Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-04-05

touched the corpse the wounds would
legged phenomenon was accepted as a
fact the few murderers who had the
hardihood to put hands on their VIC
Tins without breaking down scored
great point in their favor.
Frightening Criminals.
Deliberately frightening a confession
out of murderers by artificial means has
more than once proved effective with
criminals of low intellectual caliber. A
few years ago a rape and murder mys-
terry in tine south was definitely solved
by suddenly showing the negro suspect,
who was in a darkened room, a human
skeleton which tangled it's joints in a
most uncanny manner and uttered sep
ulchral warnings to tell the truth. 1t
proved too much for the suspect, who
fell upon his knees, admitted he had
been lying and pleaded 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 Chi
naman maintains an utterly express
sionless, fiushless countenance, always
accepting verbal or physical browbeat-
ing with stoical Indifference. When
Chinaman does appear to weaken and
give up facts discriminating others Of
his race, it is almost impossible to
learn whether he is honest i'm his dec
larations 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
cret society far more than anything
the American police dare to do to
them. The recent case in which one
of his co-cOnspirators turned on Lupo,
The Wolf" and caused him to be
sent to the Federal penitentiary in At
lanta for thirty years for counterfeit
ing, was a 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.
Criminal Wants to Talk.
The theory of the detective in the
ordinary application of the third de-
gree is that a criminal almost invari-
ably 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 snow evi-
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
ingly direct questions based on the evil
dence in hand, or on shrewd deductions.
II he remains obdurate, the personality
of another detective is tried. Some
times this is continued INCREASINGLY for
many hours.
The chance influence of the person
ality Of the questioner is often remark
able. Two or three years ago young,
well-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 headquarters
she proved a Tartar, refused to an
swer any queries, defed the United
States and wound up by swinging
neavy chatelaine bag on the jaw Of the
chief of detectives. A reporter who
was in the room Clipped in with the
remark that she was making a fool of
herself, whereupon she calmed down,
gave him the sordid but pitful story of
her life, and, thinking him a detective,
willingly went with him to the police
station where she was to stand trial.