In contrasting my life of the present with that of the underworld I am struck by the similar characters inhabiting both. The men of the underworld are little different from those living a legitimate life. They are possessed of the same emotions. They work and love with the same intensity of purpose as do their brothers of the moral life. They have their ideals too. Strip the thief of his propensity to steal, and you develop a character of genuinely wholesome quality. The idea that the denizen of the underworld is a character different from the rest of society is a fallacious one. Lombroso, from his scientific deductions, may tell you that the criminal is one of a distinct class, differentiated from the rest of mankind. But I say to you, out of an[Pg 113] experience of over seventeen years, that the peculiar conformation of an ear isn’t necessarily a sign of criminal depravity. I know the men of whom I speak. I know their strength and some of their weaknesses. I know their vices and some of their virtues. In the life of the elect I have never met an angel; in the underworld I have yet to meet a man absolutely bad.

The great fact in the formation of criminal tendencies, to my mind at least, is environment. If this is so, then the society is in part responsible for the crime existing. A vast number of folks believe that the criminal is born so. They point to the son or daughter of criminal and vicious parents as proof of their reasoning. But when they do so they forget the force of the environment surrounding the child from its birth. That to me is the essential factor. I know a son of a thief who developed into a professional man of no mean standing. Why? Because at an early date he was adopted into the home of respectable and honest folk. In this environment, colored[Pg 114] by love, he developed those faculties which afterward made him succeed. I can understand certain physical characteristics being transmitted to the children, but for the life of me I cannot understand the transmission of thought. And morality to me is nothing if not a condition of the mind.

The factors partial to viciousness and crime are many. There a............