BOLD, BAD MEN ARE
SMALL AND WEAKLY.
MODERN DEADWOOD DICKS ARE
DEFICIENT, SAYS LATSHAW.
Flattering Description of Despera-
does in Yellowbacks Belied by
Experience Here, Declares
Criminal Judge.
Fade away, Deadwood Dick and all other bold highwaymen who look so strong and big in the yellowbacks. You're fiction. The real highwayman and criminal is between 18 and 22. he's a puny little fellow who has not much more strength of mind than he has of body.
After having carefully inspected Deadwood Dick and all his kind as they pass in and out of the criminal court of Jackson County, Judge Ralph S. Latshaw says:
"The real criminal is not the fierce-looking man, with long mustaches drooping in a manner to make his face look fiercer than it was made by nature. He is not tall and stately in appearance, nor does he stalk with his head up and the proud glitter of defiance in his eye.
"Criminal courts have the hardest time with the boy, just growing into his manhood. He is the fellow who fills the lists of those convicted of crime. From 17 or 18 to 20 or 22 years old is the worst stage.
"Look over the records of the highwaymen and burglars who have been sent to the penitentiary from this court, not only in recent months, but for years. All of them are young men, undersized and weakly. They put a revolver in their pocket and go out to commit crime. If it were not for the weapon concealed in their pockets they would not dare steal. It is the additional false courage the firearm gives them that is responsible for the crimes they commit.
"When you go walking in the evening and see, in the shadows, the tall form of someone slinking away into further darkness, don't feel for your pocketbook. It is safe. But steer around the two little fellows who never had enough hair on their face to grow one tenth of the mustache which Deadwood Dick and his fellows sport in the lithographs.
"Do you mean to say," the judge was asked, "that stature has a direct bearing on crime?"
"Only to this extent," said he, "that a child born of average sized parents, who is smaller than they, is commonly a weakling. And with this physical weakness comes mental deficiency, to a certain extent. The late Judge Wofford used to say: 'These boys give me more trouble than all the rest of the county.' He spoke from long experience, and from keen observation of conditions which obtain now as well as then."
"But many Kansas City lawyers say they read penny dreadfuls to relax their mind," was suggested. "Do you never read them?"
"No, thank you. I do not care for that kind of literature," said the judge.