The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 28, 1897, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28 = first confession Vacher, a few days later, | told the magistrate that three weeks prior to the crime of Co hered bey 15 years o ons, 1en he had bu own the body intoac He descrived the lo v of the ter havin ted the sickening Is of the o I'ne rerains, | ter the water ¢ cistern bad bee the property t of Dem: > of Francois membered. the bottom drawn off, were fadame Delmate une. and proved to L e been committed d of Valence, but tims and the particu- en presented to Mr. | s remembered there asa ersed the devpartment, n and a sack. In his \ysterious disappear- latzer notable be- 1ccordeor =z utilations. as an extraordinary undergoing fter baving one ¢ chay accordeon xed with :n emptied be per- anted, vleasure d to play thei and he manifested in touching it. to take the accordeon to It is apparent, in clever simulation of epileptic man that he is conscious of the frightful re- ponsibility of his butche The pre- he urges strenuously is that it was the 1 of the young woman of Baume les es to become his wife that crazed him; that this jilting experience aroused all the liveliest the Afterward he wa ed allo with Vache D 1ad dog in him inst society: tnat the uelties he witnessed in the insane asy- lum intensified nis madness. His anxiety to dodge the avenging knife 1stice and the bene: of a ict of in- t. tify such a merciful intervention of the It commission against him has been 1d filed in the court of ca: ng to establish the fact r did not overcome his uent to his temporary compiled c nsanity, This weuld c crimes within three 3 the attempt to murder ncee and then to put him- t of the way, he avows that nothing icidal off time s to investigate his case, after the | tion, he is that the | added, complacently, “I have furiously bitten my victims like a mad dog, aiter having slaughtered them.” This is not true. It simply demon- strates his fertility of invention in paving the way for his return to the insane asy- fum, where he was never known to dis- play any murderous tendency of mania or Innacy in any form. In fact he was re- stored to liberty under the presumption that he had not been confined for cause, so sane and well balanced did he seem to be. Here is a great subject for the psycho- +ph, Vacher gesticulates while talking, the comparative feebleness of his victims and the deliberateness with which he con- ducted his butche:ies, that he never | received so much as a scraich in the death struggles. His clothing was rarely stained with b ood, so deftly did he perpetrate his atrocities. In trying to fathom the psychologic peculiarities and the physiological genesis of Vacher’s mania, it’is interesting to ascertain what was the official summary of conduct set against him in the records of the regiment in which he served. Here is the extract taken from the report of his colonel, filed during his term of service: I wyVacher has been in the regiment of ASSASSINATION OF AUGUSTINE MORTUREUX. (From Le Journal Illustre.] shrugs his skoulders indifferently when | reproved for his atrocities, and ceases to mingle the name of God with his recriminations against society. His { exclamations are stereoty ped. “What does it matter to me!” “My victims have not suffered!” A little blood and it isall over with them!" He boasts of his exploits of butchery and approves himself extravagantly be- cause he never killed to steal. Possessed by an erotic-religious mania, | he claims that he was inspired by the | Creator to give the world new martyrs, He exvpresses himself well, though often speaking in apliorisms. The Almighty has incited me to kill,” lia bis blasphemous assertion, repeated ASSASSINATION OF ROSINE RODIER. Designed by Damblane.] In this particular his ingenuity and boldness should not avail. His peculiar atrocities have been traced back and will be proved against him for a period of at least ten vears. An affair knownas ‘‘the crime of Saint Marcellin,” the sla ter and defilement of a girl beiore he entered the army, of which he denies having any knowledge, wWas accom ed by him. The chain of circumstantial evidence is well established, a fact in ignorance of which he is allowed to remain. Itir also known that he isthe author of ‘‘the ¢. me of Varacieux,” similar in nature, which antedated bis confinement at Saint Ro- bert. Nor are thess shocking mysteries the only ones of the decade past that are now solved and given their proper place in this great **Odyssey of Crime.” Vacher’s conduct in prison has been cynical ana calm. He speaks little and reads and writes a great deal. He signs his letters “The hunter of shepl and shepherdesses.” The first day of hisim- murement he had a cho! fit, the bur- den of which was the complaint that he could