New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-05-26
CRIMINALS CONSCIENCE.
callous to all Sentiments Of Remoyse-The
Murderer of the Novel a Creature I'm
known to the Criminal Courts.

Callous to all Sentiments of Remoyse-The
Murderer of the Novel Creature I'M
known to the Criminal Courts.
New York Times
| asked my friend the District At
5orney whether in his opinion crlmi-
nails suffered remorse, and he tilted
himself back in his chair, looked up at
the ceiling, folded his hands, contract
ed his brow, and said
'sRemorse!" That means mental
agony because OF the crime. Some
criminals do, others do not. Now,
when | speak of remorse l mean SUI
lerlng through penitence and sorrow
Tor the crime. That is what the novel
lists mean when they speak
Of remorse. It is punish
ment only suffered by the COM
guilty. The weak man forced into
crime by circumstances suffers the ag-
onies ofthe damned, and the willfulIy
bad man delights in crime, and suffers
no compunctions whatever. Ofcourse,
ne has fear of detection; tear OF pun
/ lshment may be present in the crilni-
nails mind, but that isnot remorse.
''The man who suffers remorseis the
young married clerk who is distressed
at home. He steals money from his
employer and conceals the theft. He
intends to return that money and
sometimes does. Even then he suffers
remorse. He keenly. feels that he
has betrayed a trust, that he has been
thief. He sorrows because OF lost
selt-respect. Another case is that of
the young man who, in a fit Of drunk
en- madness, kills fellow-man When
he becomes conscious of what he has
done his mental agony is terrible. un-
less 1t is so great as to benumb all his
senses. His nerves become totally
shattered, and his magma ton plunges
him into perfect hell Of horrors
"But not so with the willfully bad
man. Not SO with the professional
criminal. His life is happy one.
His nature is so constituted that it
finds its happiness in excitement. The
commission of a crime is fun for him.
There is fun in the planning of rob-
berry, fun IN its execution, fun in the
escape, fun in playing hide and seek
with the officers of the law, fun in
boasting of the exploit to the other
members OF the gang of thieves, fun
even in the capture, fun in hearing
his counsel plead his case for him, fun
In watching the actions of the jury.
All through the trial the criminal is
the focal point of attraction and he
gains huge enjoyment from this fact
"Novelists have all gone wrong in
regard to criminals. presume some
Of them knew better, but they felt they
could hardly afford to antagonize
public sentiment and the critics. One
Of these days a novelist will arise
and paint criminals in their true
colors, and then society will be
outraged and the critics will de-
nounce the writer But when sober sec
ond thought comes and the novel is
subjected to careful analysis, and when
it has been widely discussed, men of
intelligence and experience will agree
that the writer who has made his
criminals glory in their crimes is COR
cect, and that all others who have en-
lowed hardened ruffians with remorse
were wrong.
The average novel reader viii not be-
ieve this. Even the worst of their
villains must suffer remorse, and so
with the average theater-goers. Public
sentiment demands remorse in all
villains, and therefore they are made
remorseful even by men who know how
falsel y they are drawing the characters
| n low l,ai, no, de-
blind men are to- this fact. l have
heard more than a score say that a
villain so depraved as Bill Sykes,
Dickens burglar, in oliver Twist,
never was seen. Pshaw! | can pick up
The daily papers almost any day and
show a much worse man than Bill
Sykes. What was Bill Sykes in COM
parison with Charles Rugg, the Queens
county murderer, who strangled Miss
Maybee in the barn and then lay in
wait for the mother to come out
10 find what delayed her daughter?
Then he strangled the mother and
vent into the house to rob it. When
the poor, old, blind father asked who
he was Rugg beat him brutally and
then coolly searched the house and
look all the money and valuableS he
could find. Did he suffer remorse?
Not much. He was around next day,
one of the most composed men among
The searchers for the. murderer. How
he must have laughed in his heart at
ihe confessions Of poor Taben, the
.aalf-witted man who was frightened
by detectives into saying that he had
done the deed. Rugg enjoyed the next
lew months thoroughly and was never
suspected. He would have got off
scott free if he had not gone into
Wholesale butchery as a trade. Re-
morse could never have fastened itself
On him, else how could he 60 on. muir
iering innocent people who had done
iim no injury at all?
"The, only thing wrong with Bill
sykes is that Dickens has rot made
him hardened enough. His murder OF
MS mistress because of her betrayal OF
the gang with which he was, connected
was a very ordinary affair. ANY New
York burglar or thief would do the
same thing and rejoice in it. His com
oanions would consider him q weak