" SISTER mArry."• ALL but one of the cases described
by Mr. Robert Holmes in his new volume have been " selected out of some three hundred ex- convicts I have had a hand in seeking to help these twenty years— not as my regular calling, which chiefly concerns persons not so far gone in clime, but as a sort of spare-time-occupation." Readers of Walter Oreenway, Spy and Hero, will probably look for further revelations of romance in crime, but it was not to be expected— perhaps not to be desired—that such picturesque histories should be anything but rare. Still, though Mr. Holmes tells us of no " Walter Greenway," many of the histories are of unusual interest, and two at least are startling for dramatic detail and romantic setting. " Sister Matty "—Matthew Godber—of " slim girlish appearance " and innocent eyes, studied for the ministry. His parents, small shopkeepers, were too poor to buy him all the necessary leioks. Matthew would not allow his kindly tutor to lend them, but he helped himself to them in the bookshops, and by ae ingenious trick and an innocent expression was not discovered till he had stolen some fifty volumes and afterwards pawned them. He spent the proceeds, as far as Mr. Holmes could conjecture, on cigarettes. Godber's charming face was his fortune, we are told. Again and again its girlish innocence saved him from the tesults of his weaknesses. It even enabled him to perform that exceptional feat, the cheating of a " welsher " on his own pitch. In November, 1914, Mr. Holmes heard from the " welsher," who had joined the Colours, that " brother Matthew . . . who diddled me out of ninety-five pounds in the days of long ago," was with them. " He's the same cherub he always was, for all the world like a good-looking monk or a pretty girl, the sort we see in carvings and pictures about here." Because of his face Matthew at once became " Sister Matty " with the regiment, and incidentally the idol of the man he had " diddled." As with " Walter Greenway," so " Sister Matty " turned his talents to the benefit of his country. He became a fascinating Belgian maiden and " diddled " Huns, says the admiring " welsher," " in fine style." German snipers became an easy prey. " Sister Matty," resident in a Belgian farmhouse used by German soldiers, found her own charms an inconvenience. She disappeared—to reappear as a Belgian boy, was deported to forced labour, escaped to England, and returned to her own regiment. The tributes are warm to Godber's valour in the trenches, to his tenderness to wounded comrades. A " boy 'subaltern," worn with suffering, broke into sobbing for his home folk " And that fellow put his arm round fns in the dark after he'd tied the bandage, and kissed on the forehead like a mother might." " Sister Matty's " feminine charm was more than skin-deep. Later when very badly wounded he bore his sufferings " like a heroine," ejaculates his ever-faithful admirer, the "welsher." " The gamest little beauty I ever saw." Back in civil life, the first thing Matthew Godber did was to repay, out of a store of money saved while he was honest, various sums stolen in other years, including the ninety-five pounds out of which he had " diddled " his fri-nd. The friend indignantly handed back the cheque. " Don't be daft,' I said, ' you owe me nought.' Billy,' says she, I'm getting better, where ninety-nine in a hundred would either have lost their reason or died. I'm going to make a clean new start and I'm going to start fair.' " We must leave our readers to discover what happened finally about the cheque. The story is a wonderful ono, and on re-reading it we are not sure that after all it does not come very near to that of " Walter Greenway."
Not so heroic, but full cf interest, pathetic, and romantic, is the
story of John Carlyle, the " mulish Prince," as Mr. Holmes describes him," certainly the very greatest mule I ever met," with his strange predilection for window-smashing. It was his obsession. Some bright spirit suggested as an occupation for him " pounding up. glass for remelting, or something like that," but Mr. Holmes could discover no such trade. Finally Carlyle was shipped to a " coaling tation " somewhere in the tropics, where he was a tremendous
success with the natives, and subsequently married—or more precisely was married by—a native Queen, who speedily became, he sorrowfully admitted, his " gaffer." As soon as the news of the war had percolated to his island Carlyle joined the Colours—but his wife persisted in accompanying him to England. Whether it was her " gaffer "-like qualities or jealousy that made her decide to come with him cannot be known, but her very real devotion to her consort provoked a sincere devotion in him, though a devotion not always expressed in the happiest language. Carlyle was badly wounded, and when he was well enough to travel he agreed to go back to his island home :-
"She's takin' me back as soon as they'll let me go. Happen it's as well. . . . I reckon I've about as much chance wi' her as a • Mater Netts and Company. By Hobert Holmes. London W. Blackwood and Bons. [6s. net.] mouse has wi' neat. But it worn't no bad luck as chucked me up agen her. Things might be a sight worse. . . . She ain't a beauty but she sticks like glue. Bain' a terror for seeing through folks I think you'd get on wi' her for all she's a black. Blacks can be as good as whites for owt I know—a damned sight better nor German whites, I should think. . . ."
We have left ourselvesno space in which to refer to that attract- ive and inveterate writer of begging-letters, Rosamond Newman, and her unfortunate daughter—a story which would have allured Dickens ; or to Abe, the " horse-chanter " who, on the principle of " set a thief to catch a thief," was so invaluable to the Remount Department of the War Officre. Mr. Holmes has a favourite method with those who have " gone far on the wrong road," one which he applies to all classes. " I regard the educated scamp as worse than the uneducated. . . . I know of no safe method of assisting in a man's reform, other than placing his foot on the lowest rung of the ladder." If a man can stick to a course of manual labour, he wins Mr. Holmes's confidence. This method, naturally, was not popular with such men of education and cunning as The Professors, who expostulated with him in terms of sadness and irony from the United States, where in a " magnificent palace reared in New York as a moral hospital " they " were treated as becomes gentlemen of education, temporarily incapacitated by the accidents of life." Mr. Holmes pleads for a wiser treatment of the " half-wits " who make up so large a proportion of the criminal world. In civil life, he says in regard to certain specific cases, they were failures. When drafted into the Army many of them had a clean sheet. " What they required was constant disciplinary control. Is it too much to hope for some plan whereby they and their kind may find happiness and contentment in productive employment under helpful supervision and discipline in time of peace ? "
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