“But the ethical position?  To me it looked quite satisfactory, though clearly at variance with accepted standards.  For the attitude of society towards the criminal appears to be that of a community of stark lunatics.  In effect, society addresses the professional criminal somewhat thus: 

“’You wish to practice crime as a profession, to gain a livelihood by appropriating—­by violence or otherwise—­the earnings of honest and industrious men.  Very well, you may do so on certain conditions.  If you are skilful and cautious you will not be molested.  You may occasion danger, annoyance and great loss to honest men with very little danger to yourself unless you are clumsy and incautious; in which case you may be captured.  If you are, we shall take possession of your person and detain you for so many months or years.  During that time you will inhabit quarters better than you are accustomed to; your sleeping-room will be kept comfortably warm in all weathers; you will be provided with clothing better than you usually wear; you will have a sufficiency of excellent food; expensive officials will be paid to take charge of you; selected medical men will be retained to attend to your health; a chaplain (of your own persuasion) will minister to your spiritual needs and a librarian will supply you with books.  And all this will be paid for by the industrious men whom you live by robbing.  In short, from the moment that you adopt crime as a profession, we shall pay all your expenses, whether you are in prison or at large.’  Such is the attitude of society; and I repeat it is that of a community of madmen.

“How much better and more essentially moral is my plan!  I invite the criminal to walk into my parlor.  He walks in, a public nuisance and a public danger; and he emerges in the form of a museum preparation of permanent educational value.

“Thus I reflected and mapped out my course of action as I worked at what I may call the foundation specimen of my collection.  The latter kept me busy for many days, but I was very pleased with the result when it was finished.  The bones were of a good color and texture, the fracture of the skull, when carefully joined with fish-glue, was quite invisible, and, as to the little dried preparation of the head, it was entirely beyond my expectations.  Comparing it with the photographs taken after death, I was delighted to find that the facial characters and even the expression were almost perfectly retained.

“It was a red-letter day when I put Number One in the great glass case and took out the skeleton that I had bought from the dealer to occupy its place until it was ready.  The substitute was no longer needed and I accordingly dismantled it and destroyed it piecemeal in the furnace, crushing the calcined bones into unrecognizable fragments.