Nor, finally, do we think that enormous interest of itself attracts very many. That is to say, it does attract, but not on account of the plausibility of those who offer it. The victims commonly know they are betting, and go to the gaming-table because low interest seems to them not worth having. They have small fortunes,
or they are embarrassed men, or they are gamblers at heart, and they say to themselves, formally or otherwise : We must get more or we are ruined, and there is always the off-chance in our favour. Some speculations have given a sevenfold return, and surely we are as entitled to good luck as our neighbours.' The truly plausible man of our time who wishes to plunder individuals by his personal influence, must possess a good many qualifications, and first and fore- most a good presence. Nobody would surrender his cash to the beguiling of a man who squinted, or who had violently red hair, or that " Spanish " look which suggests either the musical genius, or the evil genius of an opera by a French composer ; while there are men, as we all know, whose very look acts as a guarantee. We do not care to quote living in- stances, however widely their portraits may be known ; but there is not a Jew money-lender in London who, if the late Bishop of Argyll and the Isles had asked him for a loan, would not have been morally certain, as far as his debtor's will was concerned, of punctual repayment. A presence like his, we admit, is not given to swindlers; but a presence faintly approaching to it is the best advantage any man who wishes to succeed by plausibility can possibly possess. Half his work is done for him before he speaks. The next qualification is an appearance of frankness. The plausible man of our day does not, we conceive, say he is wholly disinterested—though Dr. Clatterback implied this—but rather admits that incidentally he will gain some advantage while, for this reason or that, making a rapid fortune for you. He frankly acknow- ledges an interested motive, perhaps, if he is an inartistic bungler, "because it would be impossible to deceive you;" and then what is there to do, whether the cash is forth- coming or not, except to believe his statements ? The ablest and most dangerous " borrower " we ever knew always acknowledged that his securities seemed rubbish to bankers, though, as the hoped-for lender would perceive at a glance, they were worth at least three times the proposed investment. The witnesses at Dr. Clutterbuck's examination before the Magistrates did not accuse him of using this weapon ; but then, they had a country town to face, and were horridly -ashamed of their own credulity. And finally, the artistically plausible man must take an interest in each individual -victim, must desire his benefit or his friendship especially among all mankind. That takes at once with half mankind, for two reasons : one, that every man considers himself worthy of friendship, and likes that to be recognised ; and another, that an immense section of mankind have an inner self-distrust or doubt of the impression they make, which special interest in them momentarily removes. Women, we believe, are in- variably robbed under this pretext, except in the cases where the luxury of self-sacrifice induces them virtually to rob them- selves.
We can comprehend the success of Dr. Clutterbuck's career in a dim way, upon every point but one ; but that, we confess, remains to us a hopeless puzzle. What became of the men who saw through him ? It is nearly impossible that every 'man to whom he narrated his absurd legend about the British Government, and Messrs. Rothschild, and 10 per cent. on Consol security, should have believed it ; and what became of those pecuniary infidels ? Did they all maintain a profound silence under circumstances so in- teresting to their neighbours, and so gratifying to the rather general form of vanity that exults in not being ' done " ? Did they all think themselves exonerated from any duty in the way of protecting their friends, or were they all made doubtful, by a perfection of plausibility, of their own inevitable conclusions? We imagine the latter to be the probable explanation, and would quote it as one more proof of the accuracy of Anthony Trollope's observation of human nature. It is the governing point in the plot of "The Last Chronicle of Barset," that the Rev. Josiah Crawley, the most original character he ever drew, risks repute and liberty, because he postpones his own un- changeable certainty as to facts, to his friend's word, inno- cently given, that they are entirely without foundation. A good many excellent people in Bath must have passed through the experience which, when Trollope related it, was pro- nounced so impossibly unreal.
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