The San Francisco call., 1905-04-23
GREAT DETECTIVE
WRITES MEMOIRS

True detective stories and lots OF
them are told in The Memoirs of a
Great Detective, by John Wilson
Murray, the chief inspector of crimi-
4 nal investigation of the province of
Ontario. Murray has had very long
very varied and very successful ex-
perience in that line of work. He is
now 65 years Of age and he began his
career as a detective when quite a
young man. The first case he handled
was a most important one, namely,
the detection and Illustration of the
plan of the Confederate, Cole, to cap
ture the Z. S. S. Michigan, and with
il to take Johnson Island, in Lake
Erie, and liberate the 1000 Confeder-
ates imprisoned there. The plan was
partly carried out and came very near
being successful but the skill of Muir
ray thwarted Cole and the men who
were working with him, and in con-
sequence of the ability and predilec-
ton for unraveling secrets shown in
that performance the detective de-
cided to devote his whole time to it
as a profession.
There are many interesting accounts
given of peculiar crimes and of the
detection of the guilty by following
slight clews. Some of the stories are
quite amusing, as one called "A King,
a Lunatic and a Burglar" in which
Murray tells of being taken for all
three of these in one night of painful
experience. He explains that detective
work has no magic in it, but that sue
cess depends on hard application and
experience, just as in any other busi-
ness
The opinions he has formed about
criminology and human nature after
all these long years of such ample ex-
perience are noteworthy as a summing
up of what all the stories serve to
teach. He believes that crime is a
disease and that II is hereditary; that
it may skip a generation, or even two
or three, but 1t is an inherent and in
herited weakness. He also believes
that "once dishonest always dis
honest" is the general rule. He
says crooks as a whole are honorable
in their peculiar way, that is, they
have code Of honor, and, although
1t is always paradoxical, they adhere
to 1t. Criminals are usually very CRATE
full for what they consider favors, and
the detectives art largely consists in
skillfully using this trait. One of the
exasperations of the sleuths. profess
sion is that often when they know to a
certainty that they could lay their
hands on the perpetrators of evil deeds
they have to wait for evidence that
could convict, and sometimes this evi-
dence never comes.
Murray believes strongly in circum-
stantial evidence. The falsity of direct
evidence is much more likely thing
than that circumstances will combine
to indicate falsely. The great gift of
the detective is to know how to recog-
nize a lie, and by listening to a lot of
lies be able to drag the truth out from
the midst of the cunning falsehood.
LAS a detective advances in his busi-
ness he will find that the more he stu
dies and works the stronger his pow
ers of intuition, of divination and of
analysis become .
Some of the most satisfying of his
conclusions are that few men make a
success Of crime; that crime Is not in
NAcoSAh6 o"e oA PiOPoiSiOh W tHc HI
crease in population; that there are
very few criminals of genius; a fair
share Of those who ought to be in pris-
on eventually get there; that the de-
tective's contact with the worst ele-
ments of humanity does not take away
the belief that this world is a grand
place and life glorious thing.
((Baker & Taylor Company, New
York, 81 SOD