The Insanity of Crime—Lunatics without restraint—What happens at the end—A dangerous monster—A craze for killing—Why the crime was committed—Amiable lunatics—Children who are insane

IF to-morrow we were to read that the whole of the inmates of some great metropolitan lunatic asylum had escaped, and were still at large, the inhabitants of London would be seriously alarmed. There would be a general feeling of insecurity, for among the inmates of all great asylums there are many whose form of insanity is dangerous to the community, even when it is not the most serious form of all—homicidal mania.

And yet there are every day in London a sufficient number of lunatics in full possession of their liberty to fill one of its greatest asylums twice over, and many of them are homicidal maniacs.

Hardly a week passes that we do not read of some terrible act committed by a man or woman who has either been in an asylum or has a family history of insanity. But just before the tragedy these unfortunate people were moving about freely among their fellow-creatures, and all the time they were meditating murder, waiting for the opportunity to take a human life.

The series of diabolical crimes in the East End which appalled the world were committed by a homicidal maniac who led the ordinary life of a free citizen. He rode in tramcars and omnibuses. He travelled to Whitechapel by the underground railway, often late at night. Probably on several occasions he had but one fellow-passenger in the compartment with him, and that may have been a woman. Imagine what the feelings of those travellers would have been had they known that they were alone in the dark tunnels of the Underground with Jack the Ripper!

Some of us must have passed him in the street, sat with him perhaps at a cafÉ or a restaurant. He was a man of birth and education, and had sufficient means to keep himself without work. For a whole year at least he was a free man, exercising all the privileges of freedom. And yet he was a homicidal maniac of the most diabolical kind.

This horrible phase of insanity is not, fortunately, a common one. But there are maniacs of the Ripper type still at large. There have been several crimes of the Ripper character committed in low lodging-houses during recent years, and the perpetrator has always succeeded in making his escape and in retaining his liberty.

But the bulk of the dangerous lunatics at large are not systematic assassins. They are only wrought to frenzy by a fancied grievance or the stress of circumstance.

Many of the mysterious crimes of London which are apparently motiveless are the deeds of men who are insane on the subject of persecution. The victims of this form of delusion imagine that some person, often a public character or a celebrity constantly referred to in the Press, is secretly injuring them.

The murder of a popular actor some years ago was due to this cause. A man to whom he was an utter stranger imagined that the actor was keeping him out of an engagement, and he assassinated his imaginary enemy at the stage door of a West End theatre.

If a list could be prepared of the people against whom some lunatic at large has sworn to be revenged for a grievance which exists solely in the imagination of the aggressor, it would be a very alarming document.

It would show the world that a large number of men and women who are dangerously insane are living unrestrained lives, mixing with their fellow-citizens without let or hindrance, and only waiting for the opportunity to attack a supposed enemy.

Many of these people are looked upon by their acquaintances merely as cranks. After the Beck case I received hundreds of letters from people with a grievance; a large number of them were well written, and the addresses at the head of them showed that the writers were in a good position.

In some of these letters there was a threat of what would happen if the "persecutor" was not compelled by the Press to abandon his course of conduct. Some of them contained an unmistakable hint that murder might be the result if the persecution were not stopped or the wrong redressed.

And all these people, absolutely insane, were free from any sort of guardianship or control. Three of them called upon me.

One came late at night. He rushed in directly the door was opened and walked into my study, the door of which was open, before the astonished servant could interfere.

I saw at once what I had to deal with, and I listened with the greatest attention to the story my visitor had to tell. As he told it he worked himself up into a frenzy. His features became convulsed, and he struck my writing-table again and again with his clenched fist. I only got rid of him at last by recommending him to a firm of solicitors, who would take his case up and see that his enemy—a near relative—was legally restrained from conspiring with an oculist to put his eyes out.

Only once before have I conversed with a man who declaimed with such insane violence against an imagined enemy. I felt safer then, for the interview took place at Broadmoor, and two stalwart keepers stood by while the poor maniac foamed and raved.

A year after my visit to the Broadmoor patient—a gentleman whose case had excited a good deal of interest—there was a movement to obtain his release. His friends thought he was cured, and that it was quite safe for him to be restored to his family. Fortunately the authorities took a different view.

This gentleman had committed no actual crime. He had only pointed a pistol at the head of his "persecutor" and threatened to shoot him. Had he recovered in Broadmoor he would have been released. But his dementia had increased during his stay. The actual murderer who becomes sane leaves Broadmoor occasionally. It is not the King's pleasure to keep the sane in a lunatic asylum. In such cases every precaution is taken to insure control and comfort in the home to which the Broadmoor patient returns. The same care is not, unfortunately, always exercised by the authorities of non-criminal asylums, and every week scores of lunatics whose mental health has only been temporarily restored are discharged and return to the family and the home, and wander the streets of London at will.

The relative who is, or has been, in a lunatic asylum is the skeleton in many a family cupboard. In wealthy homes every care is taken to keep the mad member of the family under close observation, but among humble folks such care is impossible. The lunatic is left to look after himself.

There was a man hanged recently for murdering a relative. The murder was wanton and barbarous. The motive of it was a fancied grievance. No one came forward at the trial to save the murderer from the gallows. The barbarity of the crime had turned even his own relatives against him. But the accused had for ten years been looked upon as a madman in the neighbourhood in which he lived.

"He ought to be in an asylum," had been the criticism passed upon his conduct more than once.

Too late to save this man I ascertained the facts. "I've looked upon him as mad for years," said one of his neighbours to me, "and his people knew he was."

"Then why," I asked, "didn't they have him put under restraint?"

"Well, you see, he'd never murdered anybody before," was the reply.

That answer is typical of the public attitude towards lunatics at large. Unless they have killed or attempted to kill it is nobody's business to have them, in the interests of public safety, certified as insane.

We shudder at Caliban when we see him on the stage, and we tremble for Miranda. But there are dozens of Calibans in London, and they are free to roam where they like night and day.

Come down this court with me. Here is a monster deaf and dumb and deformed. Look at the hideous grimaces he makes, listen to the horrible sounds he utters. He is eight and twenty, and has lived in this court for ten years with his mother and father. #

The children tease him. Occasionally they irritate him to such an extent that with a series of wild howls he rushes at them. Then they run away, and presently an aged woman will come out of her home in the court and coax Caliban into a good humour, and lead him indoors. The aged woman is Caliban's mother—she cannot be always looking after him, because she has to make cardboard boxes for a living.

Some day there will be a terrible crime committed in that court, or Caliban will wander away to do his deed, and there will be a shocking story in the newspapers. Then everyone will wonder why Caliban was not put in an asylum where he could be properly guarded and restrained. He is a monster, likely to commit a brutal crime at any moment. But as he has not, so far, done anything criminal, no one thinks it worth while to limit the bounds of his freedom.

Some of the mysterious crimes which baffle the police, because they can find no "motive" to give them a clue, are the deeds of homicidal maniacs at large. The crimes are often committed without provocation. The victim is unknown to them. The opportunity of killing occurs, and it is eagerly seized. Then the maniac, if he has escaped observation, goes quietly home, and thinks no more of his deed. In some cases he has no further knowledge of it.

I spent an afternoon in his private apartment at Broadmoor some time ago with a highly-cultured gentleman who left his chambers late one night, went out on to the Embankment, sat down on a seat on which a tramp was sleeping, and deliberately murdered the tramp. He shot him with a revolver. People hearing the shot ran up, and the murderer was arrested. But if he had throttled the man or stabbed him he would have gone quietly home again, and the murder would have remained a mystery.

When the prisoner was questioned the next day he had no recollection of what had occurred. He couldn't understand why he was detained. This unfortunate gentleman had a large circle of friends and acquaintances, many of whom had been his guests at the pleasant little dinner-parties he used to give in his luxurious chambers. None of them had the slightest suspicion that he was insane.

Nor would anyone suspect it who conversed with him to-day at Broadmoor. As a matter of fact, he is perfectly sane until midnight. But at midnight his entire nature changes, and he has to be approached with the greatest caution. From midnight till the break of day he is a maniac with a desire to kill. After that he is an amiable and cultured gentleman with whom it is a pleasure to associate.

One of the most charming men I ever met, a man so benevolent in appearance, so gentle in manner, that it seems to me even now impossible to think of him as a murderer, waited with a revolver night after night to kill a young fellow against whom he had an imaginary grievance. He succeeded at last. He shot his "enemy" dead at the corner of a street, and then walked quietly away. When he was seized he explained that he had only performed an act of justice, and he requested his captors to release him. He was anxious to get home at once, as he had friends coming to supper.

Had no one been about to see the murder, this genial old gentleman would have gone home to his little supper-party and played the host to perfection. His "persecutor" settled with, he would probably have lived a quiet and gentle life for the remainder of his days. The "stress" being removed he might have become sane, and in his sanity he would have forgotten all about the murder he had committed.

The lunatic at large may commit murder at any time, or he may go to the end of his days without doing the slightest harm to anyone. The merest accident may stir the smouldering fire to flame. The unfortunate barmaid who was discovered murdered in a railway carriage at Waterloo Station with a bloodstained pestle was, it is believed, the victim of her resemblance to another young woman.

