Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-03-21
GAZE OF THE CRIMINAL
Confirmed Crooks Can Easily lool
Honest Men In the Eyes.

Confirmed Crooks Can Easily Lool
Honest Men In the Eyes.
It is q popular belief that a mar
who cannot look you In the eye stead.
lily and squarely, is dishonest Fol
many. generations the writer's of fic.
ton have drawn their dishonest char.
acters as men (or women) with "shif.
He could not look me in the eye
and I knew he was the guilty person,
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 part In trying the third de.
gree" on prisoners, and they will tel
you that the worst crooks they ever
met had the faculty Of outstarine
them. ~
"I have known the worst thug, gun.
man and burglar to look me steadily
In the eye until he actually tired my
optical nerves, so that I could stare al
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. Lone
experience on the part Of police Of
ficials, prison officials and other ex-
perts, who have made a study Of such
things, has shown that 1t Is far more
frequently the crook who can stare
you steadily In the eye than the hon.
est man. 80 @@
And the reason for this, according
ness, or fright, or both. The crook
10 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 q steady. un-
flinching eye has long been accepted
as a sign Of honesty, that steady
glance will frequently disarm sus-
picion, and so, when he Is caught he
instantly resorts to this method as an
aid. 49,. -. 81. &
He will look at the police or who
ever his accusers may be quite stead
lily, calmly and with q brave assump-
ton Of innocence.
He Is not shocked by his arrest. He
has lived q crooked life. He has been
living liable to arrest for many years.
and so there is no shock except that
Of chagrin 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 of
wrong-doing comes as terrible shock
to him. He never deserved II, he
knows that and consequently 1t seems
all the worse. He is frightened, with
the fright Of an animal that has inno-
Gently walked into trap. s,. .,
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 nerv-
BUSINESS makes him fairly distracted,
so that he looks down at the floor or
out Of the window in his distress.
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 dong
wrong, that he has sinned against his
brother man or the community.
Naturally, such a man has no reason
to be shifty-eyed. He can look his
accusers In the eye, for he does not
appreciate any sinfulness in wrong.
To him wrong" Is something that
the government Furnishes people for.
z 4hC hOhCoI hhOW5 why
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 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 q crook be-
cause he could not return q steady
look, but this is different now. These
experts know that most crooks have
steady eyes, and the bigger the crook
the longer and harder he can stare
back at them, while a great many
honest men, or wrongly accused men,
cannot do this, and SO other methods
have to be adopted.-New York Amer
lean.