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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: dragged into the light of a court of justice, cut a sorry figure;
here Butler shone. Peace escaped a conviction for murder by
letting another suffer in his place; Butler escaped a similar
experience by the sheer ingenuity of his defence. Peace had the
modesty and reticence of the sincere artist; Butler the
loquacious vanity of the literary or forensic coxcomb. Lastly,
and it is the supreme difference, Butler was a murderer by
instinct and conviction, as Lacenaire or Ruloff; "a man's life,"
he said, "was of no more importance than a dog's; nature respects
the one no more than the other, a volcanic eruption kills mice
and men with the one hand. The divine command, `kill, kill and
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
