The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1898-10-19
FUTURES
Double Lives.

The recent arrest of a daring and
most successful burglar in New York
who had piled his nefarious business
for many years without suspicion re-
calls some singular phases of human ma
ture. In the case referred to the aristo-
cratic robber, who had entirely escaped
police surveillance by scrupulously
avoiding association with the criminal
classes, had for ten years lived two lives
To the world he was known as a COM
mercial traveller living reputably in
Brooklyn amid the surroundings of a
respectable family life. His frequent
absences were consistent with the ma
ture of his supposed vocation. In real
ity this pleasant and genial person was
a desperate burglar of the highest skill
in his business, and by his own confes-
zion ready to take life at any time in
its practice. Case in some degree anal
ogous are by no means uncommon
among our infinitely varied social phe-
nomena. The drama of Jim the Pan-
man." which has had such vogue, by
! no means wanders far from truth. That
chastity sketch by S. d. Warren, the
author Of "Ten Thousand a Year."
which reaches its climax in the expert
ence of medical student suddenly con-
fronted on the dissection table with the
| cadaver Of an executed criminal show
| ing the face Of his own father, who had
been called away from an agreeable
country home by important business, Is
said by the author to have closely fol
lowed the lines Of fact. Men who have
two families, to whom they are known
by different names, and who in each
instance are believed by their neighbors
to be highly respectable persons, are
frequently placed in evidence by the
newspaper. The remarkable Druce case
| in London, which involves a contest for
the heirship of one of the greatest peer
ages in England. is based on a similar
supposition of double life
The perversity of human nature is as
diverse as human faces. 1t is not neces-
sary to inquire just what special motive
enters into each example or just what
shade of criminal intent or moral weak
ness is at the root of this two faced ex-
istence. That men should still cling in
the pursuit of villainy to some frag-
ment of exterior honesty and shrink
from the total plunge into recognized
crime is quite natural, alike ON the
ground of cunning and of lingering re-
gret Hypocrisy indeed in different
phases enters into thousands of lives
and is practically condoned in its prac-
tice. But this vice is looked on in minor
matters as essential to the fabrication
of social affairs. 1t is in the more seri-
ous phases that it deserves the tribute
paid by La Rochefoucauld-that it is the
compliment which vice pays to virtue.
The double life in some form is very
common indeed in human nature. Ste
venson's conception of "Dr. Jekyll and
Mr.. Hyde" is indeed only a novel setting
of a very old recognition Of the mystery
of personality. Good men. whose lives
are without a stain, sometimes think
and do things without soruple Of re-
morse in their dreams which shock
them in the waking memory. The pos
sibilities of almost every crime exist in
the saint. The difference between the
saint and the sinner is that the one
tramples the instincts of the world, the
flesh and the devil underfoot. and the
other clasps them joyously to :is bosom.
That Charter Oak heating stow,