no longer continue his carnival of carnage. In every conversation with the magistrate he nsists particularly that his | blood is undergoing Gecomposition from the effect of the remedy he 100k in youth to save him from madnesa. ] am an anarchist after fashion,” he then deciares. “I have suf- fered. Society disgusts me. I would have revenge by murdering it.” in toe course of the persistent interro- gation to which he has been subjected Vacher has given circumstantial account clear in every detail, as to the manner of several of his crimes, yet he sturdily maintains in disregard of the manifest premeditation tha’ he has proved agai himself that he was possessed in every in- stance by a mad and ungovernable im- pulse, by a blind rage that overcame his will power. The more his mind is probed, however, tbe plainer does it become that be is sim- ply playing the homicidal insanity dodge a second time. For example, when questioned as to pre- meditation in the case of the young shep- herd Portalier, he said: **When I caught sight oi him the desire to kill him selzec me. I was attacked by a nervous trem- bling of all my limbs, I became deathly nd the next moment I threw myself 1im.” No credit can be attached to statements, because whatever the nervousness that might have jarred the villain—and it is coubtful if he ever ex- perienced the trembling he describes—he certainly could not have been conscious of the deatbly paleness of his bearded vis- age. His pretenses as to homicidal or epileptic mania are nearly all as readily punctured as the foregoing. “Always, when not disturbed,” he such my own | aaily, “and [ am not responsibie. accomplished a mission. When the im- pulse seizes me I must kill, and then I feel a great relief. 1do not seek my vic- tim chance, or the Providence whose decre. I execute, places them beiore me." Not long after his arrest Vacher asked permission to write to his parents, and at the head of hus letter he in:cribed in large letters: “God! Justice! Duty!” Daring the investigation, continuved | diligently for weeks by M. Fourquet, the Mayor of Beaufort, Vacher's birthplace, sent such information of the assassin’s antecedents as discredited the theory that his mania was the result of wounds received in his attempt at suicide. The facts furnished by the Mayor show that from earliest childhood Vacher was erratic, peevish and perverted. While working asa farmhand in the neighbor hood, before he entered the army, his manners and conduct were wicked and shameful. He was from infancy of a fero- cious disposition,and constantly harped on the idea that the flow of human blood would be an edifying spectacle to him. | Often he repeated, “I have no fear of the sight of blood, and if any one allowed { himself to speak ill of me I would kill him. 3 Vacher never had atrade or steady oc- cupation, He was always an idler. An uncentroliable passion seems to have dominated the creature, and of his inter- mittent demoniacal obsessions he ex- presses full consciousness. In making his | primal confession to the magistrate he re- lated his butcheries, in ali their revolting detail, with a minuteness that proved his | perfect consciousness of the manner, im- pulse and infamy of his deeds. All this, he said, was done in despite of his will- power. “My victims have never suf- fered,” he added. *With one hand Inave did the work for them witha knife I will describe to you later.”” The monster persistently insisted that he was delegated by the Almighty to commit these atrocities; that lis victims have been delivered to him by chance, and that he has never gone out of his way to seek them. Meanwhile, it should be remarked that he never attacked any one capable of self-defense; that the unfortunates were children or feeble per- sons, and that he systematically haunted those places in the fields and cattle-paths where he was certain to find unprotected and unsuspecting boys and girls. More- over, all the precautions he took and the great number of crimes he committed without attracting suspicion denote on his part premeditation, reason and reflec- tion. Such were the precauiions Vacher took never | I have | So much the worse for them i{l the cerebral | grasped the throat and wita the other | and probity, and exceptional sobriety, but bis | good behavior, perfect morality | character is that of a concentrated, | intense and non-communicative man. He | has a mania for persecution, and sees | around him only spies who are able to do | him harm. ““He 1is of considerable muscular strength, and experiences often the neces- sity of expending it. He takes a savage delight in raising at the end of his arm the movable objects of the barracks, such as the bunk benches, and chairs stacked on each other. He has insomnia, and his condition is one of nervous strain, *‘He indulges