he was a criminal before the crime, more than suspected as a
railway official of complicity in a considerable train robbery;
in his case the suggestion of murder involved only the taking of
a step farther in a criminal career. Manning suffered from
nerves almost as badly as Macbeth; after the deed he sought to
drown the prickings of terror and remorse by heavy drinking
Mrs. Manning was never troubled with any feelings of this kind;
after the murder of O'Connor the gratification of her sexual
passion seemed uppermost in her mind; and she met the
consequences of her crime fearlessly. Burke and Hare were a
couple of ruffians, tempted by what must have seemed almost
fabulous wealth to men of their wretched poverty to commit a
series of cruel murders. Hare, with his queer, Mephistophelian
countenance, was the wickeder of the two. Burke became haunted
as time went on and flew to drink to banish horror, but Hare
would seem to have been free from such "compunctious visitings of
Nature." He kept his head and turned King's evidence.

In the case of the Peltzer brothers we have a man who is of good
social position, falling desperately in love with the wife of a
successful barrister. The wife, though unhappy in her domestic
life, refuses to become her lover's mistress; marriage is the
only way to secure her. So Armand Peltzer plots to murder the
husband. For this purpose he calls in the help of a brother, a
ne'er-do-well, who has left his native country under a cloud. He
sends for this dubious person to Europe, and there between them
they plan the murder of the inconvenient husband. Though the
idea of the crime comes from the one brother, the other receives
the idea without repugnance and enters wholeheartedly into the
commission of the murder. The ascendency of the one is evident,