“Undoubtedly. Murderers suffer from the most terrible of all moral diseases, and therefore deserve quite particular attention. I don’t know whether you have ever troubled to read accounts of the executions of criminals. I have often done so with great interest. In France, as soon as a man is condemned to death, he is fallen upon by a whole army of reporters, who repeat the minutest details to the public: what the prisoner ate, how much he drank, how he slept, and what he said. This wild chase after a sensational line sometimes unconsciously brings to light important facts. Recently, for instance, I read an account of the guillotining in a provincial town of a man who had killed his father. He had, in cold blood, cut the old man’s throat, in order to come more quickly into his little inheritance. He was, of course, very soon caught—these diseased creatures always are. In prison he astonished everybody by a complete indifference to his murdered father, as well as to his own fate. His sentence startled him for a moment, but, a minute later, he simply and confidently told his gaolers that he hoped to keep up his courage and his spirits to the last moment if, before mounting the scaffold, they could give him some black coffee and some white wine. This desire to make a show of courage before the public is the outcome of a very primitive human impulse. The lower a man’s mental development, the more he gives for his neighbour’s praise. Natures with loftier aspirations set a smaller value on public opinion, being, indeed, sometimes quite indifferent to it. “The prisoner’s wish is granted, and having swallowed his wine and his coffee he leaves the prison with a firm step, accompanied by a priest, who does not for a moment leave his side. On mounting the scaffold the murderer turns to the assembled crowd and makes a speech, in which he declares his complete repentance and bequeaths his ill-gotten inheritance to charities. These are of course all phrases instilled into him by the priest for the edification of the public. The prisoner repeats them like a parrot, still for the sake of public opinion. In his heart he does not repent in the least, otherwise he could not have previously shown the supreme indifference to his dead father that had so enraged his gaolers. “At last the comedy is over. The murderer, pleased with his pose of piety, turns round and sees the guillotine knife. Immediately, the savage brute in him awakens. He fights, struggles, scratches, bites and screams—he sells his life dearly. Four other savage brutes throw themselves on him and drag him to the knife. The crowd glumly watches the nauseating scene, and gradually disperses. “‘The public,’ writes the simple-minded reporter, ‘was present at the triumph of justice, but instead of joy, the prevalent impression was one of having witnessed something incomplete and unsatisfactory.’