frequently in monologues, with menaciag gestures, and threatens to | cut the throats of bis comrades in the regiment when they irritate bhim with their ntries. **His companions of the mess have often zone to wed with their bayonets at their side, dreading au attack in the night. ‘At different times Vacher has been known 1o express the desire to see blood run, because of the satisfaction it gave | bim.” exacted a promise from the examining magistrate, M. Fourquet, that he would give to the public the assassin’s explana- tion ot his murderous impulsions and the defense of his motive. This he addressed “(o France,” under the caption, “Dieu— Droits—Devoirs.” “It1sail the worse for you," he begins, “if you think I am responsible. The man- nerin which you are concerned over me makes me pity you. If I have kept my misfortunes secret it is because I believed it was for the general in'erest; but seeing | that p.rhaps I have deceived myself 1 am poing to give you the whole truth, | Yes, it is I who bave committed all the crimes for which you reproach me—and this in moments of rage. | charge of the medical department of the Relley prison, I was bitten by a mad dog | when about seven or eight years of age, 1 am not exactly certain of the time, although meanwhile I remember having taken reme lies for the bite. My parents alone could tell youof the facts, but I have always believed from my recollection of | this event that the medicine given to me | poisoned my blood more than the bite of | the dog.” In a jumbled, incoherent mess of faultily | constructed French and idiomatic non- sense, Vacher then go>son to establish the idea that ever after taking the medicine, which he says diseased his blood and pro- duced no antidotal effect on the hydro- | phobis, he felt the brute coming to life in him. At an early age he recalis that he once | said to a brother: ***I donot know what is | the matter with me, but there are mo- ments when I feel that I must kill some- body.” At this period I was 14 years old. Ican remember when traveling alone I could not conquer this idea which would come into my head all of a sudden and 1 would run away across the country for several miles until I got tired out and | then I would return to my work. I must tell you that I would have attacked some one and already made a beast of myself in this frenzy once, but for the chance | meeting with a person coming across the | country, M. Declerieux of Chaponos. To better fix this circumstance in your mind I must tell you that I regarded neither road nor pathway, as it seemed | to relieve me beiter to run across the | country. All this it is my imperative | auty to make you acquainted wita, much | as you will condemn me, though I am | innocent.” Thus far his diagnosis of what he is anxious to demonstrate is an insane | mania for the letting of human blood is not a succ:ss. It will not stand the test of a close scrutiny when. the subsequent facts are borne in mind. The relief of his satvromaniac freuzies did not afterward come from running across the country, and avoiding roads and pathways. Vacher's crafty mind at this point reaches out for an additional justification for what be pleases to account for in him- self as uncontrollable homicidal impulse, and bere he makes the mistake of insisting that he has a continuous and absorbing grievance against society. He would wipe everybody out of existence, forgetting he has already pretended that his impulse to kill only possesses him periodically, or to put it more explicitly in the presence of a victim, “placed in his way by provi- dence.”” The fact is, his passion for blood- letting and butchery is born of another derangement known well to medical science, and the stroke of the guillotine e deserves he seeks to avert by posing as a spasmodic maniac. *As I bave already told the doctor in | | I believe also o CURRY Here are some of the closing sentences of his address: “I must teil you that the abominations which I have seen going on before my eyes in the insane asylum at Dole have ac- centuated my insanity, or rather my rage. that tue weak world will revenze my fiults on my poor parents. They have had to suffer so much from a silence similar to my own since I have been traversing with no other guide than the sun. those who think they should weep over me weep for themselves. Lt would be bet- ter perhaps for them to be in my place.” The last word is an appeal to God. And degenerate is the ouly word per- missible in his physiolog escription | Dr. Jules Voisin, the celebrated Parisian expert on mania, idiocy and epilepsy, says “I have noi examined Vacher, bat from my knowledge of the criminal gleaned from the press, it would seem, from the horror and muitiplicity of the crimes com- mitted, from the absence of remorse and France like one enraged, Let | | the impressions of relief which ne says he | experienced after the accomplishment of each act, that the monster must ba mad. ©But here,” so far as scientific research enlightens us, we fail to note relations or similarities. Morel and Legrand have re- ported their observations of an individ- ual who had killed seven persons in an excess of epileptic fury, but the insane man, after these zcts, had no recoliection of quence. It was an Dbailucination, of which he was afterward unconscious, that impelled him to murder. “In the case of Vacher it is entirely dif ferent. Here a man at irregular inter- vals disembowels young girls and boy+ subjects their bodies fto outrages, care- fully disposes of the objecis or clothing that afford a clew to bis 1dentity, and feels relieved. “Then the word of God, the word of duty, appear. “These are the deeds of a degenerate, of a brain dominated, possessed by un- healthy thoughts. “He resemtles those kleptomaniacs who steal and vagabonds who wander for the mere pleasure of stealing and tramping. +Is it a mystery? 1 think not. The diagnosis should be, ‘mental degenera- | tien.” “This question, however, experts will be required to examine and elucidate. ““Whatever the result of that inquiry may be, these multiplied horrors which have excited the public mind should es- pecially arouse legistators. For several years the Medico-Psychologic society has demanded a law providing for an estab- lishment of permanent confinement for deranged criminal “The time has come to respond to this demand. The law of 1838, still in force, and under which Vacher was released, prohibits a doctor from detaining in any establishment for the insane a patient % ! Who has recovered, even when ihe insane Before making his confession Vacher | trait is homicidal. ow, under the influence of isolation criminal insanity is ameliorated, the de- lirium disappears. Family, friends, pro- tectors, the press even, here intervene to restore the incurable to liberty, notwith- standing that he is always aangerou They demand release arbitrarily, they in- voke the dungeons of the Bastile, and the doctors, constrained to obey the letter of the law, open the doors-of the asylums for the escape of their most harmful inmates. “1f we had institution laws similar to those of England and the United States— verv practical countries—insane persons who had committed or attempted murder would be confined the remainder of their lives.” When the homicide is attacked by the frenzy of murder it is a convulsion impos: sible of mastery. All the energies of the deranged person are excited by an inde- scribably morbid feeling. Without know- ing what he does, the insane Kkills friend, enemy, stranger—it matters not; not, in reality, from passion, from venge- ance or from hatred of any sort, but simply from the imperative necessity of the terrible emotion which oppresses him. This fit may return at any time. It coes not lie within the power of the will to overcome such form of insanity. Murder or violence resulting from these fits are to the perpetrator as if they had never oc- curred ; that 1s to 3ay, the memory has no connection with them. It is as if ‘the memory went into a hiding-place of the prain when the frenzy approached the wiil, and only returned after the destruc- tive impulse exhausted itself. Vacher’s derangement is not of such an order. We find him seli-conscious, delio- erate throughout. He seeks his prey in out-oi-the-way places. He attacks the comparatively weak and helpless, taking them unawares. Approaching the trust- ful innocents along the country highways, in the cattle-fields, in the sheepfolds and pastoral pathways with alluring smile and a pleasant word, he clutches them by the throat and plunges a kniie into tnhe jugular vein. A gasp, and his victim sinks to the ground, to be denuded, dis- emboweled and mutilated at the fiend’s leisure. This method he varies by grasp- ing the child around the forehead or mouth and cutting the throat. But watch him! He is ever on the alert. His ears are strained for the foot- fall of aetection. His gentle brown eyes, now ablaze with animal passion and percevtion, scan the shrubbery at hand and the surrounding vista for the silhouette of a spy or the form of a way- farer who might interrupt his blood feast. He is quick 10 realize the proximity of denger, as he is keen to appreciate the criminal securiiy there is in audacity of execution, for the moment he became conscious of another’s presence when ke assailed the Derouet child he made good his escape, and in the Piantier case, when the woman's shriek of horror wes an- sweréd by her husband, he was no longer frenzied with the biood he had drawn, but flea incontinently with the fresh-stained knife in his hand. Observe how he coolly makes a detour of the woods, into