Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1879-03-01 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

EXAMINER.  SATURDAY NARk,'D Ist 1879.  PEACE AND IHE PRESS, The notorious murderer and burglar, Charles Peace, has now suffered the last penalty of the law, and it might seem the wisest course to let his name drop for ever out of sight. But before casting him out of mind, much in the same summary as he has been cast out of existence, it may serve some good purpose to try and account for the causes which made so vile and wicked • criminal what may be called the hero ot the hour during the time that elapsed between his arrest and his execution. One of the Loudon dailies, which devoted upwards of four columns to two accounts of the rina scene within the precincts of Armly Gaol, and an elaborate sketch of the criminal's career, wound up the whole with the following sage and aamonitory sentence "Now that Peace has part the last dire penalty of his crimes, it is perhaps not too much to hope that the depraved unhealthy interest which has centred around him and his misdeeds may pass away with him and be unproductive of any further mischief to moiety at large." This is very well, and the sentiment the words convey is unexceptional; but at the same t;me it does look just a little out of place on a page which is almost given up—and a large portion of it in leaded type—to a sensational account of the life and death of Charles Peace. There cannot be a doubt that the "unhealthy interest"—which is characterised in the above quotation as "depraved," and there fore reprobated—was largely created and I stimulated by that portion of the newspaper press which comes rushing out upon the world in a succession of startling evening editions. In making this statement or charge, we are quite ready to admit that there was much of an exceptional nature in connection with the career of Peace which naturally brought him into greater prominfence than the ordinary run of robbers and murderers. It was almost like a coup de theatre when the disoovery was made, through the revelations of a woman with whom the robber was in intimate relations, that the alarming burglaries at Blackheath , were committed by the same man who, two years before, had murdered Mr Dyson at Banner Cross, near Sheffield, and who had given all the detectives the slip There had been a mystery about the murder, which had created a great deal of local excitment and alarm at the time, and there was also a mystery about the Blackheath burglaries, as they continued to go on not.. withstanding the vigilance of an augmented force of night constables. The idea which had obtained lodgment in the mind of the police was that a gang of housebreakers were at work in the district that was associated with the exploits of highwaymen in old days, and the solitary operator was thus enabled, through the mistake of the detectives, to baffle all the plans that were laid for a capture. So much attention had ' been drawn to the burglaries, by the con, stant appearance of paragrapus in the news papers, that the arrest at last of Peace, Mies Ward, alias Thompson—who had seriously in. a constable by a shot befei e he was secured—excited a considerable amount of public interest, and this interest of course, grew livelier and wanner when through the information which they received from a "good natured friend" of the prisoner's—the police were enabled to iudentify Ward, alias Thompson, as the Charles Peace who had been "wanted" for two years past, but who had previously managed to elude capture although he never left the country The fasts in con nection with the convicts career, as they were gradually made known, created the impression that in audacity, skill, and cunning, he far excelled the common run of criminals; and there was something calculated to startle the public in the oir• oumstance that a notorious burglar could live in a respectable house—dignified by the name of villa—in the suburbs of London and keep a pony and trap without creating any suspicion as to his real character and occupation in the minds of his nearest neighbours. All these things serve to explain and to justify the greater prominence given to the convict Peace in the columns of the press than ordinary criminals receive, and there is no occasion thus far for attributing any blame in the matter. But there were some newspapers anxious to make the most of the newest sensation of the day, which were not contented with statements of facts, and which invented a number of stories for the purpose of pandering to vicious taste and keeping up an unhealthy but paying excitement.  MEW