Here is explanation enough for the presence of evil in our
natures, that instinct to destroy which finds comparatively
harmless expression in certain forms of taking life, which is at
its worst when we fall to taking each other's. It is to check an
inconvenient form of the expression of this instinct that we
punish murderers with death. We must carry the definition of
murder a step farther before we can count on peace or
happiness??{in}??this world. We must concentrate all our
strength on?? fighting criminal nature, both in ourselves and in
the world around us. With the destructive forces of nature we
are waging a perpetual struggle for our very existence. Why
dissipate our strength by fighting among ourselves? By enlarging
our conception of crime we move towards that end. What is anti-
social, whether it be written in the pages of the historian or
those of the Newgate Calendar, must in the future be regarded
with equal abhorrence and subjected to equally sure punishment.
Every professor of history should now and then climb down from
the giddy heights of Thucydides and Gibbon and restore his moral
balance by comparing the acts of some of his puppets with those
of their less fortunate brethren who have dangled at the end of a
rope. If this war is to mean anything to posterity, the crime
against humanity must be judged in the future by the same rigid
standard as the crime against the person.

The individual criminals whose careers are given in this book
have been chosen from among their fellows for their pre-eminence
in character or achievement. Some of the cases, such as Butler,
Castaing and Holmes, are new to most English readers.

Charles Peace is the outstanding popular figure in nineteenth-