The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-04-03
GAZE OF THE CRIMINAL.
Confirmed Crooks Can Easily Look
Honest Men in the Eyes.


who cannot look you in the eye stead
liz and squarel", is dishonest. For
many generations the writer's of fic-
ton have drawn their dishonest
characters as men (or women) with
"shifty" glances.
He could not look me in the eye
AMI I knew he was the guilty per-
son. or words to that effect have
frequently been included in fiction
until every one, almost, has come to
believe it. But this is by no means
true.
Ask any veteran police official, es-
pecially such police officials as have
had a part in trying the third de-
gree" on prisoners, and they will tell
you that the worst crooks they ever
met had the faculty of outstaring
them.
Il have known the worst thug,
gunman and burglar to look me
steadily in the eye until he actually
tired my optical nerves, so that I
could stare at him no longer" an old
police official recently stated.
And on the other hand, many an
honest man has been unable to look
his accusers squarely in the eye.
Long experience on the part of police
officials, prison officials and other
experts, who have made a study of
such things, has shown that it is far
more frequently the crook who can
stare you steadily in the eye than
the honest man.
And the reason for this, according
to medical men, is form of nervous
ness, or fright, or both. The crook
is always living in the fear that he
will some time be caught, and he has
trained himself as to just what he
will do. He knows that a steady, un-
finching eye has long been accepted
as a sign of honesty, that a steady
glance will frequently disarm suspic-
ion, and so, when he is caught he in
stantly resorts to this method as an
aid.
He will look at the police or who
ever his accusers nay be quite stead
lily, calmly and with a brave assump-
ton of innocence.
He is not shocked by his arrest. He
has lived crooked life. He has been
living liable to arrest for many years,
and so there is no shock except that
of chargrin and anger at being
caught.
But with the honest man this is all
different. He sees no reason why he
should be accused. He has been hon
est, and to be arrested or accused CT
wrong-doing comes as q terrible shock
to him. He never deserved it, he
knows that and consequently it seems
all the worse. He is frightened, with
the fright of an animal that has inno-
Gently walked into trap.
When the police or others glare at
him all the honest man can think of
is the shame and disgrace of even be-
ing accused of wrong, and his ner-
vousness makes him fairly distrac-
tea, so that he looks down at the
floor or out of the window in his dis
tress.
And there are other reasons for
this. The wrongdoer is frequently a
sort of degenerate, who really hasn't
the quality of brain to enable him to
understand that wrong is wrong. All
he may know of wrong is that he has
to be careful and not get found out
or he is punished; he does not feel
within himself that he has been doing
wrong, that he has sinned against his
brother man or the community.
Naturally, such a man has no rea-
son to be shifty-eyed. He can look his
accusers in the eye, for he does not
appreciate any sinfulncss in wrong.
To him wrong" is something that
the government Furnishes people for.
The honest man knows why wrong
is wrong. He knows that to steal is
wrong, because he is taking from an
innocent party; that to kill is wrong
because he takes a life he can never
restore, and to be accused of such
things jars his sense of honor and
confuses him until he is on the verge
of nervous prostration.
Experts in criminal bureaus no
longer place much weight upon the
fact that a suspect cannot look them
in the eye. In the olden days they
were inclined to think the crook in
nocent who was unflinching in his
stare, and the honest man a crook be-
cause he could not return steady
look, but this is different now. These