160 CRIME AND CRIMINALITY. 



of man's property, dwellings, crops, gardens, by the ( mad ' 

 or rogue elephant in India is notorious. In this case, as in 

 many others, a propensity for the destruction of property 

 coexists with a proneness to the destruction of life, both 

 forms of destructiveness being essentially morbid in their 

 nature, and attributable to mental disease. This supposition 

 is borne out by the fact that such destructiveness is so 

 frequently aimless : it can serve no good purpose to the de- 

 stroyer, save that it affords a vent for his fury. And it is 

 interesting here to note that a precisely similar kind of 

 destructiveness occurs commonly among the human insane, 

 and is familiar to the authorities of every lunatic asylum. 



But in other cases, destruction of property, like that of 

 life, is the result in other animals, as in man, of what is 

 called a love of sport. The wolf, dingo, collie, terrier, fre- 

 quently destroy both life and property, weasels or rats, 

 simply to gratify their love of sport, or to give vent to their 

 passions (Low) ; their destructiveness is gratuitous, wanton, 

 malicious, but it only places them on a par with the most 

 highly civilised men the pigeon-murderers of Hurlingham, 

 for example. 



Various animals such as the dog and elephant frequently 

 become confederates or accomplices of man in his crimes, in 

 crimes intended exclusively for his benefit. They co-operate 

 with him ingeniously, faithfully, zealously, effectively, in all 

 manner of theft, including shop-lifting, sheep-stealing, high- 

 way robbery, poaching, brigandage and smuggling, as well 

 as in certain forms of murder. They act as man's instru- 

 ments, assistants, or substitutes, as the case may be, fre- 

 quently playing their part in his absence and without any 

 immediate or direct supervision. 



But in all, or at least in most, of such cases, the animal 

 accomplice has been deliberately trained to its nefarious 

 work by man, and though he, the man, ought to be re- 

 sponsible for all the results of such training, it will be seen 

 in other chapters that too frequently it is the clever animal 

 assistant that bears the penalty of the crime, while the more 

 astute, selfish and calculating master escapes. The training 

 bestowed develops in animal criminals a high degree of 



