THE ATTRACTION OF AUDACITY.
JT is not often that one can get at the motives of the criminal, hence the numerous pitfalls of criminal psychology. The criminal himself gives us little help,—he is nearly always innocent. When a criminal is frank and explains his motives,
it is a rare and valuable occasion,—if only one can be sure that his account is not distorted by the familiar vanity of criminals. Vanity causes strange pranks, such as abnormal defiance and braggadocio ; the criminal, being generally incapable of restraint, exaggerates his wickedness when he has made up his mind to confess, just as much as others try to deceive themselves and the world about their innocence.
We think we see one of these rare occasions in the confession of Bernard Isaac Robert (better known under his pseudonym of D. S. Windell), who was convicted last week of bank robbery. The confession to which we refer was read before Mr. Curtis Bennett when Robert was committed for trial.
The trick by which he cheated several branches of the London and South-Western Bank was described in the Police-Court as "one of the most daring banking frauds of modern times." Robert is a young man of twenty-three, and of exceptional ability. Dutch by birth, he speaks fluently five or six languages, and is said to be "extremely well read."
His confession was as follows :—
"I voluntarily declare that under the assumed name of D. S. Windell I obtained moneys to the value of £290 from eight of the branches of the London and South-Western Bank, Limited, on September 23rd last. I understand that besides the above offence I am to be charged with forgery, but the forgery charge I absolutely deny. As to the other matter, I beg to state (not in order to excuse my action, but merely for the purpose of explain- ing it) that my intention, in the first instance, was not to obtain the money as such, but rather to feel myself able to do something which many others might feel themselves incapable of accom- plishing. In other words, it was the devilment of the matter, the excitement, the ingenuity, the humour, and the almost impossible success to crown it all which urged me to attempt the fraud The very name assumed, D. S. Windell, meaning d— swindle, goes to corroborate this contention. I am still very young, and this may explain my desire for excitement of some sort or other. The Great Tempter exploited my weakness, and from the moment almost that I had been apparently successful I was sorry for the deed. I could not retrace my steps. I once intended to do so by returning the remnant of the money obtained to the legitimate owners, but subsequent considerations somehow made me reverse my decision. I had to go the whole hog, and I am afraid I have come to the tail now. I have been caught fairly and squarely, and I can hardly express how painful it is to me to find myself treated as a real criminal. But I have also made up my mind to stand the racket and to bear my punishment with courage and fortitude, and when I return to the world to become once more a decent and if possible useful member of society."
That confession seems to us to ring true. Consider the point Robert makes as to his choice of a name. It must be a critical moment when one faces a cashier to draw upon an account which does not exist,—suppose the bank has already got wind of the fraud, and a policeman with handcuffs is waiting in the manager's office ! As though to increase the "jumpiness," as soldiers say, of that moment, Robert chose a name which would have told its own tale to a suspicious mind. His intelligence, perverted but extremely acute (as one may judge from his idiomatic writing of English, which be has learnt within recent years), drew an exquisite pleasure from the piling up of the audacity. One can picture the relish with which he saw the bank clerks swallow unsuspectingly the significant name, and with which he exchanged with them the ordinary civilities of each transaction ; and all the time the painful pleasure must have been stringing up his nerves almost to the breaking-point. It may be said that audacity is its own safeguard; that the more audacious an act the more likely it is to succeed. This is often enough proved true by experience, but it is scarcely a principle on which one reckons for safety beforehand. The leader of a charge, the first to scale a hotly defended wall, does not put himself in that position because he believes it the safesk—else would he deserve the Victoria Cross ? It is not to be supposed that valour is, after all, a kind of cowardice. No; where boldness is not duty and self-sacrifice, as it is in war, it is the result of a native liking for peril. Men hunt dangerous animals, sail tempestuous seas in inadequate craft, or enlist in the service of a country at war caring not a jot for whatever issue may be at stake, because they like danger for itself. It fascinates them to gaze into its bright eyes. And though criminals indulge in none of these clean forms of valour, they may none the less surrender themselvee similarly to the attractions of a more sinister audacity.
We remember an admirably acted .passage in which lily. Gerald Du Manlier in the play BaSies described the thrills and emotions of the 'amateur burglar the entry a the sleeping household the creak of the dark stair ; the inexplicable sounds above (" What's that ? Is some one moving ?") ; then reassurance and the resumption of the eat-like advance ; the gaining of the room where the treasure rests ; the knowledge that if the householder appears be will command the only line of retreat through the door,—why, as a sport in which one ta'kee heavy risks. it is incomparable! Audacity succeeds jut because the enemy expects everything more than that particular blow. It does not succeed, of course, because it undertakes the most difficult thing. When we say that Fortune favours the brave, we credit Fortune not so much with favouritiem as with . discrimination. For not only is the defender of a place taken unawares by audacity; he is enormously impressed (sometimes quite disarmed) by it when it appears. That is why Bacon said that boldnese succeeds because there is in human nature more of the fool than of the wise, and therefore "those faculties by which the foolish part of men's minds is taken are most potent." He goes on with words which might have been written as a cerement on Robert's fraud : "Wonderful like is the ease of boldness in civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third ? boldness." This, of course, was the model of Danton's famous saying: " Ce qu'il nous faut pour vaincre, c'eat de l'audace, encore de l'andace, toujours de l'audace." Yet the pith of those words is older even than Bacon, for it was Demosthenes who said :—" What is the chief part of an orator? Action. What next? Action., What next again? -Action." Bacon, having paid his high tribute to boldness, proceeds, as so often, to temper the statement with wisdom. "And yet," says he, "boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, far inferior to other parts. But nevertheless it doth fascinate and bind hand and foot those that are either shallow in judgment or weak in courage, which are the greatest part; yea, and prevaileth with wise men at weak times. Therefore we see it bath done wonders in popular States ; but with senates and princes less : and more ever upon the first entrance of bold persons into action, than soon after; for boldness is an ill keeper of promise."
There Bacon deals with the fascination of valour for. others, —,.the fascination which is as compelling to-day as ever it was. It turns boys and girls into blind hero-worshippere, and reckons its Desdemonas by thousands. But we write, not of the familiar fascination of daring for others, but of its attractions for him who practises it. Robert's audacity was mixed with some vanity, no doubt; he wanted to achieve a spectacular fraud, to feel that he had done something that no one had ever done before. Yet the essential attraction, we believe, was exactly what he described in his confession,— " the devilment of the matter, the excitement, the ingenuity, the humour." Audacity, like bravery, "rejoices in the test." He had an itch for excitement, and "the Great Tempter exploited my weakness." For of course he was exploited. Audacity served him well in execution for the time being, but not for final security. The last word, must be with Bacon, nOw as always, in those matters which concern human nature : "Boldness is ever blind, for it seeth no dangers and incon- veniences. Therefore it is ill in counsel, good in execution.
For in counsel it is good to see dangers, and in execution nob to see them, except they be very great." Napoleon said that when he was making a .plan he was the most pusillanimous man in the world. When he had made it he was, as we all know, the boldest. Here lay his double secret of success.
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