138 



KNOVT'LEDGE 



[April 2, 1888. 



On the ti'ial claim was made that Dillon was a mono- 

 maniac, with the idea that enemies were constantly spying 

 upon him. But it was pretty generally known that his 

 monomania was simply a brutal and ferocious temper, 

 which had already brought him into trouble for murderous 

 assaults. He was no more mad than the .judge who tried 

 him. 



However, he found his way, as other sane but murderous 

 ruflSans have done in America before and since, into a 

 lunatic asylum instead of tlie appropriate halter, and, like 

 othei's of his kind, having money to back pretended mad- 

 ness, he found his way out again. When I returned to 

 America in 1879 he had already been more than two years 

 at large, and he was then, though an escaped criminal 

 lunatic, living comfortably and openly at the Fifth Avenue 

 Hotel. He remained free during the rest of his life to kill 

 anyone else who might annoy him ; and he did not die a 

 natural death (for a murderer), but in his bed, towards the 

 end of February last. 



Another ruffian of a characteristic kind died a week or 

 two before the murderer Dillon. I was introduced a year 

 ago to a young Englishman (a Marlborough boy he had 

 been) who wore an eye-sbade ; and I presently learned that 

 the evening before a " big old brute " — a man weighing 

 some 15 stone — had forced a quarrel on the slight and 

 rather small young Englishman (all these rowdies are 

 cowards at heart), receiving a straight-hander between the 

 eyes which "propped " him for the moment ; but going in 

 for the clutching, rough-and-tumble business, in which, 

 thank God, our Englishmen are not often proficient — and 

 only failing in his attempt to gouge an eye out because 

 hauled off by two other P]nglith 3'oung men who were there. 

 I saw the brute next day at the railway-station, and 

 wondered that he had been let live so long in a country 

 where, if brutal outrages are too frequent, irregular justice 

 is also too frequently inflicted. 



* * * 



This ruffian, unlike Dillon, died a natui'al death, being 

 shot in a qu.arrel. Unfortunately the man who shot him 

 who was as cowardly a ruffian as himself (but chanced to be 

 a trifle quicker " on the draw "), did not also get his quietus. 

 It often happens that the community has to rejoice in the 

 simultaneous e.xtinction of two ruffians of this kind : and 

 " oh 1 'tis the sport to see" the murderer killed by his 

 murderous mate. However, it did not happen so — more's 

 the pity 1 — on this occasion. 



* * * 



The English reader must not imagine that life is unsafe 

 in America for those who avoid the spots where ruffians 

 most do congregate. Dillon's villainous temper might bs 

 met with in England or on the Continent as frequently as 

 in America ; and in bis case it was only the esciipe of the 

 criminal which was characteristic of American ways. 

 Ruffians of the other type are only dangerous for those 

 who either go out of their way to enter low drinking-shops 

 and gambling dens, or for those who enter too retulily into 

 discussion with low-looking brutes in more respectable bars. 



American newspapers give unfjxir ideas of American ways 

 in this respect : for they not only exaggerate the brutal 

 ruffianism of the rowdy, but they picture .all their leading 

 men in turn (Democrats in Republican and Republicans in 

 Democrat papers) as swindlers, villains, or otherwise of 

 evil life. 



* * * 



I HAD a curious illustration of American editorial ways 

 recently. I had had occasion in the San Francisco 

 Examiner to point out that a certain American " professor " 

 is a fraud and a humbug. I gave documentary evidence of 

 falsehood and malice anonymously perpetrated, apologised for 

 by further falsehood (still anonymous) when corrected, and 

 brought home to the real offender a year or two later by 

 unmistakable evidence. This man had obtained high posi- 

 tion in the chief national observatory of the United States, 

 where he had " discovered " an impossible third satellite of 

 Mars, and had been otherwise seriously discredited, but 

 whence — unfortunately for science — he has passed to the 

 chief command of a private observatory still more important 

 on account of the telescopic power it will command. 



* * * 



I HAD occasion to point out that an honorary distinction 

 conferred by the Royal Astronomical Society on this 

 " scientistic adventurer" was really conferred on him only 

 because he was " taken on trust " on the strength of official 

 position unwisely given him, not for anything he had done, 

 since he has, in fact, done practically nothing. I further 

 went on to express my belief that had I chosen to communi- 

 cate to members of the Astronomical Society's Council (at 

 that time) the particulars of this " professor's " personal 

 wrong-doing, his name would have been rejected with 

 contempt. 



So far so good. My letters were duly inserted, and, 

 though the " professor " repeated his untruths (with ample 

 opportunity of assuring himself, had he ever doubted it, 

 that they wsre untruths) he was silent in the presence of my 

 final evidence, .and manifestly regretted that he had drj,wn 

 me from the silence, contemptuous though it was, which I 

 had long maintained. 



But a monthly magazine of science — the Sidereal 

 Messenger — chanced, unfortunately for him, to mention the 

 thonging which it had been my unpleasant duty to inflict, 

 and the " professor," believing, doubtless, that I should not 

 be apt to see this magazine, for, though excellent, it is pub- 

 lished in a rather out-of-the-way place (Northfield, Minne- 

 sota), repeated his untruths there. I saw them, however, 

 and met them as before, repeating my remark about the 

 fellow's election to honoraiy distinction in a society which is 

 honourable as well as scientific. But I omitted to say, as I 

 had in the Examiner (which I supposed the editor had seen), 

 that it was by silence only that I had helped the " pro- 

 fessor's " election. It should have been unnecessary, in any 

 case, to explain that I had not helped by any positive assist- 

 ance the election of a man whom I had already described as 

 quite unworthy of the distinction conferred upon him. 



* * * 



The " professor " craftily took ad vantage of this omission, 

 quoted the sentence (without the context) in an appeal to 

 certain members of the Council of the Astronomical Society 

 to contradict it, and obtained fiom two of them (personally 

 unknown to me), Messrs. Knobel and Maunder, the mani- 

 festly correct statement that I had never assisted his elec- 

 tion by any overt act — and could not have done so, not 

 being on the council at the time. (I resigned in 1873, and 

 have never of my own will allowed my name to be on the 

 council lists since.) The editor of the Sidereal J[essen//er, 

 having presumably forgotten what I implied in my letters 

 to him, and said totidem verbis in my letters to the San 

 Francisco Examiner, inserts Mr. Knobel's letter, and quotes 

 Mr. Maunders — as if these letters had any bearing what- 

 ever on my real statement. 



* * * 



