
360 

KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

only of the dignity of the human species. But, 
examine the usurer, the libertine, the villain, and 
you will see that each of them is happy, only in 
proportion as he satisfies his desires. It is in vain 
that the cheated orphan, that betrayed and aban- 
doned innocence, often console themselves with the 
idea—that such a villain will one day feel repent- 
ance for his criminal actions. I have, from my 
youth, made the sad and alarming observation, 
that the most perverse men grow proud of their 
talents for deceiving and abusing, and that they 
always dwell with a sentiment of delight on the 
striking traits of their disorderly course. Go into 
the prisons; place yourself in the midst of the 
prisoners; avoid the appearance of a public 
functionaiy, lest you be mocked with pretended 
repentince ; inspire these men with frankness and 
confidence ; with what internal satisfaction, with 
what joy and pride in wickedness, will the distin- 
guished criminals recount to you their crimes, 
without forgetting the most insignificant details, 
and the particular mode they adopted in commit- 
ting them! If, at any time, one of them gives 
himself the trouble to speak on the subject with 
pretended horror, there will generally escape a 
malignant smile, which betrays his hypocrisy. 
Most of them employ their wit in uttering the 
gayest sallies on the most atrocious actions; and 
frequently, at the moment you shudder with horror, 
they burst into alaugh. Reckon up in the prisons 
how many have been remanded, and you will be 
easily convinced how few have repented. 
Finally, examine all the remarkable criminals 
in state trials, judicial proceedings; follow them to 
the scaffold; with what obstinacy do some deny 
the most evident facts! with what surprising 
audacity do they insult the witnesses who accuse 
them! with what unblushing sincerity, and scru- 
pulous exactness, do others recount a series of 
horrible crimes! A soldier had committed rob- 
bery in twenty churches. They led him to the 
scaffold, where he still expected to receive pardon. 
But in place of showing any repentance, he said 
to auditor Weldermann, at Vienna, ‘I see there 
is no more to be done here; I must try to go 
elsewhere.” At Vienna, one Z murdered his 
mistress, in order to rob her of three hundred 
florins : he then cut up the body, in order to pack 
it more conveniently in a box. Instead of being 
troubled by this crime, he goes to a ball, there 
passes the night, spends all his money, and gives 
himself up to all the excesses of brutal enjoyment. 
M. Bruggmanns, professor at Leyden, showed us 
the skull of the chief of a band of Dutch robbers. 
This man had thrown several people into the 
canals, solely to see them struggle against death. 
‘“‘ What can they do to me,” said he at his trial, 
““am I not an honest man?” A girl who had 
aided her mother to kill her father, did not testify 
the least repentance; when they reproached her 
with the crime, she shrugged her shoulders and 
smiled. Schinderhannes, and Heckmann, his 
accomplice, derived great pleasure in recounting 
their crimes; their eyes sparkled during the 
recital. All the accessory circumstances, which 
seemed to them proper to convey a great idea of 
them, gave them great satisfaction. 
Rossignol used to boast of his barbarity. 
“Look at this arm!” said he; ‘well, it has cut 
the throats of sixty-three priests at the Carmes de 






Paris!” Repeatedly escaping from prison, he 
re-commenced, and, like all those who are born 
for wickedness, repeated his robberies, his cruelties, 
and the most revolting gluttony. Gobrino Fon- 
dulo invited Charles Cavalcato, the head of his 
family, to come to his country-house with nine or 
ten of his relations; he had them all murdered 
at a banquet. After this barbarous execution, 
becoming master of the government of the city, 
he there practised all sorts of cruelties, until 
Philip Visconti, Duke of Milan, ordered him to 
be beheaded. His confessor vainly exhorted him 
to repent of his crimes ; he fiercely answered, that 
he had but one thing to repent of, namely, that 
he had not hurled from the top of the tower of 
Cremona, (one of the highest m Europe,) Pope 
John XXIIL., and the Emperor Sigismund, when 
they had the curiosity to ascend it with him. 
Read the biographies of the tyrants who have 
desolated the earth, who have spilled torrents of 
blood ; read the history of all the famous wretches, 
of the incendiaries, of the most atrocious robbers, 
and see if you can find one who ever abandoned 
crime before justice overtook him. There have even 
been some who, at the moment of their execution, 
in reviewing all the enjoyments with which they 
had satiated themselves, boasted that none equalled 
those which cruelty had caused them. But let 
us terminate these examples, which are revolting 
to humanity! All, judicial proceedings justify 
my observation,—that a hardened criminal is 
rarely accessible to remorse and repentance. 
This observation is even confirmed in criminals 
of an inferior order, whenever, through an unhappy 
but decided organisation, they have been power- 
fully urged to debauchery, fraud, theft, &c. I 
have never seen such a voluptuary, to whatever 
excess he may have carried his indulgence—such 
a villain, however unhappy he may have rendered 
numerous families—I have never seen a deter- 
mined robber, &c., renounce, by sincere repent- 
tance, the horrors of his life; but I have seen 
many, who, being convinced of the abominable 
character of their habits, and feeling the impossi- 
bility of controlling them, have begged, as a favor, 
that they should be restrained from having it in 
their power to give themselves up thenceforth to 
their destructive propensities. 
THOUGHTS ON A DEAD ROSE. 

Nay—do not touch that faded flower, 
Albeit both scent and hue have flown ; 
For it may still retain a power 
Some gentle heart may joy to own: 
Hidden beneath each withered leaf, 
A chastening spell, to memory dear, 
May yield that burthened heart relief 
When Hope itself is sere ! 
There let it lie, ’mid records sweet, 
_ By feeling prompted, genius graced, 
Type of their fate, memorial meet 
Of “young affections run to waste!” 
Left on their stem—(how fugitive !) 
~ Those cherished leaves had soon been shed; 
But thus embalmed, will seem to live 
Till Memory’s self be dead ! 