the village nearest his latest crime, which is the subject of pub- lic discussion, and there lingers around the cafes and resorts to gloat over the ian- guage of pity, horror and universal con- aemnation in which every one shares and he makes bold to join. Witness the adroitness he displays in the Derouet affair, after the timety arrival of the gamekeeper, Bobe, causea him to release his murderous grasp on the little gira and fly. His description was per- them, either as 1o manmner or conse- | \(&} G\ B fectly known, as well as his name, for he had passed the night with a farmer close by and shown his military passport. He was met by a gendarme named Pundore, who was seeking the assailant on the highway. marauder?” asked the gendarme, giving the name and description of Vacher to the | assassin bimself. | *“Yes, indeed, and you will have to make | tracks without delay to cvertake him,” be replied, vointing in the opposite di- rection and assuring the gendarme that the fugitive was speeding across the coun- try on a crossroad. The gendarme, impressed with the cool- | | | ness of his demeanor and the gentleness of his address, turned face aboui, and Vacher proceeded on his trail of crime without further molestation. Apropos ot Vacher's sanity of caution, a little shepherdess has identified his pho- tograph as that of a tramp whom she | once befriended. He begged her for some- | thing to eat as he approached, and she | zave him all there was left in her wallet | of bread and cheese. No doubt she would bave svffered the fate of the many others of her calling but for the menacing man- ner in which her two big faithful dogs faced the stranger. “I suppose you are not afraid,” said he, “with these two brutes to protect you.” “Oh, no, indeed,” she replied; “I feel pertectly safe with them. tear to pieces anybody that dared to touch me"—a fizment of her quick wit, it seems, for the two dogs, beyond a disposition to snarl and show their teeth, were no fiercer than any of their sheepherding kind. The fiction of their savage filelity, how- ever, had the desired effect, for “le tueur de Bergers” passed on. The voluntary revelatiuns of Vacher as to the assassination of the young shepherd, Massot-Pellet, at Saint Eiienne-de-Bou- logne, established the innocence of Ber- . | nardin Bannier, who had been denounced, prosecuted and finally persecuted as the murderer. Bannier had been held in | confinementalong time, but was atlength | released for want of sufficient evidence to convict. Bannier’s case affords an interesting study of the extent to wnich public pre- judice will go, once it is direcied by a | plausible suspicion in acriminal case that revolts the community. Bannier was not | accused until long after the murder of the tepherd occurred. The motive of the accusation is now traceable to a political spite. A former gendarme named Boiron, who cherished a secret grievance against Bannier, made the information before the prosecutor. Several days before the assassination, he said, he was astonished to see pro- trading from Bannier's pocket a huge | knife, and asked him why he should be carrying around such a murderous weapon. ~That shepherd of Pontal,” said Ban- | nier, “‘the little Massot, threw stones at me | yesterday when I objected to his sheep | going into my field, and when I get a chance, this knife will settle him.” Of course, Bannier never made any such threat. Still he was arrested. Other enemies corroborated Boiron as to Ban- nier's avowed intention to kill the shep- herd. An ill-disposed neighbor of Bannier, named Chevalier, testified that about 7 o'ciock on the morning of the day on which the body of the boy was found he saw the accused driving cattle from the direction of the spot in which the discov- ery of the murder was subsequently made. Camille Dubois stated that on the same morning, about 6:30 o’clock, he was hunt- ing about 400 yards from where the shep- herd’s remains were discovered and heard {wo piercing cries. He advanced to in- vestigate and saw Bannier’s cattle,passing only a few yards away from the boy’s sheep herd. Bannier formally denied these statements, and testified that on the morning in question his cattle were graz- ing on a prairie spot near his house. He was kept in prison twenty-iwo days, until the magistrate was convinced that the testimony against him was utterly false. Bannier’s restoration to liberty was the sigual for a communal revolution. The hamlet of Ozon, where he lived, became the theater of scandalous scenes. The population, now beiieving firmly in his guilt, systematically versecuted the un- fortunate man and his family as well His daughters, who worked in a mill, were treated by their comrades of both sexes as the offspring of an assassin, and bad to quit the shop, their employer ex- plaining that he