Los Angeles herald., 1910-03-11
THE THIRD DEGREE
By Frederic j. HaSkin

scientific third degree" which has
been reduced to its ultimate conclu-
sion in France. There 1t Is customary,
when enough clews have been left to
give the police fairly accurate idea
of how a murder was committed, 70
reconstruct the crime" for the benefit
of an arrested person thought TO pc
the guilty one. He is taken to the
scene, where police officials who have
carefully rehearsed their parts, ex-
actly reproduce the murder as they
conceive 1t was committed. All its
lurid details are portrayed, including
a liberal shedding of fake blood, dying
means, convulsive twitchings, deatn
rattle horrible fear on the race OF the
victim, followed by the furtiVe, haunt
ed escape of the perpetrator OF the out
rage. 1t requires far more or an IRON
will than that possessed by the usual
murderer to keep his nerve While TINS
Is going on. and more than one mas
then and there placed his neck unuer
the guillotne by offering to tell all IL
he is only carried away from the sight.
Confronting a supposed murderer
with the body of his victim is one OF
the Oldest of third degree methods
but the original reason for this grew
some meeting has been forgotten. AT
present II Is arranged for the purpose
of working on the superstitious sensl-
bilities which are more or less inherent
I'm all human beings Originally the
suspect was given the narrowing job
of touching the body because OF
Widespread belief that II the murderer
touched the corpse the wounds would
bleed afresh. In an age when this al
legged phenomenon was accepted as q
fact the few murderers who had the
hardihood to put hands on their VIC
tins without breaking down scored
great point in their favor.
Deliberately frightening a confession
out of murderer by artificial means
has more than once proved effective
with criminals of low intellectual call
iber. a few years ago rape ana
murder mystery in the south was def-
nitely solved by suddenly showing the
negro suspect, who was In a darkened
room, a human skeleton which tangled
its Joints in a most uncanny manner
and uttered sepulchural warnings to
tell the truth. II proved too much for
the suspect, who fell upon his knees,
admitted he had been lying and plead
ed for mercy.
But the third degree is yet to be in
vented which will be consistently sue
cessful against the Chinese or against
the Italian secret societies. Under the
fiercest questioning, and before the
most startling denouements the China
man maintains an utterly expression
less, fushless eountenance, always ac-
eepting verbal or physical browbeating
with stoical indifference. When a Chi
naman does appear TO weaken and give
up facts discriminating others of his
race it is almost impossible 10 learn
whether he is honest in his declara-
tions or simply using the law of the
"barbarians" to punish a private or
tong enemy without risk to himself
The difficulty In making the third
degree work with Italians is that they
fear the private vengeance of their Sc
eret societies far more than anything
the American police dare do to them.
The recent case in which one of his
-conspirators turned on Lupo, THE
Wolf" and caused him to be sent 10
the federal penitentiary in Atlanta for
thirty years for counterfeitng was n
rare exception. The third degree has
not furnished a definite clew to the
murderer of Detective Petrosino of the
New York force, who was shot down
on a crowded street in an italian city,
although the New York police would
rather lay hands on him than any
other five life takers in America.
The theory of the detectives in the
ordinary application of the third de-
gree is that a criminal almost inva-
riably has a secret craving to confide
in some one, especially after he has
been locked in a cell a day or so and
the confinement has begun to worry
him. When he is thought to be in the
proper frame of mind he is taken to
the office and talked to kindly at first.
Then the quizzer begins to show evil
dence against him, hints how dark his
future is and suggests that he had bet
ter relieve his mind by an honest con-
fession. He is bombarded with start
lingly direct questions based on the
evidence in hand or on shrewd deduc-
tions. IL he remains obdurate, the
personality of another detective is
tried. Sometimes this is continued un-
ceasingly for many hours.
The chance influence of the person.
ality of the questioner is often remark
able. Two or three years ago a young,
we'll l-dressed woman who had been
begging on the streets of Washington
was arrested on the suspicion that be-
hind her petty graft she had some
blackmailing scheme. At headquar-
ters she proved tartar, refused to
answer any queries defled the United
States, and wound up by swinging u
heavy chatelaine bag on the jaw of the
chief of detectives. A reporter who
was in the room Clipped in with tho
remark that she was making a fool OF
herself, whereupon she Gained down,
gave him the sordid but pitiful story
of her life. and. thinking him a de-
tectiVe, willingly went with him to the
police station where she was to stand
trial.