has been
found out. Crime has been happily defined by a recent and most able
investigator into the character of the criminal(12) as "an unusual act
committed by a perfectly normal person." At the same time, according
to the same authority, there is a type of normal person who tends to
be convicted of crime, and he is differentiated from his fellows by
defective physique and mental capacity and an increased possession of
antisocial qualities.(13)

(12) "The English Convict," a statistical study, by Charles Goring, M.D.
His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1913.

(13) Murderers--at least those executed for their crimes--have not for
obvious reasons been made the subject of close scientific observation.
Their mental capacity would in all probability be found to be rather
higher than that of less ambitious criminals.

How does Peace answer to the definition? Though short in stature, his
physical development left little to be desired: he was active, agile,
and enjoyed excellent health at all times. For a man of forty-seven he
had aged remarkably in appearance. That is probably to be accounted for
by mental worry. With two murders on his conscience we know from Sue
Thompson that all she learnt of his secrets was what escaped from him in
his troubled dreams--Peace may well have shown traces of mental
anxiety. But in all other respects Charles Peace would seem to have been
physically fit. In intellectual capacity he was undoubtedly above the
average of the ordinary criminal. The facts of his career, his natural
gifts, speak for themselves. Of anti-social proclivities he no doubt
possessed his share at the beginning, and these were aggravated, as in
most cases they were in his day, by prison life and discipline.

Judged as scientifically as is possible where the human being is
concerned, Peace stands out physically and intellectually well above
the average of his class, perhaps the most naturally gifted of all those
who, without advantages of rank or education, have tried their hands at
crime. Ordinary crime for the most part would appear to be little better
than the last resort of the intellectually defective, and a poor game
at that. The only interesting criminals are those worthy of something
better. Peace was one of these. If his life may be said to point a
moral, it is the very simple one that crime is no career for a man of
brains.

The Career of Robert Butler

There is a report of Butler's trial p