must be apparent to all. With such men
crime is "the business of their lives." They delight in it. Their zest
for it never flags, even in old age. What leads men like Raymond or Carr
to risk a sentence of penal servitude is not a sense of want--that is a
forgotten memory. Nor is it even a craving for filthy lucre. The
controlling impulse is _a love of sport_, for every great criminal is a
thorough sportsman. And in the case of a man who is free from the
weakness of having a conscience, it is not easy to estimate the
fascination of a life of crime. Fancy the long-sustained excitement of
planning and executing crimes like Raymond's. In comparison with such
sport, hunting wild game is work for savages; salmon-fishing and
grouse-shooting, for lunatics and idiots!

The theft of the Gold Cup at Ascot illustrates what I am saying here.
The thieves arrived in motor cars; they were, we are told, "of
gentlemanly appearance, and immaculately dressed," and they paid their
way into the grand stand. The list of criminals of that type is a short
one; and no one need suppose that such men would risk penal servitude
for the paltry sum the cup would fetch. A crime involving far less risk
would bring them ten times as much booty. For no winner of the cup ever
derived more pleasure from the possession of it than the thieves must
have experienced as they drove to London with the treasure under the
seat of their motor car. For it was not the lust of filthy lucre, but
the love of sport that incited them to the venture. There are hundreds
of our undergraduates who would eagerly emulate the feat, were they not
deterred by its dangers. And a rule of three sum may explain my proposal
to put an end to such crimes. Let the consequences to the professional
criminal be made equal to what imprisonment would mean to a "Varsity"
man, and the thing is done.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote F: From "Criminals and Crime."]

[Footnote G: "Shrimps" also found that his "wife" had proved unfaithful.
He disappeared, and I heard that he had filled his pockets with stones
and thrown himself into the sea. Had the men been in an English gaol
they would have communicated with their friends; but in Boulogne prison
they were absolutely buried, and their women gave them up.]

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Transcriber's note

The following changes have been made to the text: