Melville Davisson Post

“ You have me lost all right."
"My dear sir," put in the District Attorney, "the vital element of robbery is not the force and terror but is what is called in the books the animus furandi, meaning the intention to steal. The presence of this felonious intent determines whether or not the wrong is a crime. If it be not present there can be no robbery, no matter how great the force, violence, or putting in fear, or how graven serious, or irreparable the resulting injury.
"It is true indeed that the force and terror are elements, but the vital one is the intent. ”

“ But the law, rigid, passionless, even-eyed, has thrust in between you and the wrath of your fellows and saved you from it I do not cry out against the impotency of the law; it is perhaps as wise as imperfect humanity could make it. I deplore, rather, the genius of evil men who, by cunning design, are enabled to slip through the fingers of this law. I have no word of censure or admonition for you, Victor Ancona. The law of New York compels me to acquit you. ”

“ The human economy is ever mysterious. The moment the new danger threatened, the latent power of the man as an animal, hidden away in the centres of intelligence, asserted itself. His hand clutched the paper and, with a half slide, he turned in Mason's arms. For a moment he stared up at the ugly man whose thin arms felt like wire ropes.
"You are under the dead-fall, aye," said Mason. "The cunning of my enemy is sublime."
"Your enemy?" gasped Walcott. ”

“ Is it possible to plan and execute wrongs in such a manner that they will have all the effect and all the resulting profit of desperate crimes and yet not be crimes before the law?
There is, perhaps, nothing of which the layman is so grossly ignorant as of the law. He has grown to depend upon what he is pleased to call common sense. Indeed his refrain, "The law is common sense," has at times been echoed by the judiciary. There was never a graver error. The common sense of the common man is at best a poor guide to the criminal law. It is no guide at all to the civil law. ”

“ If you do not pay, it is his misfortune. It was all a business affair, and by no possible construction can be twisted into a crime. Nor does it matter how the partnership was formed, so that it existed. It is no crime to lie in regard to an opinion. You have violated no law,—you have simply taken advantage of its weak places to your own gain and to the hurt of certain stupid fools. The Attorney General will never permit an extradition in this case while the world stands. Go home, man, and sleep,—you are as safe from the law as though you were in the grave. ”

“ Can it be said that, in order to evade punishment, the murderer has only to hide or destroy the body of the victim, or sink it into the sea? Then, if he is not seen to kill, the law is powerless and the murderer can snap his finger in the face of retributive justice. If this is the law, then the law for the highest crime is a dead letter. The great commonwealth winks at murder and invites every man to kill his enemy, provided he kill him in secret and hide him. ”

“ What miserable puppets men are! moved backward and forward in Fate's games as though they were strung on a wire and had their bellies filled with sawdust! Yet each one has his problem, and that is the important matter. In these problems one pits himself against the mysterious intelligence of Chance,—against the dread cunning and the fatal patience of Destiny. Ah! these are worthy foemen. The steel grates when one crosses swords with such mighty fencers."
There was a sound as of men conversing in low tones in the outer office. Mason stopped short and turned to the door. ”

“ The thing to be done is to shift the loss."
"Shift the loss, sir," echoed the cattle-man; "I don't believe that I quite catch your meaning."
"Sir," said Mason, "the law of self-preservation is the great law governing the actions of men. All other considerations are of a secondary nature. The selfish interest is the great motive power. It is the natural instinct to seek vicarious atonement. Men do not bear a hurt if the hurt can be placed upon another. It is a bitter law, but it is, nevertheless, a law as fixed as gravity." ”

“ Would I be here in the office at two o'clock in the morning, with a detective and without a reason? Listen, I will be plain with you. I must get Mr. Mason out of New York; he is going rapidly, and unless he gets a sea-voyage and a change of country he will be in the mad-house. He is terribly thin and scarcely sleeps any more at all. No human being can imagine what a monster he is to manage, or in what an infinitely difficult position I have been placed. ”

“ An intellect, keen, powerful, and yet devoid of any sense of moral obligation, would be no passing wonder to the skilled physician; for no one knows better than he that often in the house of the soul there are great chambers locked and barred and whole passages sealed up in the dark. Nor do men marvel that great minds concentrated on some mighty labor grow utterly oblivious to human relations and see and care for naught save the result which they are seeking. ”

“ For years the strategy of the match-maker had gone gracefully afield, but Fate is relentless. If she shields the victim from the traps of men, it is not because she wishes him to escape, but because she is pleased to reserve him for her own trap. So it happened that, when Virginia St. Clair assisted Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant at her midwinter reception, this same Samuel Walcott fell deeply and hopelessly and utterly in love, and it was so apparent to the beaten generals present, that Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant applauded herself, so to speak, with encore after encore. ”

“ I speak only those things which the law directs I shall speak.
"You are now at liberty to leave this court-room, not guiltless of the crime of murder, perhaps, but at least rid of its punishment. The eyes of men may see Cain's mark on your brow, but the eyes of the Law are blind to it."
When the audience fully realized what the judge had said they were amazed and silent. They knew as well as men could know, that Victor Ancona was guilty of murder, and yet he was now going out of the court-room free. Could it happen that the law protected only against the blundering rogue? ”

“ The sound startled Woodford and reminded him of something. He arose and went to the window and stood looking at the gaunt old building.
Yes, there was the Law. He had almost forgotten that, and the Law would not tolerate wrong. It hated the evil-doer, and hunted him down even to the death, and punished him. Men were often weak and half blind, but the Law was strong always, and its eyes were far-sighted. The world was not so large that the rogue could hide from it. In its strength it would seek him out and hold him responsible for the evil he had done. ”

“ The West Virginia operators were moving the heavens in order to supply the market; every man who could hold a pick was at work under the earth day and night.
The excitement was something undreamed of. The region was overrun with straggling workmen, tramps, "hobos," and the scum criminals of the cities, and was transformed as if by magic into a hunting-ground where the keen human ferret stalked the crook and the killer with that high degree of care and patience which obtains only with the man-hunter. ”

“ Perhaps, of all things, the human mind loves best the problem. Not the problem of the abacus, but the problem of the chess-board when the pieces are living; the problem with passion and peril in it; with the fresh air of the hills and the salt breath of the sea. It propounds this riddle to the writer: Create mind-children, O Magician, with red blood in their faces, who, by power inherited from you, are enabled to secure the fruits of drudgery, without the drudgery. Nor must the genius of Circumstance help. Make them do what we cannot do, good Magician, but make them of clay as we are. ”

“ All wrongs are not crimes. Indeed only those wrongs are crimes in which certain technical elements are present. The law provides a Procrustean standard for all crimes. Thus a wrong, to become criminal, must fit exactly into the measure laid down by the law, else it is no crime; if it varies never so little from the legal measure, the law must, and will, refuse to regard it as criminal, no matter how injurious a wrong it may be. There is no measure of morality, or equity, or common right that can be applied to the individual case. The gauge of the law is iron-bound. ”

“ Hence it is that the greatest jurists have declared that such evidence, being rarely liable to delusion or fraud, is safest and most powerful. The machinery of human justice cannot guard against the remote and improbable doubt. The inference is persistent in the affairs of men. It is the only means by which the human mind reaches the truth. If you forbid the jury to exercise it, you bid them work after first striking off their hands. Rule out the irresistible inference, and the end of justice is come in this land ”

“ Hogarth can raise the money, which is a hopeless impossibility."
Parks paused, and glanced at Hogarth, the kind of glance that obtains among criminals when they mean, "back up the lie."
The detective buried his face in his hands.
"The discretion of Fate is superb," said Mason. "She strikes always the vulnerable spot. She gives wealth if one does not need it; fame, if one does not care for it; and drives in the harpoon where the heart is." ”

“ For a moment the dread of what the little yellow envelope might possibly contain, made the big rough cattle-shipper tremble. Then he dismissed the premonition as an unreasonable fear, and with calm finger opened the message. The telegram was from New York, and contained these few words: "Have been robbed. Everything is lost," and was signed "William Harris."
Thomas Woodford staggered as if some one had dealt him a terrible blow in the face. The paper fell from his fingers and fluttered down on the floor. ”

“ Suddenly Mason drew his knees in and bent over, put both his bony hands on the table, and looked at Walcott.
"Sir," he said, "this matter is in such shape that there is only one thing to do. This growth must be cut out at the roots, and cut out quickly. This is the first fact to be determined, and a fool would know it. The second fact is that you must do it yourself. Hired killers are like the grave and the daughters of the horse-leech,—they cry always, 'Give, Give,' They are only palliatives, not cures. By using them you swap perils. You simply take a stay of execution at best. ”

“ Often in a grimy caboose at the end of a slow freight train is as true and fearless a devotee of Fortune, and as reckless a plunger as one would find in the pit on Wall Street, and not infrequently one with as vast plans and as heavy a stake in the play as his brother of the city. Yet to look at him—big, muscular, and uncouth—one would scarcely suspect that every week he was juggling with values ranging from ten to sixty thousand dollars. ”

“ Clair's frankness and honesty were a trifle old-fashioned, and that she was a shadowy bit of a Puritan; and perhaps it was of these same qualities that Samuel Walcott received his hurt. At any rate the hurt was there and deep, and the new actor stepped up into the old time-worn, semi-tragic drama, and began his rôle with a tireless, utter sincerity that was deadly dangerous if he lost. ”

“ The one intention of the entire business world is robbery. The man on the street has no sense of pity; he grows rich because he conceives some shrewd scheme by which he is enabled to seize and enjoy the labor of others. His only object is to avoid the law; he commits the same wrong and causes the same resulting injury as the pirate. The word 'crime,' Hogarth, was invented by the strong with which to frighten the weak ”

“ After exhausting every security and resorting to every imaginable means we have only five thousand dollars in all. This sum is utterly useless under the circumstances, for we know well that the combine would hold out against a plunge of this dimension and we would simply lose everything, while a bold, sudden plunge of ten thousand would certainly break the market and make us a vast fortune. Of course, no sane man will lend us money under circumstances of this kind, and it is not possible for us to raise another dollar on earth. ”

“ He has trapped you and has committed no crime. If you had the fellow in custody now, the judge would release him the moment an application was made. The entire matter was only a sale. He bought the jewels and you trusted him. He is no more a law-breaker than you are. He is only a sharper dealer."
"But, sir," cried the angry Van Broom, spreading the false letter out on the table, "that is forged, every word of it. I will send this fellow to the penitentiary for forgery. I will spend a thousand dollars to catch him." ”