The Case of Tanner WHEN I saw Ludovic Kennedy's Murder
Story performed I thought it, in spite of some criticisms of detail, an effective dramatic plea against a barbarous social institution. Based on the Bentley and Craig case, its moral is nosv pointed by a brief essay which its author has placed as a postface to the text (Gollancz. 13s. (Id.), and the prison scenes continue to make their rather sickening impact. Mr. Xennedy presumably did not intend to write ,a11 exhaustive statement of the case against Ranging, and Jim Tanner is in one sense a bad example. He is much too pleasant. The case against capital punishment is at its strongest When it is admitted that a murderer can be an absolute swine with no circumstances in mitiga- !ft of his crime, but that nevertheless it is an insult to human dignity for society to kill him. Moreover, there is some evidence that psycho- l'thY, which produces so many crimes of violence and which Jim Tanner's case closely resembles, is hereditary and that the emphasis here ought to be on medical prevention rather than on legal cure. Still, Mr. Kennedy was Writing a play, and he had to consider dramatic effects. As it is, he has produced a moving and generous piece of work. ANTHONY HARTLEY
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