could no longer retain in his entourage the daughters of a man whose hands were stained with blood. Bannier could not o out of his house without being insulted and assailed. The children when he passed chanted a dole- ful song reciting his crime, which had been composed for the occasion by a local poet. One morning on arising he found his front door spattered wiih filth, and on the front of the house was inscribed, “You are a murderer.” Another day a scaffold was raised in front of his resi- dence, on which was suspended the bloody entrails of a sheep, and a serpent. The people danced around this, singing “'the song of the murderer.” “Have you seen such a | ) — > ,LJ‘ ~N\ ASSASSINATION OF VICTOR PORTALIER. [Designed by Damblane, Paris.] They would | Another time while he was at work in his field & boy came up to taunt him, in the popular refrain, and he threatened to pull the boy’s ears if he didn’t move on and be silent. The boy related that Ban- nier had threatened to kill him. A num- ber of men called on him for an explana- tion, among them the witness Chevalier, who, witbont provocation, struck him in the face. Bannier, a powerful man, knocked his assailant down, whereupon the whole crowd fell upon him and mauled bhim brutatly. Chevalier, who was the aggressor, filed information against Bannier for having threatened to kill the mischievous boy, and Bannier was fined fifteen francs. Since that day the hatred of the populace against the un- happy man has increased. It is impos- gible for him to appear anywhere without suffering 4 vicious attack. When Vach- ar’s confession, which acquitted Bannier completeiv, was read as a proclamation to the commune, the people refused to credit the veracily of the sctual assassin, and instead of abating their cruel persecution declared they would never be saiisfied un- til Bannier was hanged. How pitiable and pitiless is the malice | of human nature! Several similar the people of ihe prosecuting officers cccurrences, wherein | communes and the | developed an unrea- soning hatred and a brutal determination 1o be revenged on the firs: person accused under the merest shadow of circumstan- tial evidence, might be related. A nnm- ber of innocent individuals were dis- trained of their liberty for weeks, and when released because of the flimsiness of the prooi, found themselves ostracised and under the ban of public contempt. An outlay of money not to be approxi- mately estimated at this time will be re- quired to complete the record of Vacher’s offenses. He was an indefatigable rover, and recrossed his crooked trail from one department toanother throughout France like a rabbit trying to befuddle tbe hounds on itsscent. Once he made an excnrsicn nto the Pyrenees, and would bave gone to Spain but for the discouragement he received from the crowds of Spaniards he met who were fleeing from the consecrip- tion for the Cuban war. The idea of im- pressment for military service in Cuba was not to his liking, so he retraced ais steps. As the authorities are bent on rounding out his itinerary to the last detail, to the end that a solution of mest of the myste- rious, brutai murders of the decade past may be found and many innocent persons rescued from the odium of suspicion, months may be consumed in sleuthing him, and hundred on hundreds of wit- nesses will have to be examined by the magistrates and parquets ot the provinces before the official story of *‘Le Tueur” can be written. Once his presence is proved ata given time in the neighborhood of a crime it is a matter of no difficulty to determine whether he was the perpetrator. He is his own unimpeachable witness against himself, for the marks of the only Vacher are there just as distinctively as were those of the unknown branded on the Mdgdalens of Castle alley ana Mitre lane. The throat wound, the occasional decapi- tation with the knife and dismember- ments, the chest and stomach slashings and the final touch of Apache-like bar- barity, these constitute a silent volume of testimony needing the corrovoration of no living witnesses. Itis the dead that identity Vacher. In passing it is curious to note that Vacher was unlike both Dumollard and «Jack the Ripper”’ in this respect—he had no base of operation, no center of attrac- tion. Dumoliard, who was exceptional in that he had a woman for a confederate as depraved as himself, never got beyond the agricultural suburbs of Lyons, and was irresistibly drawn from time to time back to the viliage of Montleul, where he finaily was discovered and expiated his offenses. | might secretly devour, ASSASSINATION OF PIERRE [#rom Le Journal Iilustre.] So it was with the terror of Whitechapel, save the important exception that he is not known to have been caught, although 1t is altogether probable he has perished. Five of his eleven crimes—those of Oxford street, St. Georges alley (two), Mitre lane | and Castle alley—were committed within a radius of a few hundred yards and almost at the back door of a police station. Four of these murders occurred within a lineal distance of 100 yards. In some den of this densely inhabited focal point of White- chapel the ‘“‘Ripper” undoubtedly lived unheeded and unsuspected. Vacher on tha contrary had no attach- ment for locality, no hiding place whence he sneaked in the night to gratify his thirst for blood. Ever restlessly moving on, now assuming the meiancholy air of an unfortunate to whom the fates bad been cruel and again playing the part of a light-hearted troubador, seeking the while with his baleful eye the innocents he Vacher’s entire career has been uniquely that of a noma- dic assassin. 1t is very evident from the earnestness of the scientists concerned and the sym- pathetic interest in the movement ex- pressed by the statesmen and lawmakers of France that the Vacher case will be made the stariing-point of an investiga- tion, far-reaching in its purposes, under the auspices of the Medico-Psychologic Society. The entire pathogenic problem of crimi- nal antecedents is likely to come under review by a practical and exhaustive pro- cess of inquiry, which will traverse In each instance not less than three generas tions. While Lombroso has accomplished a marvelous work in this field of research, much territory remains to be explored be- fore the summation of pathographical facts will be suflicient to compel the anti- criminal legislation manifestly reserved for the lawgivers of the next century. Civilized government and the society of which it is the expression shrinks more and more from the life-for-life doctrine. The public gibbet and the guillotine, which once raised themselves behind the blind symbol of justice, are become dis- tant sbadows in the background of the scene where sentence of death is proe nounced—the realities of them are rele- gated from the public presence and con- fined to out-of-the-way places where only a few especially invited observers may witness the execution of the law’s decree. Morbidity of interest in all that per- tains to the prosecution of extraorainary criminals is come to be shared in by the more Intelligent and the explanation of this lies in the growing consciousness AR N s ™ . il »’W MASSOT - PELLET, Al : that in all criminals of the perverted class-types of incurable diseases are re- vealed. Does society owe it to itself, from humane considerations, to spare the life but provide for the certain though slow extinction of these decadents by close confinement? Should we have a new system of classification of criminals that would enable us to segregate those of inherited propensities, in whom modificas tion is impossible, from the fewer whose offenses are traceable to the influence of environment, and bury for life the for- mer, both men and women, in establish- ments especially designed for the pur- pose? In striving to maintain the affirmative answer to these questions the Parisian specialists will predicate their inquiry, and whatever plan may be suggested for pathogonomic and legislative adoption, on the first cause of inebriate parente age. The first class in the schedule of degen- erates and incurables, beings who do not deserve death butshonld be placed beyond the opportunity for procreation, will be ot the genesis of drunkards. For them asy- lums in which they may corafortably end their existence may be provided. Such institutions would greatly relieve the penitentiaries of the countless degen- erates who are of the order oi second of- fenders; save to the taxpavers a large part of the money expended in chasing and prosecuting what are known as “pro- fessional crooks,”” and serve gradually to diminish their pervert species. Voila! le projet! The further effect of the work of the commission, if it is carried out to the an- ticipated limit, wili be to stimulate the safeguarding of society against the rap- idly increasing class of degenerates now described as anarchists, whose mania takes nov only the form of a destructive hostility toward property and 1ts owners, but a murderous hatred against all human beings who represent law and order. The impotency of their numbers is no criterion of their mental derangement, which is of an order that proceeds from and reproduces members wio are better qualified for a life of legal isolation than the enjoyments and benefits of the social compact. These men and women are essentially generic, ana when science shall have de- fined their species pathologically their just and humane suppression may be brought about. Melancholy though the cost, “‘Le Tueur de Bergers’” may prove to have been an excitant to great reforms now only vaguely foreseen. E. D. Cowen,