century crime. He is the type of the professional criminal who
makes crime a business and sets about it methodically and
persistently to the end. Here is a man, possessing many of those
qualities which go to make the successful man of action in all
walks of life, driven by circumstances to squander them on a
criminal career. Yet it is a curious circumstance that this
determined and ruthless burglar should have suffered for what
would be classed in France as a "crime passionel." There is more
than a possibility that a French jury would have ?? ing
circumstances in the murder of Dyson. ?? Peace is only another
instance of the wreck- ?? ong man's career by his passion for a
??

?? bert Butler we have the criminal by conviction, a conviction
which finds the ground ready prepared for its growth in the
natural laziness and idleness of the man's disposition. The
desire to acquire things by a short cut, without taking the
trouble to work for them honestly, is perhaps the most fruitful
of all sources of crime. Butler, a bit of a pedant, is pleased
to justify his conduct by reason and philosophy--he finds in the
acts of unscrupulous monarchs an analogy to his own attitude
towards life. What is good enough for Caesar Borgia is good
enough for Robert Butler. Like Borgia he comes to grief;
criminals succeed and criminals fail. In the case of historical
criminals their crimes are open; we can estimate the successes
and failures. With ordinary criminals, we know only those who
fail. The successful, the real geniuses in crime, those whose
guilt remains undiscovered, are for the most part unknown to us.
Occasionally in society a man or woman is pointed out as having
once murdered somebody or other, and at times, no doubt, with