The theory of this crime, which still remains a mystery, is that the victim was killed by a young man who had been jilted by a girl to whom he was devotedly attached. The disappointment in love affected the man's brain. One night he entered a railway carriage, and, finding himself seated opposite the living image of the woman who had broken his heart, roused to madness by the sight of that face, he fiercely attacked the unfortunate young woman who was alone with him. Why, if the murder was not planned, he had a pestle with him, need not be argued. Whoever the murderer was he could not have calculated at the time he armed himself with a weapon that he would find himself alone with his victim in a railway carriage. The police suspected various persons at first, but later on obtained evidence which pointed strongly in the direction I have indicated. But this evidence was not sufficient to justify the suspected person being brought to trial.

Lunatics at large are not always unpleasant people; some of them are exceedingly amiable. Their amiability is, however, apt to be embarrassing. A popular tragedian who, on certain occasions, was in the habit of having wreaths handed to him across the footlights, once told me of a painful experience. An elderly lady who admired him exceedingly, determined to make him a few wreaths herself and present them to him in private life. She found out where he lived, and watched his front door. As he came out into the street she would step forward with a smile and slip a home-made wreath over his head. The tragedian didn't want to hurt the poor old lady's feelings by flinging it away, so he took it off and walked to the corner of the street with it in his hand, and then hailed a cab and drove to the theatre.

After that the old lady waylaid him almost every week, and wanted to cover him with flowers. She did succeed one day in slipping a chain of wild flowers about his neck. The great actor became nervous. He couldn't ask the police to protect him against an amiable old lady, and he didn't care to denounce her as a lunatic for considering him worthy of wreaths and garlands. Fortunately for his peace of mind the persecution suddenly ceased. What became of the old lady he never knew.

There was a dear old lady once who made me very unhappy. She lived close to me in Regent's Park, and every day she called at my house and left a few daisies or buttercups, or a handful of simple flowers. That was very nice, but when she began to stand in front of my door and make little speeches about me, scattering floral offerings on my doorstep, and putting buttercups and daisies into my letter-box, I began to feel uncomfortable. One day she went into a flower-shop in Baker Street and ordered garlands of flowers to be sent up and twined about my railings. Fortunately the lady at the flower-shop saw that the dear old soul was not right in her mind, and didn't execute the order. Some weeks after I heard that the old lady had been taken away to an asylum.

This was an agreeable form of madness; much more agreeable than the form insanity took with a young man for whom—believing the tale he told me to be true—I bought a cornet. He assured me that he could earn his living with it, and keep his poor old father and mother out of the workhouse. He came outside my house every night late—sometimes at one and two in the morning—and played that comet. And he played it very badly.

It was only after I had put someone on to follow the comet-player to his home that I discovered that he was in perfectly good circumstances—independent circumstances, in fact—but imagined that he was poor and earning his living as a street musician. He had been in a lunatic asylum for eighteen months, and had only left it a fortnight when he came to me.

Some years ago a madman took a fancy to me, with a much more painful result. He wrote me the most extraordinary letters, to which at first I replied, but I very soon discovered that my correspondent was a violent lunatic, and I ceased to acknowledge his effusions. This made no difference. They poured in upon me as freely as ever.

One day he wrote to me and enclosed the ticket of a travelling bag which he had left at Charing Cross. "I shall commit suicide to-night," he said in the letter; "I have left you my jewellery and all my securities. You will find them in the bag at Charing Cross. I enclose you the ticket for it."

When I opened my "Daily Telegraph" I found that my correspondent had carried out his threat. He had shot himself—fortunately not fatally—in Regent Street the previous evening. I gave the ticket of the bag to the police, who handed it over to the poor fellow's relatives. The bag contained jewellery and securities to the value of many hundreds of pounds.

A painful feature in this phase of London life is the large number of children who are not in possession of their mental faculties, and yet are not under any proper control. Of the little boy who murders a baby brother or sister we hear occasionally. Of the child who only attempts to murder we hear rarely. But the schools for the feeble-minded which are now established in every part of London have a large number of dangerous children of both sexes passing daily from and to their homes and enjoying the full liberties of life in the streets.

This is not the place in which to set forth the terrible dangers to which society will presently be exposed by the ever-increasing numbers of mental and physical degenerates for whose detention, after a certain age, no provision is made by the State.

But before this series is concluded I may, with all due discretion, lift a portion of the veil and give my readers some slight insight into one of the most disquieting phases of life in this great city of packed and seething humanity.

It is not a phase which can be ignored, for statistics show us that the feeble-minded and the insane are increasing at a rate which is entirely out of proportion to the rate of increase in the population.

For every lunatic at large to-day we shall have—unless legislation finds a means of minimizing and dealing with the evil—five lunatics at large in ten years' time.

And it is to lunatics at large that we owe some of the most gruesome, the most appalling Mysteries of modern London.