The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-05-21

]
Han-sIayer-The Impulse TO XIII
as Observed in Young Children.
Women Exceed Men in FerOcity.
From the Hartford Times.
Are you a murderer
! Presumably not. But there Is no one
| in this world. if students of the subject
are correct, who might not be led by i'm
aginable circumstances TO slay a fellow
being In a word. We are all possible
| homicides.
The execution Of the monster, H. H.
Holmes, has attracted special attention
| to the subject of homicide. CriminOlog-
| lists assert that he was a case of atav-
isn-a reversion 10 the primitive and saw
| age type Of man, who regarded killing
as part of the BUSINESS Of life. Under
wild conditions the murderer is entirely
normal; the savage preys habitually on
his fellow beings, commonly eating them
after they are dead.
| The government has in its employ an
expert who makes a business OF studying
| murderers When a notable assassin is
captured Dr. Arthur Macdonald goes
and takes his measurements in prison. He
| tests his sensit!veness to heat and cold,
| and performs other experiments which
throw light upon the abnormal makeup
Of the homicide. If practicable. he gets
the mans story. which usually reveals
the fact that he was morally deformed
from childhood up. Said DR.. Macdonald
IN conversation yesterday:
In any child you may see the i'm
| pulses ana passions of the primitive saw
| age represented. During the first few
| months Of Its existence the infant shows
| anger by movements Of the eyebrows or
| hands, at the age of 1 year il strikes
! otner people, breaks objects and throws
! Things at those who dsplease II. Some
| children become enTaged when they can
| not reach something they want and bite
! when they are annoyed. They delight in
| breaking inanimate objects tearing
/ Things, striking animals, tramping on any
! thing 10 Kill it, Among the lower classes
! boys from to 10 years old are notorious
| ~ cruel. one reads in the newspapers
] OF many murders committed by children
| Not long ago two boys, 10 and 10 years
| Of age respectively, threw a younger com
! rade INTO deep hole and stoned him to
/ death.
Looking at man from a scientific point
| OF view, he exceeds all other animals
| IN criminality. He kills not only his own
| species, which the beasts rarely do, but
| beings Of all other species. At present
| the bloody idea of war governs the whole
| human race. Modern Europe has 1900
| 600 men trained for war, while Rome,
| with her vast empire, had only 100000 le
| glonarles. The savage instinct of murder
! IS sttu deeply rooted. War is regarded
| by the criminologist as universal murder
| "a worldwide extension of homicidal
| crime. We look upon cannibalism with
| horror, but, as Montague says, 1t is
more barbarous to kill a live man than to
| roast and eat a dead one
| Man IN the savage state looked upon
| every stranger as an enemy and killed
| MIN II he could. The little child of to-
day born of civilized parents IN an en-
| murderer to atavism, but in the great
| this impulse to murder. For 1t would hes
| itate none the more TO bite its nurse or
| strike its mother did these acts cause their
| deaths. Fortunately, this propensity is
| usually corrected; but should 1t persist,
| and surroundings be favorable for its de-
a 10Th
| murderer. We are disposed to attribute
| the impulses of the habitual murderer to
| atavism, but in the great majority Of in
| stances undoubtedly homicides are due to
| the influence of surroundings OF course
! in many cases 1t is impossible to deter
| mine whether environment of prenatal in
| huence has had more to do with the re-
| suit.
| mits homicide who has not tendency that
| way; but who is there among us that has
not more or less of this tendency? Is
| there any human being who has not felt at
| one time or another that he would like to
| kin somebody who has treated his badly2
| The gentlest woman will sometimes give
| utterance to such a feeling, and then
! laugh at the passion which she herself
| has exhibited. She does not realize that
there was trace of criminal impulse in
| her remark Some men manifest the ZEN
| dency to murder only under certain cir
| cumstances. If angry, they want TO kill;
| if drunk, they want to kill; If in the COM
| pany of somebody who has money with
| him, they want to kill Such individuals
| we call murderers by OCCASION
! 1.-The habitual murderer is a different
! character altogether. l once knew such
| an individual, who had killed three men
! for no other reason than that they had
| insulted women of his acquaintance He
! was a person of notable virtue so far as
| women were concerned, and he held
| them in an honorable regard which
! would have done credit to a knight err
! rant. At the same time, he had not the
! slightest hesitation in killing anybody
! who displeased him. He killed keeper
! in the prison because he did not Ike
/ him. He was a murderer by nature-a
| pure case of reYersion to the savage type.
| liked, and on a sinking steamship he would
! have been apt to appear in the character
| feared nobody, and had nothing in COM
| mon with the cowardly H. H. Holmes,
| whose crimes were committed in sneak
| ing fashion and for the purpose OF get
| ting money usually
"A man like Holmes gets credit for
| a great deal more cunning and intelli-
| gence than he actually possesses. To
| kill a person who has confidence in you
| does not require much wit. To obtain
| the affection of a woman and then be-
| tray her by numbering her or otherwise
| is not smart; 1t is simply meanness.
! listed as soldiers they run away. Intel
| lectually they are decidedly below par.
| The ordinary man, If he devoted his at
! tention to crime and made II his speciality,
could far Guido most criminals Holmes
| was a poisoner, a killer of women and
| littIe children. No courage was REQUIRED
II
/ killed his former janitor at the famous
| castle in Chicago; but the man is now
| alive being employed as hagman on
! railway
Il knew a boy who was a murderer at
! u years of age. His father was drunk
! ard and drove him out of the house, so
| that he came to consort with criminals.
| Then he took to tramping, and led the life
of a wild man in the rural districts of Illi-
nois. One day he was going down a road
and saw a fat woman. 1t occurred to
him that it would be fun to throw snow
balls at the fat woman. She 'sassed' him,
as he expressed it, and then he threw
stones at her. She cursed him, and he
picked up bigger stones. He had three big
stones, and with the two smaller ones
he broke the woman's skull and her arm.
When he told me the story, l asked him
why he did not use the biggest one, and
he replied that he did not want to waste
it on her. This boy refused to play cards
with his companions in prison, because it
was wrong to play cards
when the pleasure Of murder has once
been tasted by the atavistic manslayer,
to kill becomes a burning passion One
such criminal expressed regret on the scat